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Here we go folks, it’s Oscar time! There are 24 statues up
for grabs, and since most of you probably only care about five of them, allow
me to suggest how to place your bets for the other nineteen. As always, the
goal is to go 20 for 24, and one of these years, it’s gonna happen. With every
race, I’ve tried to include an alternate prediction, because there’s nothing
quite like having my back-up logic to lean on when you disagree with my primary
logic.
In years past, I’ve also included a “Who Got Screwed?”
section for the major categories, but these nominations were so bizarre and so
much has been written about what went wrong and why that I think it’s time to
finally turn the focus on who was actually nominated.
Best Picture
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
What Should Win? People tend to delude themselves that Best Picture ought to go to the
most important film of the year, but that rarely happens and it’s not even a
fair request. It’s too difficult to accurately measure the importance of films
which have mostly only been released a few months prior. Rather, it’s generally
understood that the Best Picture Oscar isn’t a measure of importance, but some
amalgamation of artistic achievement, technical achievement, and entertainment
achievement (with a dash heaping of office politics thrown in). While
history might prove Zero Dark Thirty to be the most important
film of 2012, the dust (and the truth) needs some time to settle on that one.
But Argo nails
every box on the checklist, and does so without ever feeling like Oscar bait.
While Lincoln drags at times, Silver
Linings Playbook often feels too
light-hearted, and Amour tries so
damn hard not to entertain you, Argo just gets everything right.
What Will Win?
I started saying by the end of October that Argo would win Best
Picture, and in November I even wrote a long piece about why. I stuck with that
prediction until the Oscar nominations came out and Ben Affleck was
inexplicably left off of the Best Director’s ballot, seemingly crushing all
hopes for a Best Picture win. (Only one time in the last 80 years has a movie
won Best Picture without a Best Director nomination, Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.) But a funny thing happened on the way to
the Kodak Theater: Ben Affleck’s Best Director snub has galvanized
support/enthusiasm/sympathy for Argo like nothing anyone could have imagined. In the last two months, Argo
has won the top prize from the Golden
Globes, the Critic’s Choice Awards, the Writer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild,
the Producer’s Guild, the Screen Actor’s Guild, and the British Academy of Film
and Television Arts (BAFTA). For those keeping track at home, that’s
everything. That’s every single Oscar precursor that “matters.” Six weeks after
looking dead in the water, Argo now seems virtually unbeatable. But having said
that, a Lincoln upset isn’t out
of the question, and as far as underdogs go, Steven Spielberg is a pretty
formidable one.
Best Director
Michael Haneke – Amour
Ang Lee – Life of Pi
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Who Should Win?
Ben Affleck. Oh, what’s that, he’s not nominated? Fine then, give it to Kathryn
Bigelow. Wait, what? Ummm… Can I take a mulligan? Seriously though, without
Affleck and Bigelow, I don’t think this race even has a “should win” anymore.
While Spielberg is a perennially deserving master, I don’t find Lincoln to
be among his best work. Life of Pi is a
great achievement, but unfair as this may be, Ang Lee just doesn’t feel like a
director that should have two Oscars (only four living directors do). David O.
Russell conjures amazing performances from his actors, but Silver Linings
Playbook isn’t a film that offered many
technical challenges. Haneke is in the same boat as Russell, and Zeitlin will
probably be wearing a tux this weekend for the first time since senior prom. So
without a “right” answer, it depends what you specifically want to award.
Spielberg’s career is most deserving of more recognition, Lee is probably most
deserving for the film he’s actually nominated for, and Russell leads the “Guys
who ought to win an Oscar at some point” sweepstakes. I’ll go with Ang Lee,
because his film was the best, and careers aren’t supposed to matter (even
though they absolutely do).
Who Will Win?
This is the biggest WTF race the Oscars have seen in a long time, and because
of that, it seems like the most obvious category for an upset. The safe bet is Steven Spielberg. Some prognosticators are going with Lee, but I don’t give him much
chance for the following reason: If voters want to pick a guy who hasn’t won an
Oscar, they can’t vote for Lee, and if voters don’t care about picking a guy
who’s already won, they’ll probably vote for Spielberg. In other words, I feel
like Lee will be the first guy that people decide not to vote for
(well, after Zeitlin, who has completely redefined the concept of “happy just
to be there”). But I think Russell and Haneke both have excellent chances.
Actors represent the largest voting body, and they love Russell, while the
always-geriatric academy might really respond to Amour. I still think this is Spielberg’s race to lose, but
there’s significant upset potential, and never underestimate how much people
don’t like voting for someone that’s already won twice. Unless it’s Daniel
Day-Lewis.
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
Denzel Washington – Flight
Who Should Win? Okay,
don’t hate me. I promise I have nothing bad to say about Daniel Day-Lewis’s
performance, which really was wonderful. But I also never felt like I was
seeing a performance I would always remember. In The Master,
that’s exactly what I got with Joaquin Phoenix. I say this completely devoid of hyperbole: That was one of the ten
best acting performances I have seen in my life. Short of Robert De Niro
channeling Jake La Motta, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance so raw and
primal. With Method Acting, the key is becoming the character.
But with Phoenix’s performance in The Master, he made me feel like that character was locked up inside of him all
along, waiting to be un-caged. If only he weren’t considered mildly crazy, he
might be able to get a few votes.
Who Will Win? Back
in September, I saw The Master with my cousin Jordon, which
prompted a conversation between us about the very early stages of the Best
Actor race. At the time I thought John Hawkes would win for The Sessions (and it’s a tragic oversight that he wasn’t
nominated). Lincoln was still at
least a month away from even its first critics screening, but Jordon was
convinced that Daniel Day-Lewis would win, because he was just too good an
actor not to win an Oscar for a role like that. And I went on a tirade telling
Jordon that if there was one thing I could absolutely promise, it’s that Daniel
Day-Lewis had no chance of
winning another Best Actor Oscar, no matter how good Lincoln was. No one had ever won Best Actor three times, and
no one ever would, I said. I gave him my guarantee. Well Jordon, five months
later I’m finally ready to admit I was wrong. In a few days, Daniel
Day-Lewis will become the first person to win a third Best Actor
Oscar. You have my guarantee.
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts – The Impossible
Who Should Win?
This is the highest quality Best Actress race I can ever remember seeing, and
Chastain, Lawrence, and Riva all could have won in most any other year. Those
are three monumental performances that should all be remembered by history. For
the last month I’ve been struggling with whom I think is more deserving between
Lawrence and Chastain, never even considering that Amour would be
a game-changer when I finally saw it last week. Emmanuelle Riva was a revelation. Spotlighted by the long unbroken
takes that Michael Haneke likes to use, Riva makes you lose all realization not
just that you’re watching an acting performance, but that you’re even watching
a dramatic film. Amour feels like a documentary at times, and
it’s because Riva’s portrayal feels so real.
Who Will Win?
Like Best Director, this is a category that I really think could go any of
three ways, with Lawrence, Chastain, and Riva all having a great chance.
Lawrence won the SAG award and is probably the front-runner, but I just have a
weird feeling that Emmanuelle Riva
will win. There’s going to be an upset somewhere in the major categories, and
I’m betting this is where it’s going to happen.
Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin – Argo
Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained
Who Should Win?
Five great films, five great actors, five Oscar winners, five wonderful
performances. This is a tough category that doesn’t even seem to have a
favorite. Figuring out who’s most deserving requires picking lots of nits, but
here goes nothing. I’ll rule out Arkin and Waltz first because their
performances seem largely to be the product of great and witty dialogue. And I
just can’t totally get behind De Niro because his performance is a little too
reminiscent of Meet the Parents. It’s a tough call for me between
Hoffman and Jones, but while Hoffman often gets overshadowed in The Master by Joaquin Phoenix, I think Jones has the single best
scene in Lincoln, a scene where
even the great dialogue felt as though it could only be uttered by Tommy Lee
Jones.
Who Will Win? This
would be a lot easier to pick if Tommy Lee Jones hadn’t made that face at
the Golden Globes. If he didn’t seem so unenthused by awards season he would probably
be more of a front-runner. But despite winning the SAG award (where he
no-showed), Oscar voters don’t like rewarding the indifferent, so this race is
wide open. I don’t think Waltz will win because his international career is
just two nascent to already be awarded two Oscars, and the blahness of De
Niro’s last decade may turn some voters off. (Plus he already has two Oscars,
though as discussed with Spielberg and Day-Lewis, that might not matter as much
as it used to.) Arkin’s role probably doesn’t have enough weight behind it
compared to Hoffman and Jones. As for Hoffman, I just don’t know if enough
voters will like The Master to reward
it. While Jones’ indifference to awards season will probably cost him votes, I
don’t think it will cost him enough to lose. And Tommy Lee Jones
has been one of Hollywood’s best supporting actors for 25 years, so winning
this category twice seems well-deserved.
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – The Master
Sally Field – Lincoln
Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Jacki Weaver – Silver Linings Playbook
Who Should Win?
This is the category this year that I can’t seem to garner much enthusiasm for,
partly because it seems like a foregone conclusion and partly because none of
the performances really wowed me. Field was good, but her scenes were the
weakest in Lincoln and I often couldn’t wait for them to end.
Weaver gave the fourth-best performance in her own movie and the nomination
seemed like a stretch. Helen Hunt’s performance was physically daring, but
rewarding her for The Sessions seems
wrong when John Hawkes clearly gave the film’s best performance and didn’t even
get a nomination. And Amy Adams gave the most traumatizing hand job in
cinematic history. I guess that leaves Anne Hathaway, who dies
fifteen minutes into a nearly three-hour movie, but is still the most memorable
part.
Who Will Win?
Some people think Sally Field can upset here, but she’s only been nominated
twice before and won both times. Winning three Oscars on three nominations just
ain’t gonna happen. If anyone can beat Anne Hathaway, it’s probably Amy Adams, who feels due at this
point (this is her fourth nomination). But her role just isn’t showy enough,
while Hathaway has the benefit of being the only person on screen during the
film’s best sequence. And she nails it.
Best Original Screenplay
Amour – Michael
Haneke
Django Unchained – Quentin
Tarantino
Flight – John Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom –
Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty – Mark
Boal
Prediction: While
all of these screenplays have their attributes, this race has to be Boal all
the way. His screenplay combines incredible research, snappy dialogue, three
hours worth of high stakes and suspense, and an unforgettable main character.
Despite the controversy surrounding the film and the veracity of the research, Mark
Boal still won the Writer’s Guild award,
and he should be recognized in a relatively weak year for this category.
(Partially because the great Looper was snubbed of a nomination.)
But Amour could be lurking for an upset
if too many Academy members are turned off by Zero Dark Thirty.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo – Chris Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Lucy Alibar & Benh
Zeitlin
Life of Pi – David
Magee
Lincoln – Tony
Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook –
David O. Russell
Prediction: While
Magee, Russell, and Alibar/Zeitlin all did fine jobs, this is a two-man race
between Kushner and Terrio. Having never written an adapted screenplay myself,
I can’t tell you with certainty which author faced a greater challenge. Terrio
took a magazine article and fleshed it out into a two-hour movie, while Kushner
started with a 944-page book and had to whittle it down to 150 minutes of
screen time. Even though the challenges are wildly different—one focused on
addition while the other on subtraction—both authors created wonderful work out
of unenviable starting points. But while Tony Kushner’s Lincoln dialogue
was nothing short of stunning, the screenplay’s structure was a little suspect
at times. Chris Terrio’s Argo script
was perfect in both respects. Terrio beat out Kushner at the WGA Awards, and I
expect the same here.
Best Animated Film
Brave – Mark Andrews
and Brenda Chapman
Frankenweenie – Tim
Burton
ParaNorman – Chris
Butler and Sam Fell
The Pirates! Band of Misfits – Peter Lord and Jeff
Newitt
Wreck-It Ralph – Rich
Moore
Prediction: Usually
when Pixar is in this race, the other nominees can just stay home. But Brave
is atypical of Pixar (it feels more like a Disney animated princess
movie, and isn’t especially original), and Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph conjures all of the creativity and magic we’re used
to seeing from Pixar. Telling the story of an arcade game villain who
desperately wants to be seen as the good guy, Wreck-It Ralph is the best animated film since
2010’s Toy Story 3.
Best Documentary Film
5 Broken Cameras –
Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
The Gatekeepers –
Dror Moreh
How to Survive a Plague
– David France
The Invisible War –
Kirby Dick
Searching For Sugarman
– Malik Bendjelloul
Prediction: Unfortunately
I’ve only seen Searching For Sugarman, but that appears to be the
front-runner, and deservedly so. The story of Rodriguez, a failed Detroit
singer-songwriter from the early 1970’s who, thirty years later, discovered he
has millions of fans in South Africa, Searching For Sugarman is a wonderful feel-good story
that truly is stranger than
fiction. But don’t count out The Gatekeepers, a film about Israeli secret service agents that won
rave reviews on the festival circuit and should be opening domestically soon.
Best Foreign Language Film
Amour (Austria) –
Michael Haneke
Kon-Tiki (Norway) –
Joachim Ronning and Espen
Sandberg
No (Chile) – Pablo
Larrain
A Royal Affair
(Denmark) – Nikolaj Arcel
War Witch (Canada) –
Kim Nguyen
Prediction: This
category often has wonky results because it isn’t voted on by the Academy at
large. Rather, it’s voted on by a small sub set of the Academy who attends
special screenings of the nominated films. Because the voting body is much
smaller, it’s much more prone to strange results that feel out of line with
popular opinion. It also tends to be an incredibly old voting body, which is
why a fantastical film like Pan’s Labyrinth was upset in this
race six years ago. But Amour
is probably so well regarded that it’s upset-proof, and its subject
matter shouldn’t have problems appealing to older voters. But even though I
know it has no chance, I’ll be rooting for Kon-Tiki, which I saw in Toronto last fall and is absolutely
wonderful.
Best Cinematography
Anna Karenina –
Seamus McGarvey
Django Unchained –
Robert Richardson
Life of Pi – Claudio
Miranda
Lincoln – Janusz
Kaminski
Skyfall – Roger
Deakins
Prediction: Tarantino
films tend not to win any technical categories, Lincoln was
likely too dark and enclosed, and Anna Karenina might not be widely enough seen among the voters. Some people are
predicting Life of Pi here, but I
have a hard time imagining a movie that relied so heavily on CGI being awarded
for photography. Without a nomination for The Master (which really did have the year's best cinematography), that leaves Skyfall,
which is not only the most visually resplendent Bond film ever created (seriously,
watch that Shanghai sequence again), it’s also the sentimental favorite to
win. Cinematographer Roger Deakins has been nominated nine previous times and
never won (and sometimes, as with Fargo and No Country for Old Men,
he lost despite being the alleged front-runner). Who knows how many voters
actually consider this stuff, but anyone that does will also be aware that
Kaminski has already won twice and Richardson has won three times. Here’s
hoping the tenth time will be the charm for Roger Deakins.
Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Mirror Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsman
Prediction: It’s
worth remembering in categories like this that even though the nominees are
chosen solely by the costume designers and visual artists in the Academy, the
winners are voted on by everyone. That means that most of the people voting
won’t have seen Mirror Mirror or Snow White, so they’re out. And because most of the people
voting do not, in fact, know a thing about costume design, the winner tends to
just be the most opulent looking of the bunch. And that means that Anna
Karenina should have the
clear edge. I know I just said that a lot of voters might not have seen it, but
as long as they at least caught the trailer, it should catch their vote.
Best Editing
Argo – William
Goldenberg
Life of Pi – Tim
Squyres
Lincoln – Michael
Kahn
Silver Linings Playbook –
Jay Cassidy and Crispin
Struthers
Zero Dark Thirty –
Dylan Tichenor and William
Goldenberg
Prediction: Williams
Goldenberg deserves some kind of Super Oscar for editing the two best films of
the year, both of which are incredible achievements in pacing and suspense.
Since that’s pretty unlikely (though not impossible; he could tie with
himself!), I’ll just be happy if he wins. But for which film? Argo seems more likely, because Zero
Dark Thirty is three hours long, and some
people view that (unfairly, I might add) as weakness in editing.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
Prediction: I’m
still trying to get over the fact that Cloud Atlas wasn’t
nominated here, but whatever. As with Costume Design, it’s useful to remember
that most of the people voting for this don’t know a thing about make-up, and
therefore bigger equals better. That’s why I don’t think Les Miserables will win, because the actors mostly just look dirty.
Two of the three Lord of the Rings films
won this category, so The Hobbit
is probably the front-runner. But I think the achievement of making Anthony
Hopkins look like Hitchcock is the most impressive of the bunch, and Academy members
love making nods to Hollywood with their votes.
Best Production Design
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Prediction: I’m
ruling out Life of Pi for the same reason I ruled it out in
cinematography—the CGI does too much of the work. And people probably disliked The
Hobbit too much to vote for it. Anna
Karenina, assuming
enough people watched it, should have the edge for its intricate stage-like set
maneuvering, easily the only most impressive part of the movie. But both
Lincoln and Les
Miserables have much more overall support,
and either one could win here.
Best Visual Effects
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Marvel’s The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
Prediction: Say
it with me kids: The whole Academy votes for this, and most of them don’t
know a damn thing about visual effects. Good, now that we got that
out of the way, we can scratch off every nominee that isn’t Life of Pi, because there’s no way anyone in
the Academy over 55 (which is most of them) saw those other four movies.
Best Original Score
Anna Karenina – Dario
Marianelli
Argo – Alexandre
Desplat
Life of Pi – Mychael
Danna
Lincoln – John
Williams
Skyfall – Thomas
Newman
Prediction: Voters
are probably sick of Williams (he’s won five times), and Marianelli will likely
fall prey to a film that’s just too low profile. Desplat (fifth nomination, no
wins) and Newman (eleventh nomination, no wins) are both immensely talented,
respected, and deserving, but I can’t help thinking Danna is the favorite.
People often associate scores with how much a film emotionally resonates, and Life
of Pi is probably the
leader of the pack in that regard. I’d be thrilled if Desplat or Newman wins,
but I don’t expect them to.
Best Original Song
“Before My Time” (Chasing Ice) – J. Ralph
“Everybody Needs a Best Friend” (Ted) – Walter
Murphy and Seth MacFarlane
“Pi’s Lullaby” (Life of Pi) – Mychael Danna and
Bombay Jayashri
“Skyfall” (Skyfall) –
Adele and Paul Epworth
“Suddenly” (Les Miserables) – Claude-Michel
Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer, and
Alain Boublil
Prediction: Would
you believe that a Bond movie has never won an Oscar for Best
Original Song? Seems impossible, right? And of the 22 previous films, only
three even received nominations in this category—“Live and Let Die” was first,
followed by “Nobody Does It Better” and “For Your Eyes Only.” (How classics
like “Goldfinger” and “You Only Live Twice” didn’t even get nominated should go
a long way towards explaining how screwed up this category has always been.)
Anyway, as much fun as it would be to see Seth MacFarlane win an Oscar while
he’s hosting the show, it’s time for 007 to finally win this Oscar after fifty
years in the film business. And Adele
is the perfect winner, considering she’s the first British artist to record a
Bond Theme since Duran Duran in 1985.
Best Sound Editing
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Prediction: What’s
fun about the Sound categories is that no one knows a freaking thing about
them, and they basically only exist to ruin your Oscar pool. I’m picking Skyfall here because everyone loves James
Bond. Sadly, that’s as much logic as I can put into this one.
Best Sound Mixing
Argo
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Prediction: Apparently
people like Les Miserables
for this category because the sound mixing involved combining the
studio sung parts with the live acting sung parts. Sounds good to me!
Best Animated Short Film
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head Over Heels
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”
Paperman
Prediction: The
short film categories are nice, because they’re voted on by a small group that
attends the screenings, and because they’re almost all by first-time filmmakers
the votes tend to be totally devoid of politics or agendas. Presumably, people
vote purely on taste, because what else is there to go on? So let’s predict
taste! I’m excited, I don’t think we’ve tried this yet. I’ve seen Adam and
Dog on a few sets of predictions, but I found it boring. Fresh
Guacamole was weird, brief, and slight, so
no. The Simpsons are always fun,
but they’re played out and this is a category about originality. Paperman
was sweet, but not as sweet as Head
over Heels, which
was beautiful and incredibly
creative.
Best Documentary Short Film
Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption
Prediction: I
could see this going any of three ways: Inocente is about a
fifteen year-old homeless immigrant trying to become an artist, King’s Point
is about a retirement community, and Mondays
at Racine is about a salon that helps
chemotherapy patients. All are worthy, but Mondays at Racine feels like the one with the broadest
appeal.
Best Live Action Short Film
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow
Henry
Prediction: Henry
and Buzkashi Boys were both
on the overbearing and boring side (not good for a short film). Asad was quite good, but a little too underdeveloped and
quaintly resolved. I was really impressed with the artistry and production
design of Death of a Shadow, and
I’ll bet we’ll hear from that filmmaker again. But I expect Curfew to win, and only partly because it
has the best suicide bowling alley dance sequence of the year. I would
absolutely go see a feature-length version of this film.
And that's it! I'll see
you again next year when I guarantee that Daniel Day-Lewis will
not win a fourth Oscar.
