Top Ten Movies of 2008 / Oscar Picks

The Oscars are this Sunday, informally bringing an end to the 2008 movie season. There are still plenty of movies from 2008 that I haven't gotten to see yet, like Ballast, Let the Right One In, and several others. But at this point, I feel like I've finally seen enough to put together a top ten of 2008 list:

1. The Dark Knight
2. The Wrestler
3. Wall*E
4. Waltz With Bashir
5. Paranoid Park
6. Milk
7. Rachel Getting Married
8. The Class
9. Gran Torino
10. Man on Wire

Honorable Mentions: Happy-Go-Lucky, Iron Man, 4 Months 3 Weeks & 2 Days, Wendy & Lucy, The Wackness

And without further ado, my Oscar picks & predictions:

Best Picture
SHOULD WIN: Milk. Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire were only decent. And I still haven't felt the need to see Frost/Nixon or The Reader. So that just leaves Milk, which wasn't the best movie of the year, but is definitely the best out of the five that are nominated.
WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire. It's inevitable. Slumdog is going to win. Yawn.

Best Director
SHOULD WIN: Darren Aronofsky, Jonathan Demme, Mike Leigh, and Cristian Mungiu are all better than most of the people nominated. Gus Van Sant is the only name in this category that jumps out as having put together some totally solid work.
WILL WIN: Danny Boyle will win, thus setting a dangerous precedent for giving Oscars to directors who make movies that look like feature-length music videos. I'm predicting McG to be an early front-runner for this category next year.

Best Actor
SHOULD WIN: Mickey Rourke. Sean Penn was also great, but Rourke just works his ass off here.
WILL WIN: Rourke, although Penn still has a great shot at it

Best Actress
SHOULD WIN: Anne Hathaway
WILL WIN: Kate Winslet - She's been nominated a bunch of times and hasn't won yet. And at the ripe old age of 33, it's obviously unlikely that she'll ever be nominated for anything ever again. The Academy will probably give her the award here not necessarily because she gave the best performance, but because they feel she deserves to win one, which is usually how the Academy does things. However, Meryl Streep is also nominated, so she has to be considered an automatic front-runner as usual.

Best Supporting Actor
SHOULD WIN: Heath Ledger, not only for sentimental reasons, but because he deserves it
WILL WIN: Ledger

Best Supporting Actress
SHOULD WIN: Taraji P. Henson - in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, she was essentially the opposite of Brad Pitt. Pitt stands around while stuff happens around him, giving a completely wooden performance that adds nothing to the movie. Henson, on the other hand, gave a warm, enjoyable performance that brought life to the movie. I'd be fine if she won, although I haven't seen Doubt or Vicky Cristina Barcelona yet.
WILL WIN: Viola Davis - Total guess here.

Best Original Screenplay
SHOULD WIN: Milk - a totally solid script that never gets too melodramatic and tells an interesting story that largely sticks to the facts
WILL WIN: Milk - this category normally serves as a consolation prize for the movies that aren't going to win Best Picture. Thank God Juno's not nominated this year.

Best Adapted Screenplay
SHOULD WIN: Only seen two of the movies here, neither of which deserves to win. Of the remaining three, Doubt probably sounds like the one that might be the best written, but that's just a guess. I'd rather see the award go to The Dark Knight, a crazy, unrelenting story about chaos and vigilantism, but it wasn't nominated.
WILL WIN: What else? Slumdog Millionaire

Best Animated Feature
SHOULD WIN: Wall*E
WILL WIN: Wall*E - Would've been a lot more interesting if Waltz With Bashir had been nominated too. But as it stands, Wall*E is the front-runner by a mile, and deservedly so.

Best Foreign Language Feature
SHOULD WIN: Waltz With Bashir
WILL WIN: The logical pick here would be The Class, but something in my gut is telling me that Waltz With Bashir might actually have a chance at winning this one, so maybe I'll go with Waltz

Best Documentary Feature
SHOULD WIN: Waltz With Bashir should've been nominated, since it involves such a creative blend of documentary and narrative reenactment. But apparently it's against the law for a foreign language nominee to be nominated in any other categories. I can't really have much of a preference since the only film out of the five that I've seen is Man on Wire. But that movie was really good, so I wouldn't mind seeing it win.
WILL WIN: Man on Wire, although this category is chosen by people who actually went to screenings of all five films, so familiarity and word of mouth aren't always a factor

Best Cinematography
SHOULD WIN: Rachel Getting Married - the handheld camerawork did an amazing job of throwing you in the middle of all the family turmoil, resulting in a powerful exper... oh, it wasn't nominated. Well then...The Wrestler's cinematography really stood out this year. Both basic and effective, it truly centers the film around the main character and his life and really drives home... oh, that wasn't nominated either. Okay, then I guess we'll go with The Dark Knight and all of it's amazingly beautiful aerial shots.
WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire, because everyone loves flashy movies with lots of filters and quick cuts

Best Editing
SHOULD WIN: Milk - a very effectively assembled combination of the main story and archival footage
WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire. Notice a pattern?

Best Art Direction
SHOULD WIN: Benjamin Button
WILL WIN: Benjamin Button

Best Costume Design
SHOULD WIN: The Duchess - never saw it, but it's a costume drama, so it should probably win, right?
WILL WIN: The Duchess

Best Makeup
SHOULD WIN: Hellboy II
WILL WIN: Benjamin Button

Best Original Score
SHOULD WIN: The Dark Knight, hands down, which of course is why it wasn't nominated. So I dunno, let's go with Slumdog here, since this is one of the few categories that I wouldn't mind seeing it win.
WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Song
SHOULD WIN: Down to Earth (Wall*E). I don't remember either of the nominated songs from Slumdog, so the one from Wall*E must've been marginally better.
WILL WIN: Down to Earth, because the two Slumdog songs will cancel each other out

Best Sound
SHOULD WIN: The Dark Knight - great sound + great soundtrack = effectively dark, chilling atmosphre
WILL WIN: The Dark Knight

Best Sound Editing
SHOULD WIN: Wall*E - Sound effects play a much bigger role in this movie that most, and everything's done really well, so it deserves to win.
WILL WIN: Wall*E

Best Visual Effects
SHOULD WIN: Iron Man
WILL WIN: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - it's an Oscar Movie, and it has good special effects, therefore it will win (see: Forrest Gump)

Haven't seen any of the shorts (except Presto), so I have no preferences or predictions in those three categories.

For everyone's sake, I hope the Oscars are less predictable than this. This has to be one of the most unanticipated Oscar shows in recent memory, thanks to the neverending over-hype and impending dominance of Slumdog Millionaire, along with the overabundance of nominations for Benjamin Button and the lameness of the major category nods for The Reader and Frost/Nixon. Luckily, once you sift through all the traditional Oscar bait, there are a few good movies that got a healthy number of nominations, so hopefully it'll be an interesting show worth watching. And if not, then at least Jerry Lewis will be there.