Here's some potential irony for you.

In the blue corner, we have Brokeback Mountain, which looks quite solid to bring home the awards for Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay.

In the red corner, there's Memoirs of a Geisha, a smart bet to grab the awards for Costume Design and Art Direction.

Which brings us to two more categories, Score and Cinematography, either of which could be won by BBM or Geisha. If Geisha could somehow grab both, it would likely win the MOST AWARDS COME OSCAR NIGHT. That blows my mind.

WILL it happen? No, I kinda think BBM will take Score or Cinematography, but hey.....you never know.

So, one category aside, forget BBM vs. Crash. It's really BBM vs. Geisha.

BBM will take score. I even heard it playing at a bar the other night. People are loving that score, and its the best of the five nominees, imo.

Cinematography is tricky. If it came down to those two, I'd say BBM takes it, but I'm thinking neither will, actually.

BBM has cinematography in the bag. I think it will win score as well for 5 total, but Memoirs should put up a good fight since it's Williams, and the score itself is pretty good.

It would be unfortunate if Brokeback won cinematography.

I'd prefer GNAGL to win, but Brokeback won't be a bad choice. Can't go wrong with all the mountain shots. Memoirs didn't have quite the sweeping beauty like Hero or CTHD because it's more constrained to be within the city. Cinematography isn't all about beautiful scenaries, but they are easier to grab attention.

There is at least 6 films this year with better Cinematography than Brokeback Mountain.

So yes, I feel it is an unfortunate choice.

Also do not rule out Emmanuel Lubezki for The New World

He has been nominated thrice.

The New World
Sleepy Hollow
A Little Princess

The fact that The Constant Gardener, Munich, King Kong, Harry Potter aren't there is an absolute shame.

Hmmm....I thought Goblet of Fire was a terribly ugly film.

My thinking is that BBM will win at least one of, and maybe both, Cinematography and Score. As you said, andaroo, Lubezki is not out of the question in the former, and BBM needs to beat not one but TWO John Williams' scores. Not easy.

But this Geisha thing is an interesting, and slightly depressing, possibility.

I'll agree with Gardener and Munich, but weren't the majority of Kong's vistas digital? I don't see how you can give a film that's comprised of mostly digital scenery a best cinematography award. Everything that makes up cinematography (lighting, scope, foreground/background, color, etc) is too easily manipulated.

The award should go to The New World, imo.

Was I dumb for thinking Constant Gardener was a shoo-in for a cinematography nom?

I mean, I thought it was the best I saw last year.

Exactly, and historically accurate. This competition is between BBM and New World. I still think New World will take it, because of the cinematographer's history, along with the fact all the BP nominees are so cut even (all have multiple noms) that I don't see any of them walking away with more than three wins. Jury seems undecided on them, and often they work against eachother to split the vote. GNAGL will siphon off some of BBM's voters for those who think (on their ballot) they've notminated BBM enough times. New World will sneak through. Geisha isn't really in the picture. It has much better chances at production/costume/etc.

But Geisha has won score at Globes and some other big awards.
Then again, the BBM song has won almost every originals song award but didn't qualify for a nom here, so that might work in its favor, though they have almost nothing to do with each other

Plus, Williams is nominated twice this year, so they'd be passing up both his scores to award Brokeback of they do.

Brokeback will definitely take Cinematography.

But Memoirs will probably be the 2nd biggest winner of the night with 2-3 awards.. which may be indeed depressing depending of your feelings about the movie..


And I'm now predicting that Crash will leave empty handed, against all odds - mark my words (it'll lose song to Dolly, editing to The Constant Gardener, and screenplay to Clooney for GNAGL - WGA matched 2/2 last year, and they usually miss one of the winners...)

I was a little depressed it didn't get a Best Pic nom.

The New World did fail to get a ASC nom but still Lubezki is the frontrunner.

As for Brokeback V. Geisha, aesthetically Geisha is far beyond Brokeback.

I still can't understand its snub.

I think Memoirs of a Geisha will end up with two - Costume Design and Art Direction. The Score vote will split between Munich and Geisha, since both are Williams and BBM will probably get it.

Brokeback Mountain should end up with 4-5.

Let's say Crash wins Best Picture. Brokeback takes Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Crash takes Best Original Screenplay. Memoirs gets Costume and Art. Munich takes Score. That means Crash, Brokeback, and Memoirs all have 2 each. What walks away with the most Oscars then? Kong! Visuals, and both Sound Effects and Sound Mixing. Or War of the Worlds could win the 3 techs, and it would claim the title. Now that would be above crazy.

All of this is unlikely, but still possible.

With Memoirs winning ASC, the possibility of it walking away with 4 Oscar, something I didn't think was possible last week, just got greater. I still see Brokeback Mountain winning cinematography, but Memoirs has become a real threat, considering that it won BAFTA and ASC, two organizations which has membership overlaps with the academy.

I'm predicting 3 (Score, Art Direction and Costume Design), which is the same # of BATFAs it won... I just can't see 4 Oscars and a possible tie with the BP winner.. not with the critical reception it got