The Academy Awards…I mean the Oscars are here. Get ready for a film filled Oscar weekend! The 85th Oscars ceremony occurs this Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood televised live on ABC beginning at 5:30 p.m., PT / 8:30 p.m., ET. Seth MacFarlane (Ted, Family Guy) will host as the stars squirm in their seats as viewers celebrate an exciting year in film. Nominees will be sitting much closer to the stage as producers plan a Hollywood musical theme based on the recent resurgence in the past decade beginning with Chicago plus several surprises.
Here are my picks (with asterisk in front) for this year’s Oscars (a.k.a. Academy Awards) for films released in 2012. Which are your favorites?
Best Picture
*Argo
Amour
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
No acting noms for Life of Pi hurts their chances while Silver got all four. Still, I cannot tell a lie… Argo will win though Lincoln takes second place.
Best Director
*Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
Michael Haneke (Amour)
Behn Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
This year the winner definitely won’t fall in line with the Director’s Guild of America winner…Ben Affleck. Haneke is the only one who could take prize from Speilberg.
Best Actor
*Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)
Denzel Washington (Flight)
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
First time nominees Jackman and Cooper (along with DeNiro, Lawrence and Weaver taking the other acting spots) made great impressions, but Day-Lewis wins again.
Best Actress
*Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Youngest versus oldest, but Lawrence will win thanks to some nice carryover from The Hunger Games.
Best Supporting Actor
*Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Everyone in this category has already won, but TLJ made the biggest impression. Would Samuel L. Jackson finally have won had he been nominated?
Best Supporting Actress
*Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Amy Adams (The Master)
Jackie Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
Hathaway’s mesmerizing performance will launch her career to a new level and so will this win.
Best Original Screenplay
*Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty)
Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom)
Michael Haneke (Amour)
John Gatins (Flight)
Boal helps Zero get at least one of the major awards.
Best Adapted Screenplay
*Tony Kushner (Lincoln)
David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Chris Terrio (Argo)
Lucy Alibar & Ben Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
David Magee (Life of Pi)
Kushner’s amazing research, dialogue and balance makes him a sure winner here.
Best Animated Film
*Brave
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Disney and Pixar hold all the best cards here.
Best Foreign Film
*Amour
A Royal Affair
No
Kon-Tiki
War Witch
Amour increased their chances with a best picture nomination.
Best Documentary Feature
*Searching for Sugar Man
How to Survive a Plague
The Gatekeepers
The Invisible War
5 Broken Cameras
Best Production Design
*Les Miserables
Anna Karenina
Lincoln
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Best Cinematography
*Claudio Miranda-Life of Pi
Janusz Kaminski-Lincoln
Roger Deakins-Skyfall
Seamus McGarvey-Anna Karenina
Robert Richardson- Django Unchained
Best Costume Design
*Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Mirror Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsman
Best Editing
*Argo
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Life of Pi
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
*The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
Hitchcock
Best Score
*John Williams-Lincoln
Mychael Danna-Life of Pi
Dario Marianelli-Anna Karenina
Alexandre Desplat-Argo
Thomas Newman-Skyfall
Best Song
*Skyfall (Song) (Skyfall)
Suddenly (Les Miserables)
Everybody Needs a Best Friend (Ted)
Pi’s Lullaby (Life of Pi)
Before My Time (Chasing Ice)
Best Sound Editing
*Zero Dark Thirty
Skyfall
Life of Pi
Argo
Django Unchained
Best Sound Mixing
*Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Argo
Skyfall
Lincoln
Best Visual Effects
*Life of Pi
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
Best Animated Short
*Paperman
Adam and Dog
Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare
Fresh Guacamole
Head Over Heels
Best Documentary Short
*Open Heart
Mondays at Racine
Inocente
Redemption
Kings Point
Best Live Action Short
*Curfew
Death of a Shadow
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Henry
Ugh, I have no desire to waste several hours watching a bunch of people with inflated egos patting each other on the back.
Funny thing – for the Grammy Awards, the kids wanted to watch so we all sat down, and pretty soon both of them were gone to do gaming/music and my wife and I headed to bed, where she turned it on in our bedroom and promptly fell asleep … and I was left with the show on thinking “I don’t like the music, don’t like the people, don’t like the idea in general … and yet I am the one left watching?!? Not again!
I’ll probably stick it on in the background, just so I can see the scenes from nominated movies that I missed. =P
Boy, I wish I had the time to watch all of these movies. It’s hard to choose which will win when you have not seen them all.
I’m not so sure about Kushner – he probably will win for his Lincoln screenplay, but I was disappointed in it myself. It was unnaturally explain-ey at times, lecturing on specific points that would have been better with more natural dialog. I think people would have been smart enough to understand the context. That, and the historical inaccuracies that have been reported as well. (Argo suffers from that problem as well, in a bigger way.)