T.W.O: Oscar Predictions

Tonight ABC will air the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, beginning at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT. Last night, I finalized my Oscar predictions for all 24 categories. Below are my predictions, and check out T.W.O.'s Oscars page for a full list of all the nominees.

Source: gaelick.com

T.W.O.'s Oscar Predictions:

Best Picture:
The Social Network

Best Actor:
Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Actress:
Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Supporting Actress:
Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Best Animated Film:
Toy Story 3

Best Art Direction:
Alice in Wonderland

Best Cinematography:
True Grit

Best Costume Design:
Alice in Wonderland

Best Director:
David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Documentary:
Inside Job

Best Documentary Short:
Strangers No More

Best Editing:
The Social Network

Best Foreign Language Film:
In a Better World (Denmark)

Best Makeup:
The Wolfman

Best Score:
The Social Network, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

Best Song:
"We Belong Together," Toy Story 3

Best Animated Short:
Day & Night

Best Live-Action Short:
Na Wewe

Best Sound Editing:
Inception

Best Sound Mixing:
Inception

Best Visual Effects:
Inception

Best Original Screenplay:
The King's Speech, David Seidler

Best Adapted Screenplay:
The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin

I decided to do a little research into the Best Picture category and see which of this year's nominated films has the best chance to win. For this research, I looked at the Golden Globe Best Picture (Drama and Musical/Comedy) winners and Oscar Best Picture winners of the last ten years (2001-2010). Exactly half of the Oscar winners also won in the same category for the Golden Globes. The reason why I did this was because I wanted to see if The Social Network had a chance of winning, since it won the Globe last month. Even though momentum at the moment is with The King's Speech, based on recent history, Network has a 50% chance of winning.

Next, I focused exclusively on the Oscar winners; more specifically, I looked at the content and topics of these films; again, this was to see which could come out on top between The Social Network and The King's Speech. The Academy tends to prefer movies along the lines of Speech, which everyone is predicting will win (besides the fact that it also won some important awards recently).

For the most part, I do base my prediction decisions on who has the best chance at winning, though once in a while my personal picks override it. Last year, I chose Avatar over The Hurt Locker for Best Picture, even though it was pretty obvious that the Academy would prefer the Iraq war film over the mega blockbuster.

If I was being smart here, I would obviously choose Speech. However, my personal pick is once again overriding it. It's probably because, of the two, I've only seen Network. If this was a perfect world, the race would be between Network and Toy Story 3 (the two best movies of 2010), but that's not feasible when you look at what the voting members go for. So, while my Best Picture prediction isn't exactly logical, I'm going to be laughing (well, maybe not; I'll probably be in shock) if Network does indeed win. And if Speech wins, as it most likely will, I'll still be fine with the choice.

At last month's Golden Globe Awards, I got 84% of my predictions correct (only missing four), which I'm sure is the best I have ever done at the three major award shows (Emmys, Globes, Oscars); I usually never get above 50%. I hope my luck there will drag over to tonight's awards and be at least above 50%.

Once the winners have been announced, I will be writing up a follow-up entry comparing my predictions to the eventual winners.