It's Good to Be 'King': First-Round Oscar Picks
 "The King's Speech," left; Danny Boyle on "127 Hours" set; Annette Bening in "The Kids Are All Right" |
Here are my first-stab Oscar predictions for GoldDerby.com's experts panel (alongside Michael Musto, Kevin Polowy, Keith Simanton, Anne Thompson and Susan Wloszczyna). I think I'm the first blogger who posted the words "King's Speech Oscar" at Telluride, but the more sources I consulted, the more I swapped it back and forth with The Social Network. I felt like Henry James, who said in political discussions, he was always of the opinion of the last speaker. But the King rules, and that's my final word! Until tomorrow.
Like everybody else, I'm betting on a rooster in a poke with the unknowable Coen brothers movie True Grit. The Fighter's magisterially marketed premiere made me favor it over Black Swan, whose fans were equally verklempt at Telluride. After Thursday's AFI premiere, they're doing frantic fouettes fast enough to corkscrew through to the center of the Earth, punching a Fighter fan at every turn. The two movies could incite fights on a million movie dates, which would be scarier than Winona Ryder in Black Swan -- and let me tell you, that's scary.
Best Picture:
1. The King's Speech
2. The Social Network
3. 127 Hours
4. Inception
5. True Grit
6. The Fighter
7. Black Swan
8. Toy Story 3
9. The Kids Are All Right
10. Rabbit Hole
Best Director:
1. Danny Boyle
2. Tom Hooper
3. David Fincher
4. Joel and Ethan Coen
5. Christopher Nolan
Best Actor:
1. Colin Firth
2. James Franco
3. Jesse Eisenberg
4. Robert Duvall
5. Jeff Bridges
Best Actress:
1. Annette Bening
2. Natalie Portman
3. Jennifer Lawrence
4. Lesley Manville
5. Nicole Kidman
Covering The Race
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Scott Feinberg
Lead Awards Blogger & Analyst
Scott, whose THR coverage appears both in print and online, is one of the film industry's most experienced and trusted awards analysts, and possesses one of the strongest track records at forecasting the Oscars. His best showings came in 2006 (when he called 21 of 24 winners) and 2004 (when he called 20 of 24 winners); he was also the only pundit to project long-shot best picture nominations for The Reader (2008), The Blind Side (2009) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011). An alumnus of Brandeis University, he previously ran "The Feinberg Files" blog for the Los Angeles Times. He is now a voting member of both the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, and is writing a book about film history for young people for which he has interviewed more than 350 high-profile Hollywood figures.
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Gregg Kilday
Film Editor
Gregg contributes awards news, features online, and "The Race" column in print.
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Tim Appelo
Film Reporter
Tim contributes awards news and features, both in print and online.
