There was a time when I truly believed the Academy Awards were meant to honor the BEST in film. The predictions I made on who would win in any given category (excluding the short subjects) were based on who I thought was most deserving, or the best for that year, or even my personal favorite, wholeheartedly believing that any nominee had a chance to win.
I don’t remember how long I’ve been an Oscar viewer, but over the years I’ve come to realize that the winners are rarely determined solely on the strength of the actual finished film. There are actual politics involved. There’s campaigning. The Academy also seems to have a slight prejudice against the dark, complex, and challenging. They prefer the feel-good and inspirational.
It’s because of these factors that I never pick who I want to win anymore, but who I think will win, regardless of whether it’s deserved or not. It’s kind of a buzzkill, knowing that you’re favorite movies have no chance in hell of picking up a certain award and that you actually have to vote against them. But then again, choosing your favorite isn’t what the time-honored tradition of the Oscar pool is about. It’s about winning. It’s a competition like any other. And with that in mind, predicting the eventual winners can be satisfying in and of itself.
I have no concrete method of choosing Oscar winners. A lot of it is based on what the awards experts choose (there’s a rather large community of them). Some of it is based on past Oscar history, and some of it is more scientific, the details of which I’m embarrassed to share because it’ll reveal just how much time I spend thinking about this.
Here are my predictions for who will walk home with the gold statuettes tonight. All 24 categories are here even though I have next to no knowledge of some of them (ex. short subjects), along with a couple of thoughts on some of the more notable ones:
R Y V I E W S 