Back from Ayacucho: Chunk White's Slightly-Less-Fearless Oscar Predictions

Last year at this time, I promised that if Crash won Best Picture, I would move to Peru and raise llamas. Well, the vicuna caps never shipped, and I still can't even give you the time of day in quechua. This year, I'm cutting back on my grandiose schemes a bit; if the even more overrated Babel (which reminded me of Tom Lehrer's deathless line, "If you feel you are unable to communicate, the least you could do is to shut up") wins this year, I'll hole up for a spell in the nearest Peruvian restaurant and buy a round of chicha morada for the whole place. Anyway, I'm sure that last year was an aberration, and that this year the voters will not be suckered in by the same pseudo-liberal, overwritten, humorless, implausible, Important, Significant garbage...

In spite of Babel's inevitable success, 2006 turned out to be a surprisingly strong year for film. I wonder what it says, though, that the year's two best films were not in English: Iwo Jima and Pan's Labyrinth. Can anybody write great movies in English anymore? Along those lines, my other great moviegoing experience this year was seeing our good friend Hilary Brougher's film Stephanie Daley, which won the screenwriting prize at Sundance last year, at a packed screening at BAM last May. I may not be completely objective, of course, but what does it say about the system that this powerful and moving film has not yet found a major distributor? And yet, many signs of hope: Aronofsky's extraordinary The Fountain, the first hour and a half of The Departed, everything about The Prestige until the ending, a Bond worthy of Fleming, Borat's nasty good fun, Natalie Portman unexpectedly carrying V for Vendetta, Clint Eastwood reminding everyone (twice!) that he is our greatest living filmmaker and a national treasure, the bunny-flavored madness of Inland Empire...all this and Strangers With Candy too? So grab yourself an ice cold Inca Cola and away we go.

Best Picture - There is no doubt in my mind that Letters from Iwo Jima is the best nominated film. That being said, I can't imagine with the success of Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby that Eastwood's film will have much of a shot. Little Miss Sunshine was too small, and, I thought, quite a bit overrated; it was National Lampoon's Vacation remade by Todd Solondz, and little more. The less said about Babel the better (although I eagerly anticipate Inarritu's next film, which will no doubt take place on several different planets and teach us that despite how interconnected we all are in this galaxy, meaningful communication among species is so difficult), and The Queen is too intimate a piece to get the voters excited. By default, that leaves The Departed, which would not be a great tragedy, although it will give ammunition to the yo-yos who put it in the same class as Goodfellas, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

Best Actor - A no-brainer, I think; Forest Whitaker will be appropriately rewarded for an amazing performance, as well as for 25 years of interesting, offbeat work playing everything from a samurai for Jarmusch to Charlie Parker. No one saw Venus or Half Nelson (the latter was extraordinary), and Di Caprio should have been nominated for Departed, where at least his accent didn't slip as much. And Will Smith's inevitable transformation from cocky action hero to thoughtful character actor will probably win him a statuette someday, but not this year.

Best Actress - An absolute, bet-the-ranch (uh-oh) lock for Helen Mirren, who deserves all the praise she has been getting lately. It was nice to see Penelope Cruz (and Almodovar) recognized with a nomination, and my fellow Kate Winslet fans and I know that her time will surely come. But this is the easiest pick of the year.

Best Supporting Actor - This is by far the toughest call on the board. Eddie Murphy would seem like the obvious choice, but Dreamgirls was something of a disappointment, and that might be held against him. For my money, Alan Arkin stole Sunshine, although a nomination in this category might have just as easily gone to Steve Carrell or even Greg Kinnear. Djimon Hounsou probably should have won for his tortured artist in In America a couple of years back; his performance in Blood Diamond is powerful, even if he doesn't demonstrate a great deal of range. The shocker in the group is Marky Mark, who jolted The Departed to life every time he was on the screen; perhaps it was because he was the only one not faking the accent. And out of left field (wait, he played right field in Bad News Bears) came Jackie Earle Haley, with a really risky performance in a film seen by way too few people. If you have to pick one underdog to win your Oscar pool, pick Alan Arkin; I do however think that Murphy will probably survive any Dreamgirls backlash to win.

Best Supporting Actress - Full disclosure: we live in the same apartment building as little Abby Breslin, and she is the loveliest, sweetest, most down-to-earth kid you'd ever want to meet. I don't see how she will win, but she is certainly my sentimental favorite. No way for Cate, who just won for playing Kate, but at least she didn't get nominated for you-know-what. Speaking of which, the two nominees from Babel in this category were the best things about that self-important mess; I thought that Rinko Kikuchi's performance in particular was the only thing that felt real in the entire film. That leaves Jennifer Hudson, who will reconfirm the truism that finishing second or third on Idol is much better for your career than actually winning.

Director - Having lost to great auteurs like Robert Redford and Kevin Costner, one has to believe that this is finally Scorsese's year. Or maybe it is his destiny to remain on that list, which includes everyone from Hitchcock and Kubrick to Lynch and Spike Lee, of great directors who never won the award. Eastwood made a better film this year, but he's won Best Director twice already. Frears has done nothing but wonderful work for over 20 years now, and hopefully he will be recognized at some point. If Inarritu wins, look out below, because my TV's heading out my eighth-story window. I think the sleeper threat to Scorsese is Paul Greengrass for United 93, who won the British version of the Best Director prize last week.

And So On - All hail the Mexican New Wave! My fervent hope is that Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men win as many Oscars as possible, the former for demonstrating how magic realism should work on screen, and the latter for presenting the most interesting and provocative view of the future since 12 Monkeys. We may see Al Gore kick off his '08 campaign when Inconvenient Truth wins. We'll acknowledge with sorrow the decline and fall of Pixar, formerly the One Sure Thing in Hollywood, when Cars get whupped by that stupid penguin movie. We'll dance a little happy dance when Apocalypto wins zippo. We'll puzzle over why Borat is up for Adapted Screenplay; did I miss the novel? And we'll yell, curse, scream, throw things at the screen, compose odes upon the Death of Culture, eat too much and love every minute of it. Best of all, Fincher's Zodiac is opening less than a week after the Oscars broadcast. Bring it on!