The Comm and Gender Spot: 80th Annual Academy Awards

We are currently just under two weeks from the 80th annual Academy Awards. This year the ceremony will be held on Sunday, February 24 and it is when the best of the best in film are honored for their achievements for the movies released during the 2007 calendar year.

For the last two years I have made predictions about who I thought would win, and last I improved my record over the predictions I made for movies from 2006. Last year I predicted 13 categories correctly out of the 21 categories I predicted; for 2005's films I only predicted 10 correctly. Let’s hope this trend continues and I can do even better this year.

Also as I have done in previous years, I will not be predicting the categories for Best Animated Short Film, Best Live Action Short Film, and Best Documentary Short Subject. These are categories that I know absolutely nothing about and can not even harbor a guess as to which films will win.

Here are the nominees for this year’s Oscars with my predictions seen in red.

Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Olive r, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

Best Foreign Language Film
12 (Russia)
Beaufort (Israel)
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Katyń (Poland)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille
Persepolis
Surf’s Up

Best Documentary
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

Best Art Direction
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Driving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Costume Design
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Makeup
La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Best Original Score
Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Alberto Iglesias, The Kite Runner
James Newton Howard, Michael Clayton
Michael Giacchino, Ratatouille
Marco Beltrami, 3:10 to Yuma

Best Original Song
“Falling Slowly” from Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
“Happy Working Song” from Enchanted, Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
“So Close” from Enchanted, Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
“That’s How You Know” from Enchanted, Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
“Raise It Up” from August Rush, Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack & Tevin Thomas