Handicapping the Races

LOS ANGELES – With the Academy Awards best-picture category a wide-open affair, Associated Press film writers Christy Lemire and David Germain at least have one thing to disagree about.For best director and the four acting categories, Lemire and Germain are in complete agreement on who’ll win. Here are their picks (Lemire writes their joint opinion for director and actor, Germain for actress and the supporting categories, while they duke it out over best picture):BEST PICTURENominees: “Babel,” “The Departed,” “Letters From Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Queen.”GERMAIN: I would make a lousy academy member, not only because I lack all applicable talents to become an academy member, but also because I would perpetually vote for losers in the best-picture category.My favorite films among the five nominees almost never win, and this year, my top three – “The Queen,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Letters From Iwo Jima” – are the ones I think are least likely to come away with the prize.“The Queen” deserves to win because it’s a masterpiece of economical filmmaking. It packs a lifetime of high drama for Elizabeth II into the single toughest week of her 50-year-plus reign, the span when public opinion turned sharply against her over the royal family’s aloofness after Princess Diana’s death.“Little Miss Sunshine” merits second place because it’s an extreme version of all our messed-up kin, presenting an endearing portrait of blood ties strained and regained that, like many stories of family bonds, would be tragic if it wasn’t so funny.“Letters From Iwo Jima” should come in third because it’s a grand, gut-wrenching examination of fatal devotion to a lost cause, a compassionate rendering of an enemy Hollywood historically has reviled as Japanese troops fight and die defending the Pacific island.I would rank the mob tale “The Departed” next and the ensemble drama “Babel” last, yet I suspect the best-picture winner will be one of the two.“The Departed” is hardly Martin Scorsese’s best work, though the first two-thirds come close before the film concludes with a repetitive bloodbath. Still, it’s enormously entertaining, a breathlessly paced crime epic that’s a reminder of Scorsese’s finer films – making it also a reminder that the academy never has honored him with the best-picture prize.Until a few days ago, I was convinced “The Departed” would win. Then I watched “Babel” again. While I’m still so-so on the film, it is the sort of dour, sweeping drama academy voters often go for.And there’s no arguing that “Babel” is a meticulous, ambitious reflection of the multiculturalism taking hold around the world, a fitting champ in a year where diversity runs deep at the Oscars.So I’m going with “Babel” to win by a nose.If neither “Babel” nor “The Departed” win, though, next year I’m voting with my heart, not my head.LEMIRE: Call me crazy (or perhaps dysfunctional myself) but I say “Little Miss Sunshine” is going to win – and I wouldn’t have said that a month ago when the nominations were announced. But since then I’ve begun to sense not just a groundswell of support for this small, dark comedy, but a genuine wave of fondness.Oscar voters may be going with their hearts, Dave, not their heads.There’s something so charming, so irresistible about this movie. That’s what made it popular with a wide variety of critics and audiences. Oscar voters, though, may respond to it the same way they did with last year’s best-picture winner, “Crash” – because fundamentally, “Little Miss Sunshine” is an actors’ picture, and actors make up the largest faction of academy membership. Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Steve Carell and the adorable Abigail Breslin all give performances that feel rich and real, and they function beautifully as a whole.Sure, you could say that about a lot of the films in this category. Helen Mirren’s superb work is a big part of what makes “The Queen” so subtly powerful (see “best actress” below). Several actors get their chance to strut their stuff and then some in the strongly written ensemble “The Departed.”Yes, Dave, you’re right. Academy voters do tend to go for dour and sweeping – and “Babel” certainly qualifies as both. But they haven’t gone for dour and sweeping lately. Before “Crash,” “Million Dollar Baby” won best picture. Like “Little Miss Sunshine,” they’re intimate character studies. That’s the phase we’re in these days. And like “Little Miss Sunshine,” they have their moments of levity and inspiration.Another factor that’s pushing me in this direction: “Little Miss Sunshine” has picked up a couple of key kudos that often serve as Oscar predictors. It won the Producers Guild award for best picture and the Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble cast, their equivalent of a best-picture prize.And yes, it would be unusual for a movie to win best picture when it didn’t even receive a nomination for its director (or in this case, directors, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris). I don’t care, I’m going with it anyway.Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to hear the names of any of those five films at the end of the night. “The Queen” is one of my absolute favorites of the year. “Letters From Iwo Jima” is an achievement of great poetry and detail. It’s actually a great position to be in as a critic: when the movies are so good, it’s nearly impossible to predict which one will be chosen as the best.BEST DIRECTORNominees: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, “Babel”; Martin Scorsese, “The Departed”; Clint Eastwood, “Letters From Iwo Jima”; Stephen Frears, “The Queen”; Paul Greengrass, “United 93.”Short of the roof collapsing at the Kodak Theatre just as his name is being read, nothing is going to stop Martin Scorsese from finally – finally! – going home with his long-elusive Academy Award. He’s been nominated five times before for classics like “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas” and, bafflingly, has been denied every time. “The Departed” isn’t his best work ever, but it’s reminiscent of his best work – smart and tough, unflinching and uncompromising – so it’s close enough, and a worthy reason to bestow what is tantamount to a lifetime achievement award.BEST ACTORNominees: Leonardo DiCaprio, “Blood Diamond”; Ryan Gosling, “Half Nelson”; Peter O’Toole, “Venus”; Will Smith, “The Pursuit of Happyness”; Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland.”Here’s what I said when I reviewed “The Last King of Scotland” back in September, and I think Dave would agree: “This is not hyperbole. This is how good (Forest) Whitaker is: He actually makes you feel sorry for Idi Amin.” And that’s why he’s going to win: Because he takes a larger-than-life, often monstrous figure and breathes life into him, finds the nooks and crannies in him. He could have merely played the former Ugandan dictator as a bellowing, bloodthirsty tyrant, and Whitaker can indeed be fearsome. But he can also be vulnerable, generous, even charming. It’s an awesome spectacle to behold.BEST ACTRESSNominees: Penelope Cruz, “Volver”; Judi Dench, “Notes on a Scandal”; Helen Mirren, “The Queen”; Meryl Streep, “The Devil Wears Prada”; Kate Winslet, “Little Children.”We suspect most people in Hollywood knew the best-actress race was over as soon as they saw Helen Mirren in “The Queen.” Mirren is so genuine, so alternately regal with her inbred sense of entitlement and exposed with her raw realization that her faithful subjects have abandoned her, that you truly feel you’ve gained a behind-the-scenes audience to Balmoral, Elizabeth II’s Scottish retreat. This is a great performance from a great actress who’s finally getting her Oscar due.SUPPORTING ACTOR AND ACTRESSSupporting actor nominees: Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jackie Earle Haley, “Little Children”; Djimon Hounsou, “Blood Diamond”; Eddie Murphy, “Dreamgirls”; Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed.”Supporting actress nominees: Adriana Barraza, “Babel”; Cate Blanchett, “Notes on a Scandal”; Abigail Breslin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”; Rinko Kikuchi, “Babel.”“Dreamgirls” missed out on its expected best-picture nomination, but it will pick up these prizes for one veteran performer riding an unforeseen wave of acclaim and another who’s just starting out. Eddie Murphy plays a James Brown-like musical rascal just like we knew he could, but he also injects melancholy soul into his role as a ’60s singer whose aspirations to remain relevant will end in doom. As a vocal powerhouse booted out of a Supremes-like singing trio, Jennifer Hudson steals all of her scenes in “Dreamgirls” in a film debut that will cap her swift rise from talent-show finalist on “American Idol” to Oscar winner.

Handicapping the Races

Handicapping the Races

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