It is that time of year again, folks. Time to cross your fingers and hope that the films that truly deserve to win the most prestigious award in Hollywood actually get recognized for their greatness and then lose all hope in the system as some over-hyped piece of garbage sucks up all the awards like some incredibly pretentious vacuum cleaner.
And speaking of over-hyped garbage, I will be ignoring “Silver Linings Playbook” for all these predictions because the day I predict that any aspect of a “magical girlfriend” romantic-comedy wins the highest honor of film-making excellence is the day I peel off my face with my bare hands and feed it to a pack of wild dogs. And with that lovely image in mind, let’s dive in. I won’t be listing out the nominees, but it’s pretty easy to find the list online.
Let’s look at the big one first: the Best Picture category. There is a good chance that “Lincoln” is going to take this, along with every other category it has been nominated for, since it is baiting the Oscar fish with a worm twice the size of a well-fed graboid, but “Life of Pi” or “Beasts of the Southern Wild” could steal this one away. It would be nice if “Argo” or “Zero Dark Thirty” brought it home since they are the two best films on this list, but Affleck and Bigelow got snubbed in the director category, so it is a good bet the two films won’t win.
Speaking of directors, this looks like Spielberg’s year to bring home Best Director, but look to Ang Lee or Benh Zeitlin for the steal. Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win Best Actor, which is a shame because Hugh Jackman acted his butt off in “Les Miserables” and his Oscar is well overdue. Best Actress is going to Jessica Chastain, but if it goes to either the oldest or youngest person to ever be nominated, I wouldn’t be surprised or upset. Best Supporting Actor is either up for Tommy Lee Jones or Christoph Waltz and Best Supporting Actress is guaranteed to Anne Hathaway.
“Moonrise Kingdom” is in a good place to bring in Best Original Screenplay while “Argo” could take Best Adapted Screenplay. Best Animated Feature is a toss-up between “ParaNorman” and “Wreck-it Ralph”, but the Academy could give it to “Brave” because there is a reason why they call it the Pixar Award, even if Pixar doesn’t deserve it this year.
It would really be something if “Ted” takes Best Original Song, but Adele killed it with “Skyfall”, so expect some heavy competition. And finally, despite being the third-highest grossing film of all time and in need of some recognition of that from Hollywood, “Avengers” is going to lose Best Visual Effects to “Life of Pi” because of the tiger that reaches David Zoolander levels of being really, really, ridiculously, good-looking. And that is all I have to say about that. The red carpet unrolls Feb. 24.
