Oscar Nominee Predictions- Specialty Films

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Best Animated Feature Film

1. How to Train Your Dragon

2. The Illusionist

3. Toy Story 3

There’s no way Toy Story 3 gets ignored, and How to Train Your Dragon is nearly as sure a bet. Since this is a year where only three can be nominated (due to the number of eligible films) that leaves the last slot up for grabs between Tangled, French import The Illusionist, and dark horse Despicable Me. Since the Academy seems to like European imports and Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville got a surprise nomination a few years back, I’ll have to give the edge to The Illusionist.

Best Documentary Film

1. Exit Through the Gift Shop

2. Inside Job

3. Restrepo

4. The Pat Tillman Story

5. Waiting for Superman

This one has really taken shape over the past month and it would be surprising to see Waiting for Superman, Restrepo, or Inside Job ignored. After Exit Through the Gift Shop’s near universal acclaim, it should be nominated, but it’s exactly the type of wtf? Omission the Academy is capable of. The Pat Tillman Story is an important, well-done documentary in the mold of the acclaimed Errol Morris, and deserves the last slot, but don’t forget about Client 9, another “current” story from former winner Alex Gibney.

Best Foreign Film

1. Biutiful

2. Even the Rain

3. In a Better World

4. Incendies

5. Outside the Law

The only “sure” thing in the category this year is Biutiful, but that tag usually means it will lose. Incendies is getting rave reviews everywhere, and would be a surprising snub. After that it’s hard to say, because a shockingly small group is tasked with choosing the nominees each year, and anything can happen. In a Better World won the category at the Golden Globes and is directed by a previous nominee.

Ditto Outside the Law, an epic and revisionist take on French/Algerian relations that is seriously pissing off the French. That can only help. Even the Rain sounds like the most intriguing of the bunch to me and has a big name in Gael Garcia Bernal, but this group may prefer South Africa’s Life Above All. Dogtooth and Confessions seem too quirky and Simple Simon too slight, but you can’t really count any of them out.