gervase_fen | Prognoscartication

So it's time to put up my predictions as to the winners tomorrow morning, although this year I've hardly seen any of the nominated movies. Still, that hasn't stopped me in the past!

I've seen three out of the five Best Picture nominees. "Munich" I found to be pretty engrossing up to the hour mark, when the assassination team become bogged down in 70s London. After that the film has one point to make, again and again - the dehumanising effect of state-sanctioned 'justified revenge'. A mis-fire of a film I think, because the opening - a verite sequence of the original hostage crisis - and the third act appearance of Michael Lonsdale as an eminence grise providing covert intelligence - promised a bit more.

"Crash" - some good things in here, especially Terrence Howard, Don Cheadle and Matt Dillon. It reminded me a lot of "Magnolia", with the criss-crossing , back and forth narrative hanging on co-incidences, and a key montage set to a song which sounded a lot like an Aimee Mann original. Worth watching again, if only to pick out Marina Sirtis, unrecognisable from her days as Deanna Troi.

"Good Night, and Good Luck." Or perhaps more good night, and wake up, as I started dozing off during the second reel of this. Very worthy, and occasionally snaps with brilliance when staging one on one confrontations, but I really missed a sense of the wider world outside of the CBS news room. Frank Langella is brilliant as William S Paley - hunched over with benevolent menace. Oddest thing in the film is wasting Robert Downey Jr and Patricia Clarkson on an irrelevant sub-plot, while Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck dominates the five minutes of movie that he gets.

So... "Brokeback Mountain" for picture, as I haven't seen it, and Ang Lee for director. I would hope that Best Actor would go to Joaquin Phoenix, but I think that Philip Seymour Hoffman will win. I've seen four of the five Best Actress performances, and much as I loved Keira Knightley's luminous performance in "Pride and Prejudice", I think that Reese Witherspoon's performance as June Carter is even more notable - playing a person who is thoroughly nice and morally good is a pretty striking achievement (and boy, can she sing).

I've seen none of the Supporting Actresses, so I'll pick Rachel Weisz. Paul Giamatti should have had a nomination last year for "Sideways", so I'll give him a consolation Oscar this year for "Cinderella Man".

Having seen "Transamerica" this afternoon I've heard all three Best Song nominees - and the song that isn't by Aimee Mann from Crash, but turns out to be by Kathleen York (a.k.a the mother of Toby Ziegler's children in "The West Wing") is my favourite. ("Transamerica" was pretty good, but I have a soft spot for journey-of-discovery road movies like this - "Boys on the Side", "Sideways", "Pieces of April" etc.)

As for the other categories, I hope that Wallace & Gromit gain Bob Baker another Oscar for his mantelpiece, and I'd like "Pride & Prejudice" to win Costume Design or Art Direction. However, I suspect that "Memoirs of a Geisha" has those awards sewn up.