Spirit Awards: Sunshine's in

The Independent Spirit Awards wrapped up about an hour ago, and Little Miss Sunshine walked away with the top prizes: best picture, best director, best first screenplay and best supporting actor for Alan Arkin.

Sweet Land, the prairie love story filmed in Minnesota, went 1 for 2 on the night: It won best first feature for director Ali Selim, but Elizabeth Reaser lost out on best actress to Shareeka Epps of Half Nelson.

Cringe-inducing moment of the night: presenter Felicity Huffman mispronouncing Epps' first name as "Shakeera" -- twice! (At the end of the program, host Sarah Silverman said next year's show will be hosted by "Facility Huffman.")

Funniest moment: During a generally moving tribute to the late Robert Altman, Lily Tomlin turned to Robert Downey Jr. and said, "You remember what he used to say ... or, maybe you don't." (To which Downey reacted with a spot-on arched-eyebrow take.)

For a full list of winners, click here.

And the presenters are ... (reprise)

The Academy's final list of presenters is out. Philip Seymour Hoffman has signed on, and An Inconvenient Truth star Al Gore will be on stage to add a little political polarization to the mix. Classy move: Inviting Ken Watanabe, who really should have been nominated for his work in Letters From Iwo Jima.

Cue the dancing penguins

LA Weekly's Nikki FInke offers a look behind the curtain at Sunday's show. But be warned: Over at the Envelope they quickly shot down one of her spoilers. Oh the drama!

The picks you've been waiting for

OK, you can finally fill out that Oscar pool sheet now: Sir Elton John's Oscar picks are in. (Yes, apparently there are still some U.S. newspapers that just have too much space to fill.)

Calling the races: Best picture

This is the one major Oscar that is truly up in the air. Most prognosticators are pretty evenly divided among The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine and Babel, with some saying that Letters From Iwo Jima and The Queen have an outside shot. Here's how I see the race shaping up:

Letters From Iwo Jima: If I had a ballot, I just might vote for Clint Eastwood's finely crafted film, which comes the closest of any of the nominees to the word "masterpiece." But among Academy voters, the fact that it's almost entirely in Japanese hurts it, and Eastwood has had his share of honors in recent years. I know: Not fair, but that's how it works with the Academy.

The Queen: Don't get me wrong: This is a good film, deserving of its nomination. But it's pooh-poohed (unfairly) in some quarters as being better suited for BBC America than for the big screen, despite the standout performance by Helen Mirren. Scratch this one off the list.

Babel: This may be the most ambitious film of the five, and it has a strong contingent of supporters. But it also has too many turn-offs to prevail among Academy voters. For example, the fragmented, nonlinear plot -- I know, if didn't hurt Crash last year, but that was set in L.A., and there's a disease that the Academy hasn't been entirely cured of yet, and that's xenophobia.

Little Miss Sunshine: Is it me, or has the Sunshine buzz faded a bit? Even more so than Babel, it has a dedicated core of supporters, but also plenty of detractors: It's a feel-good movie, it's a comedy, it's got a cute kid. Too many reasons for too many Academy members not to vote for it.

The Departed: In a fragmented field like this, it might come down to the film that has the fewest strikes against it, and this year that film is The Departed. There's a lot of pro-Scorsese sentiment in the Academy this year -- Gee, Marty, sorry we stiffed you all those years -- and with no favorite in the field, this brisk, tight, crowd-pleasing thriller will be the default choice for a lot of voters. No, The Departed isn't a great film, but it's a good film, and in a year like this it's going to be good enough.

Now that said (you know what they say, any given Sunday ...), if you can hedge your bets in your Oscar pool by putting in more than one entry, this is the year to do it. I know I will.

Best picture: The Departed

The picks are rolling in

New York Times Oscar maven (and Minnesota native) David Carr, a.k.a. the Carpetbagger, has weighed in with his picks. In the best-picture free-for-all he goes with The Departed; otherwise he sticks mostly to the favorites.

And the L.A. Times' Tom O'Neil lays it on the line as well -- he also goes with The Departed but goes out on a limb for Peter O'Toole and Alan Arkin.

Two days and counting ...

Good Oscar-watching weather

The National Weather Service says we could be in for 8 to 12 inches of snow here in the Twin Cities this weekend. I say: Bring it on! We'll just batten down the hatches and hunker down in front of the TV for the Academy Awards broadcast Sunday night.

Calling the races: Best director

For me, the race for best director is a tough one to figure. I know what movies I like and I have a pretty good idea what makes a good acting performance, but let's face it: I don't know the first thing about directing a movie.

Used to be you could bank on the best director trophy going to whoever directed the best picture, but not anymore: the two awards have gone splitsville four years out of the past eight.

This year, Martin Scorsese is seen as a lock for his work on The Departed, but it feels more like a lifetime achievement award. It's a good movie, but most agree that it's not Scorsese's best.

Of the other nominees, The Queen is more notable for its script and Helen Mirren's performance than for Stephen Frears' direction. Babel is too polarizing of a film, and the Japanese storyline connects to the rest of the film by only the slenderest of threads. Letters From Iwo Jima might be the most finely crafted film of them all, but Clint Eastwood has been honored before, and this isn't his year.

It won't happen, but the critics' darling for an outside chance for an upset is Paul Greengrass for United 93. I haven't seen it yet, but I will by Sunday -- it's burning a hole in its Netflix sleeve atop my TV stand, but the fact that my wife won't watch it makes for TV-scheduling difficulties.

Best director: Martin Scorsese

Tomorrow: Best picture

A three-way race for best actor?

On his Gold Derby blog, the L.A. Times' Tom O'Neil posits that it could be a three-horse race for best actor, with Leonardo DiCaprio attracting votes for his work in The Departed even though he's nominated for Blood Diamond. There's already been a lot of buzz that Peter O'Toole could upset Forest Whitaker, but I'm sticking with Last King of Scotland star Whitaker as my pick.

Calling the races: Best actress

This will be short and sweet: Everyone, and I mean everyone, says Helen Mirren will win best actress. And she will. Her performance as Queen Elizabeth in The Queen is that good.

My favorite moment comes as the buffoonish Prince Philip was holding forth on what's expected of a woman in a marriage. He's talking about Diana, but he unwittingly reveals how he views his own marriage as well. The queen shoots him a look -- just a split second, blink and you'll miss it -- that just hints at the anger and resentment underneath. Then the facade goes right back up again. Brilliant.

Whether or not you're interested in the British royalty or Diana's death, go see The Queen just for Mirren's performance. It's that good.

Best actress: Helen Mirren

Tomorrow:: Best director

Calling the races: Best actor

The popularity of ensemble films created an anomaly this year: None of the best-picture nominees has a best-actor nominee in it. This makes things tough on your humble Oscar blogger: that many more movies to see. I've made it to all five best-picture nominees, but of those nominated for best actor I've seen only one: The consensus favorite to win the Oscar, Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.

A bit of a mini-anti-Whitaker backlash has been building since he began sweeping the best-actor awards. His depiction of Idi Amin is just a caricature, they say; you don't see the depth of Amin's evil. I disagree. The childlike enthusiasm and ruthless control were two sides of the same coin; that is what makes him so scary. He attracts and repels at the same time.

The most likely candidate to pull off an upset: Venus' Peter O'Toole, who has never won an Oscar (except for an honorary one) despite his many nominations. But any sentimental groundswell for O'Toole will be at least partly canceled out by the fact that Whitaker is also extremely well-liked as one of the nice guys in Hollywood.

Best actor: Forest Whitaker

Tomorrow: Best actress

Six days to go: What's the buzz?

Over at the L.A. Times' Buzzmeter, it remains The Departed by a nose over Little Miss Sunshine -- but with Babel coming up on the outside.

Elsewhere, predictions are trickling in:

The Chicago Tribune's critics think it's up for grabs between Little Miss Sunshine and Babel -- although both prefer Little Miss Sunshine. No love for The Departed, apparently.

Over at the Boston Globe, both critics agree that Little Miss Sunshine will win but that Letters From Iwo Jima should win.

Calling the races: Supporting actor/actress

So we finally made it to Dreamgirls last night (albeit a 9:30 p.m. showing out in Apple Valley). I wasn't sure about all the Jennifer Hudson hype going in, but there's no question about it: She owns this movie. When she leaves the screen, you feel like you're just biding your time until she returns. Her powerful performance as the headstrong Effie White gives the film much of its energy.

The movie has its flaws -- the stitching between the musical numbers doesn't always hold up as well as it should, and as for the songs themselves, I'm no expert but my wife noted that "the lyrics were wretched" -- but it's worth it just to see Hudson's performance. And it's not just the singing; her acting is impressive, too.

Best supporting actor is a little tougher to call. Eddie Murphy hits the right notes as James "Thunder" Early -- both in acting and in singing. (And forget "Party All the Time"; the man can sing.) But only in one or two scenes do you get to see behind Early's bluster. No knock against Murphy, but it's just not a role that's cut out for an Oscar.

Murphy's main competition is Little Miss Sunshine's Alan Arkin, who was good but in a largely one-dimensional role. (He does have one great scene -- the one usually used as a TV clip -- where he tells Abigail Breslin's Olive that "You're not a loser.") And Mark Wahlberg handled The Departed's crackerjack dialogue well, but his role was small, and wasn't he better in Boogie Nights, Three Kings and even A Perfect Storm?

Murphy is the favorite here, but if there's going to be an upset on Oscar night, this will be it. I'm not sure whether that yellow VW bus will have enough momentum to get the best picture gold, but it will be enough to get Arkin an Oscar.

Best supporting actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Best supporting actor: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Tomorrow: Best actor

Hey -- we were shorted one short!

Pixar's Lifted ... and this may be all I'll ever see of it.

For us laid-back St. Paulites, a trip to Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood is not undertaken lightly. The traffic is always nuts, and if the cars aren't bad enough there are people everywhere, most of them younger and cooler than us. For movie-watching, St. Paul's Grandview and Highland theaters are more our style: stop by, see a movie, no big deal. But Saturday afternoon, we braved the Uptown crowds to see the Oscar-nominated short films at the Lagoon Cinema.

Among the animated shorts, we liked the heartfelt and heartbreaking The Little Matchgirl the most -- in part because of the gorgeous old-school Disney animation. My runner-up was The Danish Poet, a sparely animated charmer about a lovelorn, well, Danish poet, told childhood-fable style. (The Scandinavian jokes had a special resonance with the audience here.) Her second favorite was Maestro, the shortest of the shorts, which was very clever, but for me it was essentially a one-joke piece. No Time for Nuts had some funny sight gags, but we agreed that it seemed like a lightweight DVD extra compared with the others.

I'd tell you what we thought of the Pixar short Lifted, but ... we didn't see it. The five nominated shorts they showed us included two Maestros and no Lifted. I complained to the theater manager -- no small move for us reticent Minnesota types -- but it was a tough conversation considering the manager neither knew the nominated shorts nor even how many there were supposed to be. It ended with "we just show what they give us on the DVD" and two free passes (good Sunday through Thursday only).

(Packaged with the five animated shorts were a few non-nominated shorts, varying in quality -- but be warned, one of them is not for the little kids.)

We stuck around for the live-action shorts, and we split on our favorites. I was partial to Helmer & Son, an insightful little story about the burdens of expectation that a father and son place on each other, and themselves. She liked Binta and the Great Idea, a Spanish film set in French-speaking West Africa based on the idea that First World and Third World each has plenty to learn from the other.

But whichever ones we liked best, there wasn't a dud in the bunch. Ten thumbs up -- er, make that nine.