OSCAR WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Are you desperate to know who is going to win the golden statues on February 25th? No fear. The winners are listed here.

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Better still, they feature a large swathe of British talent.

The trick to knowing who is going to win what is to forget about the marginal elements, like the actors and directors, and look solely at the films themselves.

Only certain kinds of film can ever win Oscars.

Okay, there are exceptions. In a lean year, oddities, like Silence of the Lambs, will pop up and snaffle the prize.

But most of the time even the duffest members of the arcane Academy prefer to be associated with admirable films, rather than muck, and tend to vote for films they can recommend to those they love.

The reason this works to the favour of British talent is that the best Brits tend to appear in interesting films.

So the Best Film award is the best place to start looking for the key and this year that title is going to go to There Will Be Blood because it is not only a fine film but it is a fine film about the soul of America at a time when America definitely wants to know something more than usual about itself.

And the clutch of other runners for the title have shot itself in the foot, so to speak, beginning with No Country For Old Men, which, although brilliant, will have scared the bejesus out of most Academy members, let alone their children.

Juno? A Best Picture gong for a tale of underage pregnancy? The very idea is funnier than than the movie itself!

Michael Clayton? A confusing script where George Clooney plays a loser at the beck and call of two extraordinary Brits, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson? Not a chance.

Oh, and Atonement? A lovely film, and definitely the best of the outsiders, but ultimately unsatisfying and, more's the pity, unlikely to sneak it.

Moving quickly on, Best Actor is London’s DD-L, for a breathtaking performance in the astounding Best Picture. Not much point even referencing the competition, except maybe Tommy Lee Jones, who is wonderful in Valley of Elah, but the Academy’s motto is likely to be: Don’t remind me of the war.

It would be lovely for the Best Actress envelop to go to Julie Christie and it just might, because life options for the aging are all the fashion at the moment, but the film itself, Away From Her, is a minor affair.

Academy members will almost certainly prefer the retirement treatment in The Savages, featuring Laura Linney, or, if they stretch their limited vocal chords to say Je Ne Regrette Rien, they must choose Marion Cotillard, who dies with bells on in La Vie En Rose.

Finally, Best Supporting Him and Her: a shoo in for the aforementioned pair, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson, who dwarf the roles of their fellow nominees, even the wonderful but minimal Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War and the androgynous Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There.

Those other coveted, pre-Oscar trophies, including the BAFTAs, on Sunday, February 10th, look likely to be even more Brit friendly for the same reason – great Britons in good films, rather than schlock.

Roll on British film.

Filed January 23, 2008.