Oscars

Best Picture

Babel (Paramount)	The Departed (Warner Bros)	Letters from Iwo Jima (Dreamworks / Warner Bros)	Little Miss Sunshine (Fox Searchlight)	The Queen (Miramax)

Should Win: Little Miss Sunshine Could Win: The Departed / Babel Will Win: Little Miss Sunshine

Oh well... small movies have to wait another year... Too bad.

Many pundits and commentators have noticed that by not nominating Dreamgirls, the race for Best Picture has been left wide open. I fail to see why such a statement would be made. Dreamgirls would have been leading the nominations and would have been a strong contender but, in the end, it's unclear that the voters would have gone for a musical when they ignored many better others in the previous years. That being said, let's start by eliminating the movies that I doubt will win. Mind you, they all actually have a fair chance, but...

Letters from Iwo Jima is the kind of movie that Academy usually loves. A war epic. Produced by none other than beloved Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg. There's only one problem: it is about the enemy. So much so, that it's actually spoken entirely in Japanese. Golden Globes honored it with the Best Foreign Language award. It made the shortlist, but this is where the glory stops.

The Queen is a one woman show. It may acquire strong support from the British side of the Academy, but in the end it was labeled too much as Helen Mirren's movie that it will stay that way.

Babel would be a very likely candidate for the win if it wasn't for... Crash. Last year's winner covered pretty much the same themes. And while some may appreciate the larger scale that Babel tries to encompass, others may find it less focused and poignant than its predecessor. No matter how you look at it, even if you see it as better than Crash, it's unlikely that it will get more votes aside from those who truly have it as their personal favorite or those that cannot see value in other types of movies. There will be plenty votes for Babel, but I don't think there will be enough.

And we're left with the 2 main contenders:

The Departed. Scorsese is back, yet again, this time with a movie that many found to be much closer to what he does best: mob stories. I personally would have been much more impressed about the movie if it wasn't an adaptation of a Hong Kong hit and one that I found actually weaker in the story than the original. Regardless, if this is finally Scorsese's year, then it could also be the year of The Departed. However...

Little Miss Sunshine is the little movie that could. Is the success story that any producer dreams about. So appreciated that the DGA made an exception to nominate its pair of first time directors. The SAG decided that the ensemble cast trumps DiCaprio, Nicholson and Damon. And what the awards and nominations show this time is not the strong arm of the promoting studio or the reputation of the director or even of the lead star. It is about a movie that manages to be so quirky yet lovable that you can't say no. Small movies have made their way into the Best Picture nominees list over the past few years: Lost in Translation, Sideways being the more remarkable. But Little Miss Sunshine has perhaps the strongest chance to break the pattern and produce a win. Even though only twice in Oscars history was there a Best Picture winner without a Director's nomination. Even though it's been 30 years since a comedy won Best Picture.