The Oscars

The 81st Academy Awards air Sunday night in the United States. Doug and I will continue our European tradition of having breakfast with Oscar on Monday morning. I love the Oscars. We even hosted an Oscar event one year and everyone who came had to dress as if they were attending the awards show in Hollywood. Let's just say the outfits were not all red carpet ready! Doug and I have maintained the tradition of filling out ballots before the event begins and enjoying a friendly rivalry throughout the broadcast for who has been the most adept at choosing the winners. I read ahead of time what the buzz is about who is going to win, even in the most obscure categories so often have a little edge on best animated short or live documentary. Even so, his random guesses have also been known to be more accurate than my educated guesses and that is why in the end it's predictions and not sure things.
This year I am lucky because I have seen many of the nominated films and I have liked all of them. The films that I have not seen that I am very interested in seeing are The Dark Knight, Doubt, Revolutionary Road and The Reader. I have seen the other 4 films nominated for Best Picture and my very favorite film of the year is easily Slumdog Millionaire. I think it is a film that I could see many, many times and I hope it wins every possible award.
So, without further ado, here are my Oscar predictions for 2009.
Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Director: Danny Boyle
Actor: Sean Penn in Milk. Spoiler: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. I want Penn so I'm sticking to my guns on this one.
Actress: Kate Winslet in The Reader
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger in Dark Knight
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz for Vicky, Christina, Barcelona. Viola Davis in Doubt is the obvious spoiler. (hard choice and I might change it before Monday morning. I already changed it once before posting this blog.)
Animated Feature: Wall-E
Documentary Feature: Man on Wire
Foreign Film: Waltz over Bashir
Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Make-up: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Song: Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire
Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (I am hemming and hawing between this and Dark Knight.)
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionarie (hard to choose)
Costume Design: The Duchess
Documentary Short: The Witness
Short Film animated:Presto
Short Film live action: Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Sound Editing: Dark Knight. (I think Dark Knight will win these sound categories because I doubt Slumdog will win everything.)
Sound Mixing: Dark Knight
Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Original Screenplay: Milk

OK...I may change my mind again before the broadcast. Check back for updates. Good luck!