Oscar WILD!

And the race begins.

For the past decade I have been actively predicting each year's Oscar race. In high school I would spend the majority of classroom time on very extensive Oscar prediction charts. Save pie charts and graphs, all other detailed info was included. Not much has changed since those days. For me procrastinating = Oscar Predicting.

2007's race looks like a great one. The Oscar race is always fascinating to me. A movie can come out of no where and grab a ton of attention (Boys Don't Cry 1999). A movie can be the front runner and then be left out in the cold (Dreamgirls 2006). A movie can have a ton of buzz and then fizzle (Cold Mountain 2003). A movie can even be the front runner in the race, fall off the radar and re-emerge as contender (The Green Mile 1999).

The year features a bevy of potential front runners including:

Sweeney Todd: Tim Burton's adaptation of the bloody Sondheim musical. Yup and Johnny Depp sings.

Charlie Wilson's War: Nichols, Sorkin, Hanks, Roberts, Hoffman. Need I say more

The Kite Runner: One of the most beloved non-Oprah sponsored pieces of fiction of the past decade.

There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson meets Daniel Day Lewis meets the story of a turn of the century oil tycoon.

Atonement: New IT boy James McAvoy and Keira Knightley star. Think English Patient with lush English estates.

No Country for Old Men: Seems to me like The Coen Brother's best outing since Fargo.

Juno: The buzz for this movie and its lead performance are deafening. Plus it's written by a stripper and I am not kidding.

Here are my current predictions (the * are my current projected victors in the categories):

Best Picture

Sweeney Todd
The Kite Runner
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
There Will Be Blood

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson There Will Be Blood
Tim Burton Sweeney Todd
Marc Forster The Kite Runner
Jason Reitman Juno
Joel & Ethan Coen No Country for Old Men

Best Actor

Daniel Day Lewis There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp Sweeney Todd
George Clooney Michael Clayton
James McAvoy Atonement
Denzel Washington American Gangster

Best Actress

Ellen Page Juno
Marion Cotillard La Vie En Rose
Julie Christie Away from Her
Helena Bonham Carter Sweeney Todd
Amy Adams Enchanted

Best Supporting Actor

Phillip Bosco The Savages
Tom Wilkinson Michael Clayton
Casey Affleck The Assassination of Jesse James...
Javier Bardem No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook Into the Wild

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett I'm Not There
Amy Ryan Gone Baby Gone
Jennifer Jason Leigh Margot at the Wedding
Tilda Swinton Michael Clayton
Meryl Streep Lions for Lambs

So those are my first official predictions. Let's see how they shape up as more films emerge and more fall off the little gold guy band wagon.