Cinematography
• Who will win: Pan’s Labyrinth
• Who should win: Children of Men
Finally, a category I’m slightly interested in. It’s a shame the academy always ends up treating this like another throw-away category, awarding it to a movie with a lot of nominations rather than the one that actually deserves it. I haven’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth, but I do know that Children of Men looked cinematically fantastic. What makes this topic a foregone conclusion is the other nominated movies. They’ve given this award to Pan’s Labyrinth, and they didn’t bother wasting time on seriously nominating four other films.
Film Editing
• Who will win: The Departed
• Who should win: Children of Men
As you can probably tell, I really liked Children of Men. I’m a sci-fi fan, especially when it comes to dystopias. And Children of Men was a really good film regardless. In terms of film editing, it’s practically seamless, which is not an easy task when you’re swapping between long steadycam shots and quick action cuts. But I doubt it will win an Oscar. It got the afterthought treatment in the nominations. Plus, I really do think this year is all about giving Scorsese 30 years of unpaid Oscar fellatio. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, I just hate the fact that the academy is going to think this makes up for choosing Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas. Morons.
Sound Editing
• Who will win: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• Who should win: Any one will do
Oscar rule #1: you don’t make one of the highest-grossing films of all time without carrying home a few statues for it. Besides, these days, sound editing is about who can fit in the most loud, dynamic, and downright goofy sounds into a scene without the audience going “oh come on, fuck you, no butter churner makes that much noise.”
Sound Mixing
• Who will win: Dreamgirls
• Who should win: Pirates
Dreamgirls will win this, and other categories, for one simple reason: Oscar loves the musicals. It’s infuriating. I didn’t even like Pirates, and I’d rather see it win here. When the nominations were announced, there was a lot of buzz and bitching about how Dreamgirls didn’t get one for Best Picture. To me, that just might be enough to prove that there is a God. But the fact that this Blaxploitation Chicago will probably take home most of what it was nominated for promptly disproves that.
Visual Effects
• Who will win: Pirates
• Who should win: Basic Instinct 2
Pirates will take this, because Superman Returns and Poseidon were both flops. I know that’s hard to believe in the case of Superman Returns, but when your production budget pushes 300-million, it’s automatically a flop. No movie should cost that much. Forget feeding a village, you could support a third-world country with that cash. But the real tragedy in this category is the overlooking of Basic Instinct 2. Any movie that can make Sharon Stone still look doable deserves some recognition. I mean, holy shit, there’s enough botox, collagen, hair-plugs, silicone, and airbrushing in that movie to support a third-world country.
Original Score
• Who will win: John Williams
• Who should win: There’s nobody else nominated
Over the years, I’ve developed a little conspiracy theory: just like Samuel L. Jackson is in every movie, John Williams does the score to every movie. He uses dozens of other identities to make it seem like there is competition, but I know the truth. Williams has become the master of generic movie mood music. It’s an exact science to him. So every time you see another person accepting the Oscar for Best Original Score, rest assured that they will either hand it off to John Williams once off stage, or they actually are John Williams in a mask, and possibly in drag.
#1 by Aaron on February 25, 2007 - 9:26 pm
Re: Visual Effects.
What you forget is that it’s easy to make Sharon Stone look good after all the work they had to do on Michael Douglas for the first Basic Instinct. Basic Instinct 2 is really missing Newman getting aroused by some sort of blonde aquatic dam-building rodent.