We have reached the home stretch, and by this time next week winners will be crowned and there will be no more guessing for 2008 and we will have to move on and begin preparing for the best of 2009. This means we only have a few days left to speculate and we will take full advantage by taking a look at Visual Effects and Film Editing today, Cinematography and Art Direction tomorrow, Animated, Foreign Language and Documentary films on Wednesday and then the complete field on Thursday along with polls for you to vote for your projected winners.
To take a look at past predictions click on any of the links below.
- Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Actress and Director
- Adapted and Original Screenplay
- Original Score and Original Song
- Sound Editing and Sound Mixing
As for this round, let’s look at the nominees for Visual Effects and Film Editing…
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
- The Dark Knight, Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
- Iron Man, John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
- The Dark Knight, Lee Smith
- Frost/Nixon, Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
- Milk, Elliot Graham
- Slumdog Millionaire, Chris Dickens
First off, for Visual Effects we are looking at a no brainer when it comes to Curious Case of Benjamin Button. All you need to do is watch the video to the right and find the other nine right here to get an idea of just how much went into bringing that film to life.
Admittedly Iron Man has some impressive visual effects but I just don’t think they compare and as for The Dark Knight, I think it comes in third in this race.
As for Film Editing, this is the one category where I think the Academy proves they have a primary focus on bigger budget studio films, because the best editing of 2008 was found in Ballast, but you won’t find that film anywhere among the Academy’s list of favorites so we are stuck with a rather lackluster group of features when it comes to this category — at least in my mind — with Slumdog Millionaire as the likely front-runner and my prediction to take the category. After all, it did just win the ACE Eddie Award in the dramatic category. If it’s good enough for them then it’s good enough for me.
Slumdog had the task of making sure the pacing of the film kept up with the kinetic energy brought about by its accompanying music and frenetic scenes and the editing work by Chris Dickens was up to the task. Looking at the other four nominees I really don’t have much to say.
So now you tell me… Agree? Disagree? No opinion?
