I haven't attempted to predict the Academy Award® nominations before, but here goes. The actual nominations will be announced on January 25, 2005, and the awards show is on February 27, 2005. The predictions were last updated on January 15, 2005, which is also the due date for Academy members to return their ballots. Some thoughts since then have been added [in brackets].
Any comments on this page should be addressed to Mike Weston at mike@misosoup.com. Remember that these are my predictions, and not necessarily the films or performances that I would pick if I had a vote. Besides, I have not seen many of these yet.
Comments: This is the same as the Producers Guild of America list, except that I replaced The Incredibles with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. My heart would prefer to have chosen Garden State, but it doesn't seem to have the buzz anymore.
Comments: The pattern always seems to be that this list matches the one for Best Picture in 4 out of the 5 spots, and so the question was what to replace. I was going to go with the Directors Guild of America nominees, which would have replaced Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Ray, but I decided to stick with Sunshine. But I'm really tempted to replace something with House of Flying Daggers, since the Academy often puts one foreign film in this category.
Comments: This is a apparently pretty weak year for female lead roles. I started from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations and was determined to replace 2 or 3 of the weaker nominees, but I just wasn't able to come up with any better alternatives. Natalie Portman for Garden State and Uma Thurman for Kill Bill: Vol. 2 are a couple of long shot possibilities.
Comments: This mostly follows the SAG nominations, but I just don't buy Leonardo DiCaprio getting a nomination for The Aviator [which is looking pretty stupid now that he won the Golden Globe], so I substituted Javier Bardem for the outstanding The Sea Inside. Another possibility would be Liam Neeson for Kinsey.
Comment: Starting from the SAG nominations, I was surprised to find James Garner and Freddie Highmore, neither of whom I had heard any buzz about before. I eliminated Garner since in his case this would be more of a lifetime award, and he's already getting one of those this year from the Screen Actors Guild. In his place I added Clive Owen [unlike the Leo DiCaprio move above, this one is looking good].
Comments: Starting again from the SAG nominees, I dropped Sophie Okonedo for Hotel Rwanda and added Natalie Portman [another good move, it appears]. Kate Winslet for Finding Neverland is also tempting.
Comments: I don't have a whole lot to go on beside the Writers Guild of America (WGA) nominations, but I decided to replace Hotel Rwanda with Vera Drake.
Comments: As in the original screenplay category, I started with the WGA nominees. Here I replaced Before Sunset and Mean Girls with Closer and Finding Neverland.
Comments: The number of animated films released this year is such that only 3 films will be in the running for the Oscar. Polar Express was a bit of a disappointment when it first opened, but it has done well so I think it will make the cut, overtaking Shark Tale.
Out of 43 predicted nominees, I missed 11. Comparing myself with Roger Ebert, who did not predict the writing categories, we each missed 8 out of 33. He did better on Best Director, only missing one, while I did better (perfect actually) on Best Actress.
Biggest surprises: Paul Giamatti not getting a Best Actor nomination, Clint Eastwood getting a nomination for Best Actor, Alan Alda getting a nomination, and Ray getting both Best Picture and Best Director nominations
Biggest disappointments: Javier Bardem not getting a nomination for The Sea Inside, and Garden State being completely shut out
Best pleasant surprise: Vera Drake earning Mike Leigh a Best Director nomination
External filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.
Copyright © 2001-2005 by Michael S. Weston. All rights reserved.