Hey everybody, we're out of the technical awards! But before we can get into talking about movies people have actually seen, we've got to hit those banes to everyone who tries to bet on the Oscars: documentaries and foreign language films. It's even worse this year, since many of the popular choices in both categories didn't make the cut, leaving us with a bunch of unfamiliar titles on subjects no one even remembers to care about. Luckily, though, we've still got the animated feature category, and in it, the glorious and wonderful Ratatouille. Wait, do I sound biased? Good. Ratatouille for every Oscar there is!

The Nominees: Foreign Language Film
Beaufort
The Counterfeiters
Katyn
Mongol
12
Oh boy. This is a category that inspired outright rage during the process of whittling down the nominees from every country, then to a shortlist, then to the final five. The elegant Israeli comedy The Band’s Visit was disqualified for having too much English-language dialogue, and American director Julian Schnabel’s French-language The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was not nominated by France—lingering resentment over that whole Freedom Fries thing? Then the short list was announced, and nowhere to be found were Iran’s Persepolis (we’ll get to that later in the animated category), Spain’s The Orphanage, or most shockingly, the Cannes-winning Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Honestly, with that movie off the list, this whole category seems a bit irrelevant. Reviews for each of these films, at least the ones I’ve read, have been middling at least. Response from the Oscar predicting crowd is usually “Eh, who cares, it doesn’t matter anyway now that 4 Months is out.” In fact, Oscar predicting site Awards Daily has a whole category for predicting this winner: The Academy Selection Committee that Seemingly Doesn’t Know Its Asshole from a Hole in the Ground, for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Antarctica. So, since I can’t vote for that one, I’m going with The Counterfeiters. It’s about the Holocaust. People like Holocaust movies.
Will win: The Counterfeiters
Dark horse: Mongol

The Nominees: Documentary
No End In Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance
Yet another category with some surprising snubs. Where is the much-acclaimed abortion documentary Lake of Fire, or the star-studded Nanking, or the Don Cheadle-backed Darfur Now? Or how about the popular Crazy Love, My Kid Could Paint That or From the Earth to the Moon? Regardless, we work with what we’ve got, which is three movies about the current war, one about the disaster that is our healthcare system, and one about kids dancing in Uganda. Some are calling the kids a threat, being all heartwarming and all, but I think it’s got to go to one of the Iraq movies. No End in Sight is probably the most acclaimed, but being a more recent release and the victim of an MPAA-censorship campaign, I think Taxi can pull it off. It’s a more daring guess than I might otherwise make, but hey, I’m feeling a little crazy this morning.
Will win: Taxi to the Dark Side Dark horse: No End in Sight

The Nominees: Animated Feature
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up
The rat! The rat! For a while it looked like Persepolis could challenge Ratatouille for total dominance in this category, but when the Iranian movie failed to particularly catch on over here, it pretty much sealed its fate as a lovely and worthwhile curiosity. And with so many other better contenders to fill that third slot—whither The Simpsons Movie?-- Surf’s Up is just happy to be nominated. So Brad Bird will win his second Oscar (the first was for The Incredibles), and I will shed a happy tear remembering the unfettered delight that is Ratatouille-- and another tear for the fact it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture.
Will win: Ratatouille
Dark horse: Persepolis
That’s it for today, but don’t miss Brad Bird too much: he’ll be back tomorrow when we talk screenplays, and joining him will be three female writers! I’ll explain tomorrow why that simple fact makes me happier than Remy contemplating a plate of risotto.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Oscar-Prediction-Mania-08-Foreign-Language-Documentary-And-Animated-Feature-Predictions-7892.html