While we wait for the Palme d'Or announcement...

Soon enough, we'll know the identities of the honorees, but first thing's first...here are my updated predictions for the big prizes, since they've been requested of me. Do note that I'm mixing in the buzz I've heard with some of my own theories and just a little bit of guesswork as well. Bombs away:

Palme d'Or: The Artist (Alternate: Drive)
Grand Prix: We Need to Talk About Kevin (Alternate: The Tree of Life)
Jury Prize: This Must Be The Place (Alternate: Sleeping Beauty)
Best Director: Lynne Ramsey for We Need to Talk About Kevin (Alternate: Nicolas Winding Refn for Drive)
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin for The Artist (Alternate: Ryan Gosling for Drive)
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia (Alternate: Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Best Screenplay: The Artist (Alternate: The Tree of Life)

Now, for the already announced winners, via Variety:

Aki Kaurismaki's ''Le Havre,'' Pierre Schoeller's ''The Minister'' and Jeff Nichols' ''Take Shelter'' shared awards Saturday at Cannes from the Fipresci Intl. Federation of Film Critics.
Also announced Saturday, Cannes' Ecumenical Jury awarded its main Prix to Italian Paolo Sorrentino's Sean Penn starrer ''This Must Be the Place.''

Fipresci plaudits go to one outstanding film in Cannes Competition and Un Certain Regard and a third in either Directors' Fortnight or Critics' Week.

Which 10 films have the strongest chances of walking away with the top prize at Cannes?

Well, everyone's got their opinions right now (and mine are certainly different from this), but Total Film has 10 flicks as the ones to look out for. Personally, I'm of the thinking that the jury could go in a strange direction and choose Drive or go classic and pick The Artist, but that's just me. Here's the list of 10, with elaborations after the cut:

The Tree of Life
Polisse
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Le Gamin Au Velo
Melancholia
Sleeping Beauty
The Artist
The Skin I Live In
Drive
This Must Be The Place

The Cannes Film Festival is underway...

...and while none of us are over in Europe for the fest (the dream scenario is the year after next being able to attend) this year, we'll be doing our best to cover the fest as fully as we can. At this point, Woody Allen's newest movie 'Midnight in Paris' has debuted as the Opening Night film to some acclaim. The flick has generated very good buzz (check out a review here and an Entertainment Weekly article here), with some even mentioning the word Oscar...so we'll see what comes next for Allen. Suffice to say, it's always exciting to hear that he's doing something that people are enjoying. I for one can't wait to see it...

As for the films I'm most interested in hearing the response to, they include 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Melancholia', 'Drive', 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', and of course 'The Tree of Life'.

Right off the bat, I'll throw out some completely arbitrary picks for some of the awards at the end of the fest (we'll see how they compare to the winners, and even just my predictions right before the festival ends)...here goes nothing:

Palm d'Or: Drive or We Need to Talk About Kevin
Grand Prix: Sleeping Beauty or We Have A Pope
Best Director: Lars von Trier (Melancholia) or Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)
Best Actor: Ryan Gosling (Drive) or Sean Penn (This Must Be The Place)
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia) or Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Best Screenplay: The Skin I Live In or The Tree of Life

-What are you looking forward to about the Cannes Film Festival as it unfolds?

Independent Spirit Awards Preview

My favorite awards show each year is the Independent Spirit Awards, and as always, I take it upon myself to write up this preview/predictions article to try and make some sense of what is always a unique awards show (obviously it's on the blog this year, but that's just due to time constraints and a small technical difficulty). It doesn’t usually have any bearing on Oscar, but it’s one of the hardest precursors (if you can call it that) to accurately predict, so it’s interesting to do this and then compare come Saturday night. As for how the awards themselves might go, well…let’s jump right in. ‘Winter’s Bone’ led the nominations with 7, followed by ‘The Kids Are All Right’ with 5, so keep an eye on those. 'Black Swan' picked up 4 nods, and ‘127 Hours' didn’t do shabby either, so don’t count them out. This is really a closer race than usual in a lot of categories, but there’s still some method to the prediction madness, so here we go:

Best Feature-

The nominees are 127 Hours, Black Swan, Greenberg, The Kids Are All Right, and Winter’s Bone. I think it’s safe to say that Greenberg is out of it (sadly), with 127 Hours and Black Swan looming as long shot spoilers (more so Black Swan). This brings the race down to The Kids Are All Right and Winter’s Bone, and with the latter doing well earlier this season at the Gotham Awards, I’m going to take a cue from them and say that the big prize of the night is going to go to it.

Will Win: Winter’s Bone
Might Win: The Kids Are All Right
Should Win: Black Swan
Should have been nominated: Blue Valentine

The rest after the jump...

BAFTA Predictions

The BAFTA's are tonight and if you're have any connection with this awards season you know that "The King's Speech" will reign supreme and then some. The question is how supreme will it reign. My predictions are in bold. Include yours in the comment section.

BEST FILM
* BLACK SWAN
* INCEPTION
* THE KING’S SPEECH
* THE SOCIAL NETWORK
* TRUE GRIT

DIRECTOR
* 127 HOURS – Danny Boyle
* BLACK SWAN – Darren Aronofsky
* INCEPTION – Christopher Nolan
* THE KING’S SPEECH – Tom Hooper
* THE SOCIAL NETWORK – David Fincher

LEADING ACTOR
* JAVIER BARDEM – Biutiful
* JEFF BRIDGES – True Grit
* JESSE EISENBERG – The Social Network
* COLIN FIRTH – The King’s Speech
* JAMES FRANCO – 127 Hours

LEADING ACTRESS
* ANNETTE BENING – The Kids Are All Right
* JULIANNE MOORE – The Kids Are All Right
* NATALIE PORTMAN – Black Swan
* NOOMI RAPACE – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
* HAILEE STEINFELD – True Grit