To be perfectly honest, predicting what I expect to see win at the Oscars this weekend seems dumb this year – dumber than usual, even, because let’s not pretend that this sort of exercise benefits humanity, or even real cinephilia. But it’s fun, and I will continue doing it for that reason.
But back to my point, which is that it’s kind of dumb this year: every category has either a pretty well locked-in obvious frontrunner, or it’s a complete throw-dafrts-at-the-wall guess; “insight” is kind of impossible in this situation, and whoever wins their office pool is going to be lucky more than anything.
I’ve had a couple weak years in a row; just 14/24 last year when 17/24 was the bare minimum anybody should have been able to scrape up. It would be delightful to improve on that, because I do have a nonexistent reputation to uphold.
Best Picture
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
WON: ARGO
Will Win: Argo
Spoiler: Life of Pi
My Pick: Lincoln
Any film you pick, you have to decide which mountain of precedent you’re going to overlook: the fact that Argo couldn’t swing a pre-inked Best Director nod, or that Lincoln hasn’t won a damn thing all season, from anybody. Part of me likes to think that Life of Pi can slide in as the only film with any really plausible path to a broad sweep, and that once voters realise that they’ve checked two boxes for Argo, two for Lincoln, and more for Pi (which at this point is virtually almost assured to win the most Oscars, even if it doesn’t take either of the Big 2 – I feel like it has three in the bag and a great line on two or three others, where Argo‘s absolute best-case scenario is four), they’ll feel silly not going all the way. But it’s a hard category to logic your way out of, and I’m going to go with the fairly recent, bullying evidence of the guild wins for a movie that is, after all, one of the most untroubled paeans to Hollywood saving the day that has been made in decades.
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
WON: ANG LEE
Will Win: David O. Russell
Spoiler: Ang Lee
My Pick: Steven Spielberg
If Picture is tough, Director is a clusterfuck. There’s an argument for predicting every single one of these men, though it is weakest for Zeitlin; my gut instinct is that Haneke will get the consolation prize of Best Original Screenplay, and Spielberg can’t win if his movie doesn’t take Best Picture, whereas Lee and Russell can. And that brings us to the question of whether Lee’s technical accomplishment or Russell’s achievement with actors will end up being the more impressive, and whether the fact that Russell has never won, while Lee and Spielberg have, will matter. And will Russell’s famously mean temper be a problem?
Conventional wisdom, I think, is that Spielberg and Lee are a coinflip away from each other, then Haneke, then Russell; but given the “anything goes” nature of so much of the Oscars this year, I have decided to put my balls out on the chopping block and chance it, assuming that four acting nominations and an Adapted Screenplay nod can’t all be wrong. If you’re using this post to help fill out your office pool this year, here’s the category you absolutely want to break from me, and go with Spielberg.
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight
WON: DANIEL DAY-LEWIS
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Spoiler: Hugh Jackman
My Pick: Daniel Day-Lewis
And now for something completely different: a stone-cold, unyielding lock. Day-Lewis, one of the best living actors in the English language, is going to become the second person with three wins for acting in a leading role, an extraordinary nod towards actually rewarding quality for an Academy that typically doesn’t know what to do about that; more shockingly yet, his three wins are all for what I’d contend are his three best performances. Sometimes, the system works. If Bradley Cooper wins, I will drink myself to death right there in front of the TV I swear to God.
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
WON: JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence
Spoiler: Emmanuelle Riva
My Pick: Emmanuelle Riva
How recently this seemed to be Chastain’s to lose! And then, Zero Dark Thirty collapsed in critical and industry support over the course of January. As many nominations as Silver Linings Playbook received, it’s extremely hard to imagine it losing out completely, and this is undoubtedly its easiest get; besides, Lawrence was the Queen of 2012, and it seems like the right narrative arc that they’d reward her at the end of it. Many people insist that Riva has a good chance, but I frankly think that she needed the two young white Americans to split their support, and that’s just not 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
WON: CHRISTOPH WALTZ
Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones
Spoiler: Robert De Niro
My Pick: Tommy Lee Jones
Certainly the hardest acting category to predict, on the surface; owing at least partially to the fact that all five are previous winners, an unprecedented event in an acting category. Though I feel oddly blissful about reducing it to a Jones/De Niro heat. Waltz just won for very similar, but clearly better, work; Hoffman doesn’t go out of his way to impress you, and the Academy does like show-offs (it’s probably the best of these five performances, but one that isn’t “supporting” according to any definition I care to use). And what, besides “Argo fuck yourself”, is underpinning Arkin’s nomination over, say, John Goodman or Bryan Cranston from the same movie, seems to be a mystery to everybody.
So, Jones vs. De Niro (the two who won the least recently, as a happy bonus); and outside of anyone except for maybe Waltz, Jones has the most chewy, showstopping part, both on the page and as he performs it. I imagine that will be more than enough to surpass a “thank you for making one movie that isn’t excruciatingly shitty, Bobby” career achievement.
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jackie Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
WON: ANNE HATHAWAY
Will Win: Anne Hathaway
Spoiler: A bomb threat forcing the theater to evacuate before this category is announced
My Pick: Anne Hathaway
Easily the year’s dullest set of acting nominees: no, it’s not as predigested as Supporting Actor, but Hathaway and Field are the only ones doing anything like what I like to imagine comes near to award-worthy acting, and Hathaway – who, let’s be honest, got the role that was going to win any decently-cast actress an Oscar – is neither the best supporting actress in her movie (Samantha Barks), nor is she as good here, I am increasingly certain, as she was playing Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. But 2012 was hard as hell on small parts for female actors all along, so it’s not really surprising that this would turn out to be the weak link in the acting categories.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo, by Chris Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild, by Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
Life of Pi, by David Magee
Lincoln, by Tony Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook, by David O. Russell
WON: ARGO
Will Win: Argo
Spoiler: Lincoln
My Pick: Lincoln
It comes down to this: Argo has an easy shot at Picture and Editing, and I don’t have the guts to predict that’s all it walks away with: 61 years have gone by since the last Best Picture winner with only a single other award to its name (The Greatest Show on Earth, which also happens to be one of the worst Best Pictures ever). So I think it picks this one up basically because “you can’t vote it for Best Picture without giving it a screenplay award”, even though the writing is by no means the best part of the movie, and that costs Tony Kushner winning for his immensely literate, layered, well-researched chunk of history given grubby life. I will confess that there is no category where being right will make me nearly this sad.
Best Original Screenplay
Amour, by Michael Haneke
Django Unchained, by Quentin Tarantino
Flight, by John Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom, by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty, by Mark Boal
WON: DJANGO UNCHAINED
Will Win: Amour
Spoiler: Django Unchained
My Pick: Zero Dark Thirty
Thanks for playing, Flight, but not this year. That leaves us with four films, not all equally likely, and each hamstrung by a seemingly insurmountable limitation: Amour is foreign, and dark as hell; Django is violent and flippant and has the N-word, Moonrise is the latest in a long line of idiosyncratic scripts by a filmmaker they haven’t ever wanted to award despite fine chances to do so, and ZDT has the torture thing; also, Boal just won in this category three years ago. I feel like the unexpectedly high number of nominations for Amour speaks to enough enthusiasm for it in the Academy that it can win this as its “real” award above and beyond the ghettoised Foreign Language category; and historically, this has been one of the kinder categories to non-English movies.
Best Cinematography
Anna Karenina (Seamus McGarvey)
Django Unchained (Robert Richardson)
Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)
Lincoln (Janusz Kaminski)
Skyfall (Roger Deakins)
WON: LIFE OF PI
Will Win: Life of Pi
Spoiler: Lincoln
My Pick: Skyfall
My least favorite slate of nominees of 2012; it wasn’t a stellar year for the art form, sure, but surely there were better choices than these? Not prepared to predict a Deakins win, ever again, though surely he’s got to be at least in the running, as pretty as his film is; I’m sticking with the Best Picture nominees, instead, and particularly with the drunken love affair this category has been having with CGI-heavy visual extravaganzas where the cinematography itself is a bit of an afterthought. If Mauro Fiore could win with Avatar, Miranda has to be able to take it.
Best Editing
Argo (William Goldenberg)
Life of Pi (Tim Squyres)
Lincoln (Michael Kahn)
Silver Linings Playbook (Jay Cassidy & Crispin Struthers)
Zero Dark Thirty (Dylan Tichenor & William Goldenberg)
WON: ARGO
Will Win: Argo
Spoiler: Zero Dark Thirty
My Pick: Zero Dark Thirty
On the logic that, if Argo isn’t going to pull a Mutiny on the Bounty win just Best Picture and nothing else, it’s going to have to show up in a few places where it wins by fiat, and this is far and away the likeliest. It’s just not the sort of thing that wins Sound awards, unless the voters literally go for a straight-ticket vote, and Score is the only other “throwaway” category where Argo cropped up.
Best Production Design
Anna Karenina (Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent, and Simon Bright)
Life of Pi (David Gropman, Anna Pinnock)
Lincoln (Rick Carter, Jim Erickson, and Peter T. Frank)
Les Misérables (Eve Stewart)
WON: LINCOLN
Will Win: Life of Pi
Spoiler: Les Misérables
My Pick: Anna Karenina
To be honest, I don’t really have a clue: not The Hobbit, but any of the others seem possible. When in doubt, link it to Best Cinematography in an all-encompassing “Prettiest”.
Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Durran)
Lincoln (Joanna Johnston)
Mirror Mirror (Eiko Ishioka)
Les Misérables (Paco Delgado)
Snow White and the Huntsman (Colleen Atwood)
WON: ANNA KARENINA
Will Win: Anna Karenina
Spoiler: Les Misérables
My Pick: Mirror Mirror
The last time we were here, with Durran having a can’t-lose nomination for a Joe Wright film with Atonement, she lost. So I don’t want to get too excited about the prospects of her being untouchable now. But it’s every inch what this category prefers: glamorous 19th Century costuming that does a lot of heavy-lifting for character psychology and has been given an inordinate place of prominence in the blocking. Also, the fact that I really can’t even decide which of the other four would be the most likely runner-up makes me feel better than I otherwise might, or probably ought to.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables
WON: LES MISÉRABLES
Will Win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Spoiler: Les Misérables
My Pick: Les Misérables
I mean, it can’t be Hitchcock, right? The prosthetics and dwarven hairdos in The Hobbit are so much more pushy and big and most-ey of the nominees, and it’s very likely the only award that the whole trilogy will be in a position to win. Watch it be fucking Hitchcock.
Best Score
Anna Karenina (Dario Marianelli)
Argo (Alexandre Desplat)
Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
Lincoln (John Williams)
Skyfall (Thomas Newman)
WON: LIFE OF PI
Will Win: Life of Pi
Spoiler: Argo
My Pick: Anna Karenina
Beasts of the Southern Wild, one of the few genuinely good scores in a weak year for film music, failing to show up here despite getting into, theoretically, much more competitive races, is goddamn weird, for starters. But let’s not get mired in that kind of thing right now
This could be a place for a “throw something at Argo” award, but it’s certainly not the most distinctive piece of music in the field (thanks to Skyfall, though, it’s also not the least-distinctive). Honestly, I’m running more with what seems to be the consensus of the pundits rather than anything I’m feeling personally, for looking at this category just fills me with a kind of bland, blank hopelessness.
Best Song
From Chasing Ice: “Before My Time”
From Life of Pi: “Pi’s Lullaby”
From Les Misérables: “Suddenly”
From Skyfall: “Skyfall”
From Ted: “Everybody Needs a Best Friend”
WON: “SKYFALL”
Will Win: “Skyfall”
Spoiler: “Pi’s Lullaby”
My Pick: “Skyfall”
This one has all the feeling of a lock to me: all the more so since you know Adele will give an acceptance speech that just makes you want to pick her up like a teddy bear and hug her for hours. Nobody does it better, indeed.
Best Sound Mixing
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Skyfall
WON: LES MISÉRABLES
Will Win: Les Misérables
Spoiler: Skyfall
My Pick: Les Misérables
“Musicals win sound Oscars” is a rule of considerable antiquity, and when the musical in question had an entire ad campaign for its snazzy new method of recording singing live, I think that’s enough to seal it. Besides, love or hate the movie, it had one motherfucker of a deep, textured soundscape. Or, y’know, the big action film could win both sound categories. Argo can only win if it has a 7-for-7 sweep; Lincoln can’t win at all.
Best Sound Editing
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
WON: SKYFALL & ZERO DARK THIRTY (TIE)
Will Win: Skyfall
Spoiler: Life of Pi
My Pick: Zero Dark Thirty
If musicals always win in Sound Mixing, the biggest action film usually wins in Sound Editing, though the animal noises and storm in Life of Pi present a fairly obvious path to victory. I honestly don’t see that there’s another real option besides those two.
Best Visual Effects
The Avengers
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
WON: LIFE OF PI
Will Win: Life of Pi
Spoiler: Um… Prometheus, maybe?
My Pick: Life of Pi
THE lock of the night. I can imagine paths to Day-Lewis or “Skyfall” losing, even Hathaway, but there is no sane reason for this film to miss in this category.
Best Animated Feature
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph
WON: BRAVE
Will Win: Wreck-It Ralph
Spoiler: Brave
My Pick: ParaNorman
Since the moment it opened, everybody in the world seems to have loved Wreck-It Ralph more than I did, and in a year when Pixar is widely held to have underperformed, I don’t see what’s stopping it from winning; if there was any evidence at all of a widespread Academy affection for Tim Burton, I’d think Frankenweenie had any chance in hell, but there is in fact solid evidence to the contrary.
Best Foreign Language Film
Amour (Austria)
Kon-Tiki (Norway)
No (Chile)
A Royal Affair (Denmark)
War Witch (Canada)
WON: AMOUR
Will Win: Amour
Spoiler: War Witch
My Pick: I have not seen all of the nominees
Pop quiz: how many times has a foreign-language film nominated for Best Picture in the same year lost in this category? If you said “zero times”, you win. And, admittedly, that’s with a sample size of three (Z, Life Is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), but I’m not brave enough to bet against it now.
Best Documentary
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man
WON: SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN
Will Win: Searching for Sugar Man
Spoiler: The Invisible War
My Pick: 5 Broken Cameras
Sugar Man is exactly the kind of populist-type documentary that’s super-easy to predict will win, only to have it fall down in the face of a more Serious Message Movie (e.g. Exit Through the Gift Shop losing to Inside Job). And on those grounds, I’ve had The Gatekeepers (about Israeli counter-terrorism) and The Invisible War (about the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military) as some combination of my #1 and #2 in unofficial predictions all along. But then I was recently reminded that this category has been opened up this year, and can be voted on by the whole Academy, not just those who’ve gone to the sanctioned screenings and proved that they have seen all the nominees. Which, I suspect, will make it a lot easier for crowd-pleasers to win. Anyway, it’s worth rolling the dice on.
Best Documentary Short Subject
“Inocente”
“Kings Point”
“Mondays at Racine”
“Open Heart”
“Redemption”
WON: “INOCENTE”
Will Win: “Inocente”
Spoiler: “Mondays at Racine”
I’d heard that these were coming out on iTunes this week; other than “Inocente”, that isn’t at all the case. So I’m flying completely blind here. First step: based on the loglines, “Redemption” sounds like it has way less gravitas than the others, and this category likes gravitas. Out it goes. I’ve heard that “Open Heart” is brainy, artsy, and emotionally remote. Out it goes.
We are thus left with: the homeless teenager movie, the sad old people movie, and the cancer beauty shop movie. Put like that, the homeless teenager movie seems like it has to be a slam dunk, right? Or maybe not. I have exactly a 50% success rate in predicting this category over the last ten years, or just exactly the right figure to be completely useless.
Best Animated Short Subject
“Adam and Dog”
“Fresh Guacamole”
“Head Over Heels”
“Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare”
“Paperman”
WON: “PAPERMAN”
Will Win: “Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare”
Spoiler: “Paperman”
My Pick: “Paperman”
The new rules make this one a bitch, for me: see, for the first time ever, voters don’t have to prove they’ve seen all five of these at a specially sanctioned Academy screening. And that unquestionably gives the two big studio projects a leg-up. I might also point out that the last time this rule was in effect, the result was a whole mess of popular mainstream cartoons winning.
So the question is, does this invalidate my previous rock-solid trick for this category, that my least-favorite nominee always wins? Or, at least has always done so since at least 2006 (the earliest year for which I have seen all five nominees)? I really have no idea, and given that my least-favorite is also one of the two big studio projects, and based on a popular mainstream TV cartoon series, I feel awfully darn good about going out on something of a short limb for “The Longest Daycare”. Also, I feel like it’s the obvious title to pick for the voter who hasn’t seen any of these (“Hey, I like The Simpsons, this was probably good”). But honestly, this year I’m adopting a “wait and see” stance, and I will get back to predicting it in earnest next February.
Best Live-Action Short Subject
“Asad”
“Buzkashi Boys”
“Curfew”
“Death of a Shadow”
“Henry”
WON: “CURFEW”
Will Win: “Asad”
Spoiler: “Buzkashi Boys”
My Pick: “Death of a Shadow”
With Amour right there in so many categories, I think the “old people losing their mind” contingent has its year all set to go, so “Henry” – easily my least favorite of the five – is probably out. The biggest question in my mind is whether “Asad” and “Buzkashi Boys” split the vote, being about very nearly the same topic – children in miserable conditions in foreign countries – in which case “Curfew” seems easily the likeliest beneficiary (there is a recent, though small, tradition of quirky American films landing here, and it’s the only nominee in English); or whether “Asad” and “Buzkashi Boys” merely take the #1 and #2 slots. I’m inclined to give “Asad” theedge, mostly because of the overt way it telegraphs its Historic Importance at the very end of the film.