First things first, did anyone else watch the nominations live? Were you as enchanted by Seth MacFarlane as I was? And his scintillating Hitler joke? Ah well, it was way the hell early in Los Angeles, so maybe he was just sleepy. If I start drinking right now, maybe I’ll be drunk enough to deal with him by the time his hosting duties at the Oscar ceremony roll around in six weeks.
Second thought: we just went from the most wide-open race in years to a rout for Lincoln, unless Fox can somehow push Life of Pi through at the tippy-top. The extended post-nomination phase suddenly seems like an awful, awful idea.
Some housekeeping: I went 88/122 in my predictions, 78/107 excluding the shorts, and 34/44 in the Big 8, which is not that shabby considering how pretty much nobody saw that Director slate coming. This, anyway, is what I tell myself through my tears.
Best Picture
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Lincoln
My predictions: 8/9, though I only predicted 8 total
Missed: Amour
If the wacky new rules for Best Picture means that there are just going to be nine instead of ten, they should probably go with ten. Looking back over that list, it just really hits home how much I was not excited by the 2012 movie year.
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
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Steven Spielberg
My predictions: 2/5
Missed: Haneke, Russell, Zeitlin
Wow, way to make the Best Picture race less interesting. Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow missing here are, incontestably, the two big shocks of the nominations, and Affleck’s absence in particular means that Lincoln is going to have a fairly unchallenged run through the whole of awards night. It is, I guess, hard to argue on principal with Michael Haneke having a Best Director nomination to his credit, though Amour is officially drifiting into “most overrated of the year” territory. Still, the Academy throwing this much love at a foreign film is pretty damn special, have to give them credit there.
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Cooper
Man, “Oscar Nominee Bradley Cooper”. That’s going to take a couple of weeks before I can say it without sour taste in my mouth
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
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Jennifer Lawrence
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: Riva, Wallis
All kinds of records in this category! And good for Riva, who had a lot to overcome to get there (I am, speaking privately you know, deeply uncomfortable with Wallis getting nominated on both aesthetic and moral grounds – throw a 9-year-old on the red carpet, why don’t you? – but if folks loved the movie, they loved the movie). I guess I need to stop dicking around and see Silver Linings Playbook, because that’s what makes the difference between this being a generally great and a generally average slate.
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
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Tommy Lee Jones
My predictions: 5/5
Best part of nomination morning: Emma Stone snidely observing, one at at time, that all of these people have previously won.
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jackie Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Anne Hathaway
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: Adams, Weaver
Find me the person predicting Weaver, I will show you the King of the Oscar Predictors. They LOVED SLP, didn’t they? It is the first film to land in all four acting categories since Reds, they tell me.
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
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Lincoln
My predictions: 5/5
Not much to say here. Weird how all of a sudden Russell looks like a bigger threat to Kushner than Terrio.
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
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Zero Dark Thirty
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Flight
And isn’t also weird how Amour and ZDT now feel like they’re neck and neck for the win?
Best Cinematography
Anna Karenina/i> (Seamus McGarvey)
Django Unchained (Robert Richardson)
Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)
Lincoln (Janusz Kaminski)
Skyfall (Roger Deakins)
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Life of Pi
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Anna Karenina
So, The Master could sneak into Best Supporting Actress and not here? Lame, professional cinematographers in the Academy. Very lame. Especially in favor of the not-much that McGarvey was up to.
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)
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Lincoln
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Life of Pi
Michael Kahn has just taken the record for most nominations in this category, previously a three-way tie; and given how the other categories shook out, I fully expect him to end up taking the record for most wins next month, currently a four-way tie. Weird that Zero Dark Thirty ended up here and not Best Director: who’d have thought the editors had better taste?
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)
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Lincoln
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: The Hobbit, Life of Pi
Really, The Hobbit? That one came out of the clear blue sky. Not even that it’s unworthy, just that it feels that half of the job was in re-creating sets that somebody else designed a decade ago. Also, we now know, from Pi: this branch is no longer even slightly afraid of digital sets, which I had taken to be a real possibility.
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)
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Anna Karenina
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Snow White and the Huntsman
Hooray for the late, dearly missed Eiko Ishioka! And now we know who I’ll be rooting for in earnest on the night of the awards. Both Snow White films is, honestly, a huge surprise to me.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Hitchcock
My predictions: 2/3
Missed: Hitchcock
I believe my exact phrase was, “I do rather strenuously doubt that the drama-school chintz of Hitchcock has a prayer, so now watch it take a nomination and go all the way to a win”. Always the tasteless pranksters, the make-up branch.
Best Score
Anna Karenina (Dario Marianelli)
Argo (Alexandre Desplat)
Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
Lincoln (John Williams)
Skyfall (Thomas Newman)
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Life of Pi
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Skyfall
Ah hell, you know, forever and ever, I was thinking, “they like Newman, I be Skyfall gets in,” and then when I published my predictions, I choked. I would not, however, have been five/five if I went that direction. Anyway, in what has been the worst year in my memory for original film scores – the only one worth a damn having been deemed ineligible, anyway – I guess this is as good a set of five as any. Given the general Beasts of the Southern Wild love, I’m surprised it missed out here.
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”
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: “Skyfall”
My predictions: 2/5
Missed: Chasing Ice, Life of Pi, Ted
What the hell just happened? What’s a Chasing Ice? And Ted? Fuck off. Seriously, this category needs to be stopped. They need to burn it with fire.
Best Sound Mixing
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Skyfall
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Les Misérables
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: Argo, Lincoln
Argo?
Best Sound Editing
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Life of Pi
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: Argo, Zero Dark Thirty
No, I mean seriously, Argo?
Best Visual Effects
The Avengers
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Life of Pi
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Snow White and the Huntsman
This is actually a decent set of movies that use visual effects as a necessary tool rather than just smacking us upside the face with giant CGI blobs, The Avengers excepted. Given that it was not the strongest year, and the longlist was a bit disappointing, it’s a fair batch.
Best Animated Feature
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Wreck-It Ralph
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: The Pirates!
You go along for a couple years, and you get used to them throwing a bone to some really small, obscure arthouse animated releases, and you get to think, “man, animation branch, you guys are alright, I respect you”. And then they just kind of splat. I liked Pirates, mind you, and at least it’s not Rise of the Guardians. But that’s just not the right kind of surprise.
Best Foreign Language Film
Amour (Austria)
Kon-Tiki (Norway)
No (Chile)
A Royal Affair (Denmark)
War Witch (Canada)
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: Amour
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: Kon-Tiki
The Intouchables getting snubbed is a pretty damn hard situation to feel anything but glad about. So much for my hunch that Kon-Tiki was the odd man out among the nine-film longlist, but it’s hard to feel sorry that Norway got in over France. And here’s to Chile, with its first-ever nomination!
Best Documentary
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: The Gatekeepers
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: 5 Broken Cameras, How to Survive a Plague.
Here’s where it starts to be hard to say much of anything, thought with two of five, this is a pretty good record for me having seen nominees prior to their nomination. Glad to see the very excellent How to Survive a Plague make it in.
Best Documentary Short Subject
“Inocente”
“Kings Point”
“Mondays at Racine”
“Open Heart”
“Redemption”
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: “Open Heart”
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: “Kings Point”, “Redemption”
Well, now at least we know what films will be in the touring slate.
Best Animated Short Subject
“Adam and Dog”
“Fresh Guacamole”
“Head Over Heels”
“Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare”
“Paperman”
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: “The Longest Daycare”
My predictions: 3/5
Missed: “Fresh Guacamole”, “The Longest Daycare”
Oh, the fuck you didn’t nominate “The Eagleman Stag”. Man, for as much as I like animation, this category has the worst fucking taste. “The Longest Daycare”? Jump up my ass.
Best Live-Action Short Subject
“Asad”
“Buzkashi Boys”
“Curfew”
“Death of a Shadow”
“Henry”
Non-Binding Insta-Prediction: “Curfew”
My predictions: 4/5
Missed: “Henry”
What can you say? I haven’t seen a single one, though I plan to do so through the generosity of those “Oscar Nominated shorts” programs that happen in mid-February.