Last year we sided with the musical candidate and crapped out when voters went for the big black ape instead of the man in black. Fool us once, shame on the Oscars; fool us twice, shame on the Oscars. And even though the IMDB is, for whatever reason, declaring Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest this year’s winner ahead of schedule, we’re still going to hedge our bets with the one nominee in this line-up that doesn’t rely on gunfire or sabre-rattling. Just as Diana Ross herself forced Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers to push their signature Chic sound well behind her vocals, it couldn’t have been easy for the audio technicians to crank up Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, and Jaime Foxx’s voices loud enough to cover the film’s anemic instrumental arrangements. Unless it turns out the IMDB accidentally reported a leak from within the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the most likely alternate winner is probably Flags of Our Fathers, which is not only painfully obvious in its use of muffled audio cues to trigger flashbacks, but also has the benefit of not being up against Letters from Iwo Jima in this category.
Will Win: Dreamgirls
Should Win: Apocalypto
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