This, I believe, is the fourth year I’m doing Oscar predictions. It has been the most confusing year for me trying to put this together. I had made a couple of double-predix compiling this and midway decided to grow some nads and make solid picks.
*I will use an asterisk against the pick’s name to denote who I think should have won if they got nominated.
Best Picture
Who Will Win – Argo
Who Should Win – Silver Linings Playbook
Who Was Robbed – The Master, Marvel’s The Avengers and *The Dark Knight Rises
Argo has swept most of the last precursor awards and now leads the season with most wins. Silver Linings Playbook has won very few but the actors help make it one of the year’s finest. In my entire life, TDKR is the only film I’ve seen get applause at almost every screening I went to.
Best Director
Who Will Win – Michael Haneke (Amour)
Who Should Win – David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Who Was Robbed – *Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
I cut out Spielberg for Who Will Win because I remembered that rationale doesn’t really prevail when the choice down to a vote. I am ready to be wrong on this one (and I’m almost certain I am). I pick Russell because he directed the year’s best ensemble cast.
Best Actor
Who Will Win – Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)
Who Should Win – Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Who Was Robbed – John Hawkes (The Sessions), Jack Black (Bernie) and Mathew McConaughey (Killer Joe)
Day Lewis was good but he wasn’t as immersed as I have seen him in other films. In There Will Be Blood, I believed he was a turn-of-the-century oilman. On this film, I thought he was playing Lincoln rather well.
Best Actress
Who Will Win – Emanuelle Riva (Amour)
Who Should Win – Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Who Was Robbed – Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea)
This is one I want to be wrong on. No one deserves it more than Lawrence. She not only did great work on the film, but she has ran the best Oscar campaign.
Best Supporting Actor
Who Will Win – Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Who Should Win – Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Who Was Robbed – Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained) and Mathew McConaughey (Bernie)
I had previously picked Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) because in a film that is looks like self-appraisal for America, he is the one who gets things done. But De Niro, an actor I’ve never been a fan of, made me root for him.
Best Supporting Actress
Who Will Win – Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Who Should Win – Anne Hathaway (Les Miserable)
Who Was Robbed – Ann Dowd (Compliance) and Shirley MacLaine (Bernie)
LOCK!
Best Original Screenplay
Who Will Win – Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty)
Who Should Win – Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Who Was Robbed – Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths) and Rian Johnson (Looper), Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass (Jeff, Who Lives At Home)
Zero Dark Thirty will not walk away empty-handed. I feel like this is the category that could go either way because a best picture must win either this or adapted screenplay. And I’m 100% sure that it will definitely be an adapted screenplay that wins it.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Who Will Win – Chris Terrio (Argo)
Who Should Win – David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Who Was Robbed – Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (The Avengers) and Skip Hollandsworth and Richard Linklater (Bernie), Tracy Letts (Killer Joe)
Major contenders for picture have been left out of director. Nevertheless, one might still win the big award (not Zero Dark Thirty). And this will be the best indication. What this means is, we will have the chance to know the Oscar winner earlier than usual this time round. Other years, you have to wait to see who gets director to be sure (and that is announced just before Best Pic). This year, whoever wins this, wins best picture. This is announced way earlier.
Best Animated Feature
Who Will Win – Wreck-It Ralph
Who Should Win – Wreck-It Ralph
Who Was Robbed – The Secret World of Arriety
LOCK! But don’t count out Aardman’s The Pirates: The Band of Misfits.
Best Documentary
Who Will Win – Searching for Sugarman
Who Should Win – The Gatekeepers
Who Was Robbed – The Central Park Five
I liked Searching for Sugarman but I don’t want it to win. My pal, Xola, assures me that it will because it has a happy ending. I sadly agree.
Best Foreign Language Film
Who Will Win – Amour
Who Should Win – Amour
Who Was Robbed – Holy Motors and Nairobi Half Life
LOCK! No contest.
Best Cinematography
Who Will Win – Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi)
Who Should Win – Robert Richardson (Django Unchained)
Who Was Robbed – Roman Vasyanov (End Of Watch), Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight Rises), Seamus McGarvey (Marvel’s The Avengers) and Mihai Malaimare Jr. (The Master)
I had picked both Django and ‘Pi but I had to let Django on. ‘Pi was less creative but it seems to have been more challenging to shoot.
Best Original Score
Who Will Win – John Williams (Lincoln)
Who Should Win – Mychael Danna (Life of Pi)
Who Was Robbed – Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Rises) and *Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Beasts of the Southern was pretty good, but the one category where it totally would have trumped everyone is for the score award. Other than Zimmer’s, it was the most memorable one. And on a year that had dull scores, you’d think it would have at least made the nomination.
Best Visual Effects
Who Will Win – Life of Pi
Who Should Win – Life of Pi
Who Was Robbed – The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spiderman
It was going to be a challenge training a live tiger to do all the acting stunts and CGI came to the rescue. The only way to make the audience to understand the danger ‘Pi lived through is making the danger as realistic as possible. It was so realistic I only remembered the tiger was a (really well made) fake when it swept the Visual Effects Society Awards.
The most important thing is, I’m just hoping for a Silver Linings Playbook sweep!
cinymou 