78th AAAs

Let's go ahead and get this one out of the way. It might be more fun a little closer to award night (but the post will live on through then, so you can chime in anytime you want), but here in The Realm, we can go ahead and dish out the Academy Awards beforehand. In the chosen categories below, let us know who you think will win and who you think should win. Any explanation is gravy, but as everyone here knows, nothing tastes better when handing out the award biscuits than a little red-eye. Here we go:



Best Original Screenplay
1) “Crash” Screenplay by Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco Story by Paul Haggis
2) “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov
3) “Match Point” Written by Woody Allen
4) “The Squid and the Whale” Written by Noah Baumbach
5) “Syriana” Written by Stephen Gaghan

Best Adapted Screenplay
1) “Brokeback Mountain” Screenplay by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana
2) “Capote” Screenplay by Dan Futterman
3) “The Constant Gardener” Screenplay by Jeffrey Caine
4) “A History of Violence” Screenplay by Josh Olson
5) “Munich” Screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
1) “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” Dean Wright, Bill Westenhofer, Jim Berney and Scott Farrar
2) “King Kong” Joe Letteri, Brian Van’t Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor
3) “War of the Worlds” Dennis Muren, Pablo Helman, Randal M. Dutra and Daniel Sudick

Best Achievement in Makeup
1) “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” Howard Berger and Tami Lane
2) “Cinderella Man” David Leroy Anderson and Lance Anderson
3) “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” Dave Elsey and Nikki Gooley

Best Achievement in Costume Design
1) “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Gabriella Pescucci
2) “Memoirs of a Geisha” Colleen Atwood
3) “Mrs. Henderson Presents” Sandy Powell
4) “Pride & Prejudice” Jacqueline Durran
5) “Walk the Line” Arianne Phillips

Best Achievement in Cinematography
1) “Batman Begins” Wally Pfister
2) “Brokeback Mountain” Rodrigo Prieto
3) “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Robert Elswit
4) “Memoirs of a Geisha” Dion Beebe
5) “The New World” Emmanuel Lubezki

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
1) “Howl’s Moving Castle” Hayao Miyazaki
2) “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” Mike Johnson and Tim Burton
3) “Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit” Nick Park and Steve Box

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
1) Amy Adams in “Junebug”
2) Catherine Keener in “Capote”
3) Frances McDormand in “North Country”
4) Rachel Weisz in “The Constant Gardener”
5) Michelle Williams in “Brokeback Mountain”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
1) George Clooney in “Syriana”
2) Matt Dillon in “Crash”
3) Paul Giamatti in “Cinderella Man”
4) Jake Gyllenhaal in “Brokeback Mountain”
5) William Hurt in “A History of Violence”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
1) Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Capote”
2) Terrence Howard in “Hustle & Flow”
3) Heath Ledger in “Brokeback Mountain”
4) Joaquin Phoenix in “Walk the Line”
5) David Strathairn in “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
1) Judi Dench in “Mrs. Henderson Presents”
2) Felicity Huffman in “Transamerica”
3) Keira Knightley in “Pride & Prejudice”
4) Charlize Theron in “North Country”
5) Reese Witherspoon in “Walk the Line”

Best Achievement in Directing
1) "Brokeback Mountain” Ang Lee
2) “Capote” Bennett Miller
3) “Crash” Paul Haggis
4) “Good Night, and Good Luck.” George Clooney
5) “Munich” Steven Spielberg

Best Motion Picture of the Year
1) “Brokeback Mountain” Diana Ossana and James Schamus, Producers
2) “Capote” Caroline Baron, William Vince and Michael Ohoven, Producers
3) “Crash” Paul Haggis and Cathy Schulman, Producers
4) “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Grant Heslov, Producer
5) “Munich” Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg and Barry Mendel, Producers

Obviously, probably no one in The Realm has seen every single one of the movies listed, but that's okay because from what the word on the street is, neither have the members of the Academy. Just use your best discretion and pass on any category that you don't want to pick for whatever reason. And feel free to cheat in whatever way you need to make some kind of semi-informed prediction. I'll leave my winners in the comments.

And the winner is:

Academy Awards