Best Supporting Actor
Nominees:
Who Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones or Robert De Niro
Who Should Win: Robert De Niro
As you will come to see, I'm trying keep my hopes grounded, by anticipating a Lincoln lovefest. In this, the most open of categories, all of these nominees have already won an Oscar, Arkin, Hoffman, and Waltz recently enough to elicit some hesitation. Waltz is one of the best things about Django Unchained, but this is category fraud; he is as much the lead as (and, in many ways, more than) Jamie Foxx, despite the title. Seeing him back in this category so soon is a surprise, but a nice one. Arkin is a worthy and appealing nominee, but not a winner. Hoffman, another one that could have gone into Lead, is sure to have countless opportunities to win more Oscars.
That brings us to the two sometimes grumpy old men. I like Jones a lot and this is a good performance, but his demeanor suggests he neither wants nor needs this. De Niro, on the other hand, is a legend, whose filmography exceeds that of just about any living actor today. He's hit kind of a rough patch lately and though he stays busy and undoubtedly handsomely paid, this is his first Oscar nomination in over twenty years. If Daniel Day-Lewis can pick up his third Oscar, so too should De Niro, who it feels great to see deliver a great performance in Silver Linings Playbook. As the least recent and most accomplished of these five, De Niro deserves the career boost, even if you need to think of it as a premature lifetime achievement award to an already two-time winner.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Best Documentary - Feature
Nominees:
What Will Win: How to Survive a Plague
What Should Win: Searching for Sugar Man or How to Survive a Plague
Pundits are declaring Searching for Sugar Man the winner, but none of them predicted Undefeated winning last year. I've seen all of these but The Gatekeepers. The Invisible War has importance, for it has already inspired action. Sugar Man and How to Survive a Plague both have the greatest human interest and are the most professionally made. What Should Have Been Nominated: The Imposter and The Other Dream Team
These were the two best documentaries of 2012 that I saw, though I can see how the former's reliance on recreation and the latter's subject matter (potentially deemed insignificant to some) may have hurt their chances.
Best Documentary - Short Subject
Nominees:
What Will Win: While there's no consensus, Inocente and Open Heart may be your best bets.
What Should Win: No idea, but Inocente is the coolest title to say, so it's got my vote.
Best Visual Effects
Nominees:
What Will Win: Life of Pi
What Should Win: Life of Pi
Immediately upon seeing Life of Pi, I figured it was this year's Hugo, an ambitious and esteemed family-friendly 3D adventure sure to dominate the technical awards. This is one of the categories in which Pi is most likely to follow in Scorsese's footsteps. I hope Richard Parker makes the acceptance speech! Prometheus would be my second choice, but that is probably more due to the Alien-style production design than visual effects.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Life of Pi
What Should Have Been Nominated: This is a category where The Dark Knight Rises and The Hunger Games could have competed. Either would have been preferable to the underwhelming SWATH.
Best Sound Editing
Nominees:
What Will Win: Your guess is as good as mine.
What Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
There are many things I take away from the films I see, but, with few exceptions (e.g. WALLE, which lost this award, and The Conversation, which lost the other one), sound design isn't one of them. This seems to be one of the categories where guessing is the only way to go if you're not in the business of sound. I chose Zero Dark Thirty because I think it's the best film of the year and it ought to win something.
Best Sound Mixing
Nominees:
What Will Win: Les Misιrables
What Should Win: Les Misιrables, I guess.
One of Tom Hooper's big creative decisions for Les Mis was to record the songs live. That coupled with musicals' success in this category (recent winners include Dreamgirls and Chicago) suggest that Hathaway won't be the film's only win.
Best Film Editing
Nominees:
What Will Win: Argo
What Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty
This is one award that Argo seems to have in the bag. The bloated Lincoln has no claim to this award. As a comedy, Silver Linings Playbook is lucky (but deserving) just to get the nomination. Life of Pi owes much of its success to wise editing. But it comes down to the two riveting docudramas, of which I think Zero Dark Thirty is the ever so slightly more potent. Bigelow's film deserves this, especially since it seems unlikely to win anything bigger. But I'll be happy for Argo, which does an excellent job of juggling three distinct levels of interest.
Best Original Score
Nominees:
What Will Win: Life of Pi
What Should Win: Life of Pi
I don't really remember Life of Pi's score, but it is the favorite and that seems fair. Argo's score is really low-key. Lincoln is a standard entry to the fine but plenty decorated tradition of Spielberg and Williams' dramatic collaborations. Best Original Song
Nominees:
What Will Win: "Skyfall" or "Suddenly"
What Should Win: Don't know, don't care.
Last year, this category was one of my most anticipated, as I hoped that the Muppets would finally win their first Oscar. They did, beating out the only other nominee in a ceremony that didn't think to include colorful performances of the two. This year, the performances are back as are the five nominees. But this is a dull lot, says the man who won't carve out fifteen minutes to find these on YouTube and listen to them. "Skyfall" seems to be the favorite and I haven't seen that movie. Ted's song isn't at all what I expected. And I don't really remember "Pi's Lullaby" at all. At least the performances will be a good time for leg-stretching, bathroom breaks, and chatter.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: "Skyfall"
What Should Have Been Nominated: "Yo No Se" from Casa De Mi Padre and "Never Had" from 10 Years stand out from the short list of 75 eligible songs.
Best Foreign Language Film
Nominees:
What Will Win: Amour
One of the few categories in which my ignorance towards the nominees matches the general public. The Academy seems to have declared Amour the winner by giving it a Best Picture nomination. This would be like Up or Toy Story 3 losing the Best Animated Feature. In the rare cases where a foreign film has competed for Best Picture, they have typically lost that and won Best Foreign Language Film: Z, Life is Beautiful, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 1971's The Emigrants is the one exception defying that logic, while several others have competed for Best Picture but not been picked as their nation's Best Foreign Language Film submission (e.g. Il Postino, Cries and Whispers)
Continue >>
|
