Oscars

Best Picture

The Aviator (Miramax)	Finding Neverland (Miramax)	Million Dollar Baby (Warner Bros)	Ray (Universal)	Sideways (Fox Searchlight)

Should Win: Ray Could Win: Million Dollar Baby Will Win: The Aviator
I was right about one thing: Best Picture and Best Director did not split this year. And that leaves Scorsese empty handed one mrore time...

In my nomination predictions I said that the best picture category is perhaps the most boring with five obvious choices. And I was right. All five obvious choices became nominated which leads to the flip-side of the situation: a very interesting and close race for the biggest award of the year!

I will have to start with Finding Neverland. A fairy-tale about the making of a fairy-tale, centered around Johnny Depp playing Peter Pan writer J.M.Barrie, Finding Neverland was expected to be nominated but cannot produce any bigger surprise. It is also Miramax's second movie of the line-up and they would be most happy if no vote would go towards it at The Aviator's expense.

The frontrunner, all year long, even before it hit theatres, has been The Aviator. A biopic about one of the most intriguing characters in Hollywood history, recreating the golden Hollywood age, with main characters such as Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Erol Flynn; directed by Martin Scorsese, produced by Miramax, etc. all this contributed to a total of 11 nominations. How many of these will actually transform into wins is hard to say, and the competition for best picture, where it is still considered frontrunner, may be fiercer than expected.

Sideways is the most awarded movie of the year, with the Golden Globe and BFCA wins leading a slew of critic awards. It is the Lost in Translation of 2004 and if Miramax rebounded from last year's failure to have any movie nominated for best picture, and got two entries this time, if the Academy voters are inclined to ignore the powerful studio again, Sideways may just be the best bet against it.

Million Dollar Baby seems however to be the main counter-candidate to The Aviator. Directed and produced by Clint Eastwood whose multiple talents continue to gather increased respect by all his peers, year after year, MDB relies on strong directing, strong acting by each of the 3 main characters and a story that everyone considers original and straying from the predictable norm. Everyone that is, other than the christian circles who started bashing the movie for its apparent support of euthanasia. Can this wave of protests diminish the movie chances at winning the Best Picture? It is hard to say, it may even trigger the opposite effect.

Finally there is Ray. Ray is not viewed as a main contender in what seems to be a 3-way fight for best picture. However, Ray depicts the life of a legend bigger than Howard Hughes, J.M.Barrie and Clint Eastwood combined. And it does a very good job at that too, giving a better sense of closure and a better understanding of its main character than Aviator does. If I dare think 10-15 years ahead, I would imagine that Sideways might still be an independent favorite, Million Dollar Baby would be considered a strong drama, but Ray would outshine The Aviator in terms of how many people would know and appreciate the movie. If I had a ballot, my vote would go to Ray, which is not my favorite movie of the year, but I would consider it the most important among the 5 nominated here.

Preliminary prediction: The Aviator.