After much deliberation, here are our final picks:

Best Picture: Brokeback Mountain
Best Director: Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz
Best Original Screenplay: Crash
Best Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain
Best Foreign Film: Tsotsi
Best Documentary Feature: March of the Penguins
Best Animated Feature Film: Wallace & Gromit
Best Art Direction: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Cinematography: Brokeback Mountain
Best Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Documentary Short: God Sleeps in Rwanda
Best Film Editing: Crash
Best Makeup: The Chronicles of Narnia
Best Music - Original Score: Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Music - Original Song: Crash
Best Short Film (Animated): One Man Band
Best Short Film (Live Action): The Runaway
Best Sound Editing: King Kong
Best Sound Mixing: Walk the Line
Best Visual Effects: King Kong

Will Win: I did not love Brokeback Mountain. There, I said it. It was good - not amazing. I liken Brokeback Mountain to the English Patient. When I watched both of them, I recognized that I was seeing a good film with great cinematography. However, I also recognized that my seat was becoming increasingly uncomfortable because I was ready for the film to end. I left the theatre thinking, “That will win the best picture Oscar” not “Seeing that movie has changed how I see the world.”

I get it. Jack and Ennis are in love and are forced to deny their love by their own and society’s fear of homosexuals. This is a great message, but it didn’t need to be told over two hours and thirteen minutes. The movie is based on an Annie Proulx short story, yet, it has been stretched out so much that it has lost resemblance to the original. I think Brokeback could have easily eliminated a half hour of Ennis and Jack staring at each other, and staring into space. Nevertheless, I still have no doubt that Brokeback will take home the Oscar. Brokeback will win for the same reason that Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner won in 1967. Brokeback takes a lighting rod topic and makes it palpable for a mass audience. Like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, it also does so in a unique and somewhat thought-provoking way.

Should Win: Capote or Good Night, and Good Luck

Your recent winners for Best Cinematography include The Aviator, LOTR: Return of the King, The Road to Perdition, LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Go a little further back and you have Titanic, The English Patient and Braveheart. What does that tell you? When it comes to cinematography, the Academy loves something big. Sure, Road to Perdition won a few years ago, but that had more to do with nominee Conrad Hall’s death that year than anything else. Among this year’s nominees (Batman Begins, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Memoirs of a Geisha, and The New World), Brokeback clearly has that sweeping epic, big movie feel. After all, it’s the frontrunner for Best Picture. As you can tell from the list, this is a category that matches up with Best Picture frequently. Good Night and Good Luck won raves for its stylish black and white cinematography, but remember a few years ago, LOTR beat out The Man Who Wasn’t There in a close race. Geisha just won the ASC award, a precursor, but we believe that movie’s best chances lie in the art direction and costume design categories. It’s rare for a movie to win cinematography without a Best Picture nomination. Therefore, Oscarfrenzy predicts Rodrigo Prieto to make a trip to the podium for Brokeback Mountain for Best Cinematography.