I’ve already said my piece about how very disappointed I am with this year’s crop of nominees. What’s more, I still haven’t forgiven the Academy for taking the cinematography award from The Tree of Life last year, or for unfairly denying David Fincher and The Social Network their due the year before that. I wish this could be the year when I ignore the awards race entirely, but even a lowly amateur film blogger like myself must hold himself to standards of some kind. For better or worse, the Academy Awards is the closest thing movie geeks have to a “championship game.” It’s arguably the biggest annual event in Hollywood, which means that I’d be remiss not to cover it.
And also, as much as I’m loathe to admit it, I’d be lying to say that I don’t get caught up in who wins and who loses. It’s an old established rule that horse races are only truly addictive when you have a horse to bet on. As someone who’s seen almost all of the Oscar-nominated films this year, you’d better believe I have some horses to bet on.
Today, I’ll be combing through expert opinions and drawing up a set of Oscar predictions so you won’t have to. Of course, there’s a wrinkle this year: Traditionally, Oscar forecasters would be wise to start their final list by looking at the Director’s Guild Awards. Whoever wins top honors at the DGAs will take home Best Director, and the picture that wins Best Director will win Best Picture. Nine times out of ten, that’s how it goes. This year, however, is guaranteed to be that one time when it doesn’t work, since the DGA’s big winner (Ben Affleck) wasn’t even nominated for Best Director. Call it another sign of the Oscars’ growing irrelevance, but that’s a story for another time.
The point is that this is an unusual situation, but I’m going to try my best anyway. I’ve done this twice before and correctly guessed roughly two out of three awards both times. Hopefully, this will be the year I get three out of four. Fingers crossed.
For those of you who are relatively new to the blog, here’s how it works: I put my predictions down in black text with minimal commentary a week before the actual ceremony. On the night of February 24th, I’ll be live-blogging the results and my commentary in red text. When all is said and done, there will be three movies listed for each category: The one that should win, the one that will win, and the one that actually did win.
Here goes nothing:
Best Picture:
Should Win: Beasts of the Southern Wild
Will Win: Argo
Best Director:
Should Win: Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Will Win: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Best Actor:
Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Best Actress:
Should Win: Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Best Supporting Actor:
Should Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Best Supporting Actress:
Should Win: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Will Win: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Best Original Screenplay:
Should Win: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
Will Win: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Should Win: Chris Terrio, Argo
Will Win: Tony Kushner, Lincoln
Best Animated Feature:
Should Win: ParaNorman
Will Win: Wreck-It Ralph
Best Foreign Language Film:
Should Win: No preference
Will Win: Amour
Best Documentary Feature:
Should Win: Searching for Sugar Man
Will Win: Searching for Sugar Man
Best Production Design:
Should Win: Hugh Bateup & Uli Hanisch, Cloud Atlas
Will Win: Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer, Anna Karenina
Best Cinematography:
Should Win: Roger Deakins, Skyfall
Will Win: Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi
Best Costume Design:
Should Win: Eiko Ishioka, Mirror Mirror
Will Win: Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
Best Film Editing:
Should Win: Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg, Zero Dark Thirty
Will Win: William Goldenberg, Argo
Best Makeup:
Should Win: Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Will Win: Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Best Score:
Should Win: Alexandre Desplat, Argo
Will Win: Mychael Danna, Life of Pi
Best Original Song:
Should Win: Adele, “Skyfall”
Will Win: Adele, “Skyfall”
Best Sound Editing:
Should Win: Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton, Life of Pi
Will Win: Paul N.J. Ottoson, Zero Dark Thirty
Best Sound Mixing:
Should Win: Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes, Les Miserables
Will Win: Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes, Les Miserables
Best Visual Effects:
Should Win: Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill, Prometheus
Will Win: Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott, Life of Pi
Best Animated Short:
Should Win: No preference
Will Win: Paperman
Best Documentary Short:
Should Win: No preference
Will Win: Open Heart
Best Live Action Short:
Should Win: No preference
Will Win: Curfew
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Thanks for reading. I hope to see you back at my home blog on Oscar night. Until then, good luck with your betting pool!
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