Oscar Wrap: Final Predictions

Rocky won the Oscar.

The votes are in, the accountants are counting, and the winners of the biggest show biz contest are just a few days away from glowing in the spotlight.


So who will get the prize? Well, the predictable awards are still predictable: Octavia Spencer (The Help) and Christopher Plummer (Beginners) will take home the Supporting trophies; screenplay awards will go to Midnight in Paris (Original) and The Descendants (Adapted). 


Best Director looks like Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, but there is some momentum for Scorsese and Hugo.  Not a lot of momentum, but some. Hey, it's Scorsese, all those old white dudes in the Academy love Scorsese. Some of the creative awards come down to these two films as well: Art Direction and Cinematography will probably go to Hugo, but their chances could get mowed down by an Artist juggernaut. Film Editing is leaning Artist.  In the sound categories it's Scorsese up against Spielberg (War Horse) with Scorsese predicted to pull out the win.  Spielberg, I'm sure, is honored to be nominated.  (Well, it's not him, really, it's his sound guys who are nominated but these guys take everything personally.)


The only really interesting contests are in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories.  George Clooney (Descendants) and Jean Dujardin (Artist) have been battling it out during the awards season, each of them picking up trophies, so there's no clear front runner, although the safe money is on Dujardin.  Some risk taking prognosticators are betting that Clooney and Dujardin will split the vote and Brad Pitt (Moneyball) will slip in and take the prize. Pitt might also have some sentimental momentum because he hasn't won before (nominated twice), and apparently he was quite the charmer on the awards circuit.


The actress contest comes down to Viola Davis (The Help) and Meryl Streep (Iron Lady).  Like the actors, Streep and Davis have split a lot of the early awards, but the current front runner is clearly Davis - she gave a bang up performance, the film was a box office hit, and there is a sense that the left leaning (mostly white) Academy likes the idea of giving the award to a black actress.  But there is a little awkwardness around Streep, since even though she has been nominated more times - 17! -  than any other human, she has only won twice, and it's been awhile since her name was inside the envelope. This thing could go her way.


Finally, Best Picture: any Oscarologist looking over your shoulder while you fill out your office pool ballot would tell you to check The Artist for the top prize, and that is far and away the safest choice. The only possible spoiler in this contest is the fact that there are eight other pictures in contention, enough to screw up the numbers even for an established front runner. Here's how the counting works: The Academy members are asked to rank their choices for Best Picture by preference -  this year, that'll be one through nine (this is the only category where voters rank their choices; for everything else, they check their favorite and move along).  The fine young accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers take those ballots and stack them in piles according to the number one pick.  Then they take the shortest pile and redistribute those according to the second ranked film on each ballot, and they keep on doing that, redistributing the smallest pile, until one film has fifty percent of the votes.  So it's not just who loves you best that matters, it's also who loves you second and third best.  Other contenders for the throne are The Help and Hugo, with former front runner The Descendants bringing up the dark horse rear.  The Oscars will be telecast on Sunday, February 26; the actual show begins at 5:30 but there will be televised hoopla for most of the day.