here are my predictions for who will win the oscar (in parentheses, i put who i think deserves to win). expect final predictions to be posted february 24, 2007, the day before the oscars. - - - - - CATEGORY: ACADEMY'S CHOICE (MY CHOICE, IF I COULD PICK THE WINNER) - - - - - / best picture: The Departed (Letters From Iwo Jima) / director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed (Martin Scorsese, The Departed), rationale: this should finally be marty's year. scorsese shouldn't give a rat's ass, however, since the greatest directors never win the best director prize. the fact that stanley kubrick, orson welles, and alfred hitchcock never won the best director award speaks volumes about the academy. / actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland) / actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen (Kate Winslet, Little Children) x supp actor: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls (Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children) - UPSET: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine wins LESSON: Alan Arkin won both the Independent Spirit and BAFTA (Murphy wasn't even nominated), leading right up to the Oscars with amazing momentum. Next year, wait until Sunday morning to post predictions! / supp actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls (Rinko Kikuchi, Babel) / best orig scrnply: Little Miss Sunshine (Letters From Iwo Jima) / best adap scrnply: The Departed (Little Children) x foreign: Pan's Labyrinth (Water) - UPSET: The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen wins, LESSON: Pan's Labyrinth was nominated and bound to win in so many other categories. That itself diminished its chances of winning this prize with such a worthy close competitor in The Lives of Others, nominated in only this one category. x animated: Cars (Happy Feet) - UPSET: Happy Feet wins, I should have stuck with Happy Feet, my original prediction until three days ago. With no clear front runner, it was very likely that for the first time in history, the Oscar and Annie would go to separate movies. / documentary: An Inconvenient Truth (An Inconvenient Truth) SUMMARY OF RESULTS: 8/11 = 73% guessed correctly for larger group (7/8 = 87.5% guessed correctly for main categories). A VERY HUMBLING YEAR. SURE TO GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS ONE OF THE MOST UNPREDICTABLE YEARS, WITH THE MOST UPSETS IN YEARS. Last year, I got 10 out of 11 right, that's 91%, my highest score yet! KEY: "/" - got right, "x" - got wrong PREVIOUS YEARS' PREDICTIONS: 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | Top 10 Lists | Home