Re-Posted from Facebook note (February 20, 2009)

From my February 20 Facebook page (posting a "note" on Facebook must have been my early furtive attempts at blogging, so this should really be my first entry)...

Academy Awards 2009
Ray’s Predictions and Ballot Choices for this year’s Oscars...
(For your ballot of the 24 categories to be announced on February 22, go to www.Oscars.com)

Lead Actor: Sean Penn
I’d be fine with either Sean Penn or Frank Langella winning this one; would not be fine with Mickey Rourke winning it because I think he greatly benefited from the screenplay. My vote goes to Sean Penn whose portrayal of Harvey Milk was much more complete and nuanced than Frank Langella whose portrayal of Richard Nixon was excellent but sometimes bordered on easy caricature.

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger
Each nominee in this category gave an excellent performance and justifiably did a lot to support the movie’s plot and central characters. But for sheer commanding presence (and dominant screen time), the buzz for a posthumous award to Heath Ledger makes sense. Robbed of a nomination in this category was Michael Sheen, absolutely brilliant as David Frost in “Frost/Nixon”

Lead Actress: Kate Winslet
I actually think Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” and Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married” gave much more riveting and harrowing performances. And of course Meryl Streep can do no wrong, but I loved the staged version (with Cherry Jones) of “Doubt” so much more than the movie (which I think was diluted with bigger sets and a bigger cast than the tight 4-person small stage version). And even Clint Eastwood admitted that he cast Angelina Jolie in “Changeling” partly because she looked like the 1920s period. And she does pull it off, but with familiar shades of her other Oscar win for “Girl, Interrupted.” I agree with the Golden Globes that Kate Winslet did amazing jobs in the lead role of “Revolutionary Road” and in a supporting role in “The Reader” (which was actually more lead than supporting). I agree that after all of her nominations, this is her year to win it. And I agree that winning it for “The Reader” is the slightly wrong movie to award – it should have gone to her for “Revolutionary Road” which is an absolutely stunning bit of acting.

Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz
I would really like to see Marisa Tomei win a second award in the same category as her “My Cousin Vinny” win because I think she was both the emotional heart and the emotional balance needed in “The Wrestler.” I loved the women in “Doubt” and “Benjamin Button” but they are eclipsed in my mind by Marisa Tomei. And the buzz is all for Penelope Cruz, who also does deserve recognition finally from the Academy, but I wish it was for something like “Volver” and not “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” It’s just my personal bias that I shy away from awarding women for playing histrionic crazy characters (don’t even get me started on Annette Benning in “American Beauty”) instead of more whole, nuanced, complicated, not necessarily volatile characters. I think it’s too easy to scream and wave a knife or a gun around and call that great acting by an actress. What should be rewarded is the tough glare or the raised eyebrow that says the same thing with much less obvious vitriol. But Penelope Cruz will win it anyway because the Academy Voters will remember histrionic. And even though she’s already won it in this category, Cate Blanchett was robbed of a nomination for supporting Benjamin Button (in the literal and figurative/emotional sense).

Animated Feature: WALL-E
This might be the only “no-contest/no-brainer” category of the entire evening.

Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The attention to detail in every scene is what wins this one for me.

Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Every year, I get frustrated that too many Academy voters equate “cinematography” with “gorgeous backgrounds.” This is an award for camera work, as simple as that. And for all the kinetic, close-ups, tracking shots, dolly shots, split-focus, crazy angles used in “Slumdog Millionaire,” this category should be as simply awarded.

Costume Design: The Duchess
This award usually goes to the most elaborate designs, so even though costuming masses of people and characters in “Benjamin Button” and “Milk” and “Revolutionary Road” in time-appropriate costumes no doubt took a lot of work, the costumes of an 18th century English aristocrat and her life are surely more standout, at least in a voter’s memory.

Directing: Slumdog Millionaire
I would love this award to go to Gus Van Sant for “Milk” or Ron Howard for “Frost/Nixon” but I think Danny Boyle really crafted the little movie that could out of a lot of different, divergent, and even disparate sources to create a true adult fable that works as a single complete whole. A win from the Directors Guild (almost all the same people who vote in this category for the Oscars) doesn’t hurt.

Documentary Feature: Man On Wire
Okay, this is one of the few categories where I haven’t seen many of the nominees, but I did see this one and thought it was as lovely and ephemeral as the event it narrates.

Documentary Short: The Witness – From The Balcony of Room 306
Choosing this on title alone. Have no actual idea and I didn’t get to the screenings of all the nominees in time.

Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
This is another category that could go to any of the nominees – each film nominated had excellent editing work.

Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir
I enjoyed the heart and emotion of “The Class” a bit more, but I think I emotionally checked out of “Waltz With Bashir” as I do with many other war movies: it’s just overwhelming. But as “Persepolis” did, this movie’s use of animation is inspired: not only does it work brilliantly to show dreams, fantasies, realities, hopes all at once, it never masks the tragedies being portrayed. (And I admit these are the only two in the category I saw.)

Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
For the aging and reverse-aging alone. Robbed in this category: “The Reader” for brilliantly aging Kate Winslet.

Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Any nominee deserves this one for effective use of a musical score to move the story along and accent it correctly in just the right parts. Also robbed in this category: “Rachel Getting Married” and “Frozen River.”

Original Song: “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire
The winner will be what is perhaps the most memorable end credits sequence of the year – and a joyful Bollywood dance number at that! Robbed in this category: the Bruce Springsteen song from “The Wrestler” and the Clint Eastwood/Jamie Cullum song from “Gran Torino” – both also excellent end credit songs that were more heartfelt but perhaps too somber and pensive to compete against “Jai Ho” anyway.

Short Film, Animated: Presto
The short film that ran with “WALL-E?” Oh, yeah. That means it will win this magical award just like a rabbit gets pulled out of a hat.

Short Film, Live Action: Spielzeugland
Haven’t seen any of the nominees but I like the one still photo I’ve seen from this one…and the LEGO lover in me likes the title (which translates to “Toyland”).

Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
Sound Mixing: The Dark Knight
Since no musical movie was nominated this year (and those usually win the pair of these awards), I give both to the action drama that invented crazy sounds and used them most effectively.

Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The aging effects notwithstanding, there were also beautiful special effects in this movie that were not just explosions or superhero high-octane fireworks. So I vote for the movie that used the visual effects more for “visual” and less obviously as “effects.”

Screenplay, Adapted: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I think I’ll lose in this category to the Academy voters who will want to give it to “Slumdog Millionaire.” I don’t care. I think “Slumdog Millionaire” added the love story stuff to the excellent book “Q and A” but “Benjamin Button” added entire plotlines and subplots to what is otherwise a family-based short story in its original form and made it this triumphant cinematic love song homage to New Orleans. So I’m casting my vote for the actual work of adapting another work; but the award will probably go to the movie that is more of a standout.

Screenplay, Original: Milk
A final category where I could support all the nominees: “Frozen River,” “Happy-Go-Lucky” (the only I didn’t see), “In Bruges,” and “WALL-E” were all amazing original ideas that became fully formed movies. But for crafting history and memory into something relevant today (and therefore arguably timeless), I want the award to go to “Milk.” (In a toss-up between “Milk” and “WALL-E,” I also think the voters will award the movie with much more actual spoken lines and dialogue.)

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
“The Reader” (a Holocaust movie that is not about easy answers and black-or-white delineations like “Nazis = bad”) and “Milk” (a historical narrative that deserves to be seen again and again) and “Frost/Nixon” (one of the best stage-to-screen adaptations I have seen) are all my second choices, but I think “Slumdog Millionaire” will win the big prize, and that will be a nice tip of the Oscar hat to the ensemble cast which did not earn any individual nominations.

Other thoughts:
Even though the White – Hmong race relations of “Gran Torino” were unique to see on screen, I thought “Changeling” was the better Clint Eastwood movie this year: more complicated and less familiar storyline than the grump old man next door emerges with a softie heart after all (which felt like an adaptation of many more movies than the tortured woman who won’t give up the fight against all violence and corruption story). And both lost many nominations.

Also, I give it up to the women actors this year who have once again trumped all their male counterparts for the range of complexity, action, nuance, emotion, control, hysterics, love, and hope (and more) that all their characters defined.

I may not score well on this ballot, but I am proud of the fact that out of Entertainment Weekly’s list of “25 Movies You Must See Before the Oscars” (plus two foreign films I wanted to see), I managed to see 22. So no matter how I score on the ballot, I at least feel more prepared and informed to make my guesses than ever before!

Good luck and see you at the movies or after the ballots are tabulated!