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Best Cinematography

You wouldn't expect Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography to be closely connected, but they clearly are. Since 2000 only two Best Cinematography winners have won Best Picture, and only three have also won Best Film Editing. But in six of the last 11 years, the film that won Best Art Direction also won Best Cinematography. Only once since 1999 has the winner in each category been nominated in the other category and not won. That was 2001, when Moulin Rouge! And The Fellowship of the Ring split the two awards. This year there are three films nominated for both categories, so those should be the favorites... should being the operative word.

Not surprisingly, both Hugo and The Artist are looking to take this category. Since Hugo is likely to win Best Art Direction it has the advantage. The way it sweeps and swerves through its impressive sets is the kind of cinematography that the Academy swoons for. That's why Inception beat The King's Speech, why Avatar beat The Hurt Locker, and why Memoirs of a Geisha beat Brokeback Mountain. But there is so much love for The Artist that it can't be counted out. If it is going to sweep then it will take this category, even if it doesn't win Best Art Direction. When Slumdog Millionaire dominated the Oscars it beat Best Art Direction winner The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, so a win for The Artist wouldn't be unprecedented.

There is a wild card in this category. In 2007, There Will be Blood won Best Cinematography, beating frontrunner Atonement and Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men. There Will be Blood was an unconventional Best Picture nominee, but there was a lot of respect for it, and most people agreed that its cinematography was impressive. Could The Tree of Life, another slow, contemplative film from a beloved auteur, win this award? If you are looking to predict an upset in this category, this would be a gutsy pick.

Will Win: Hugo
Might Win: The Artist
Dark Horse: The Tree of Life

Best Costumes

It is tempting to find arguments against Hugo doing so well in the below the line categories. Why, if it is winning so many awards, don't they want to give it Best Picture? But looking at Inception, The Aviator, and Saving Private Ryan, you begin to understand. These are movies that are dazzling technical achievements, movies that really impressed voters, that were undeniably great in what they showed on screen. But they weren't the films that the Academy loved, not in the way they loved The King's Speech, Million Dollar Baby, and Shakespeare in Love. Those first three films won four technical Oscars each, while of the latter three, only Shakespeare in Love won any below the line Oscars. But those were the three that won Best Picture, because, while they might not have been the most impressive technical achievements, they were the ones that won over voters where it mattered: their hearts.

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