Friday, February 22, 2013
Film Win Your Oscar Pool: Who to Bet On
Posted by Jesse Hassenger on Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 1:10 PM
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Will win: Every single actor in this category already has an Oscar, which turns campaigning and predicting into a bizarre strategy session. Is it too soon for Arkin or Waltz to win again? Probably. Has it been too long since De Niro's last nomination (over two decades since Cape Fear) or win (over three since Raging Bull) for him to just stroll back up to the podium? Maybe. Does Tommy Lee Jones, who won about 20 years ago and was nominated before and since, strike the exact right balance in a category full of veterans? Yeah, most likely, although De Niro's been campaigning like crazy while Tommy Lee Jones turns to stone when you look him directly in the eye.
Should win: Only Arkin strikes me as undeserving; he's funny in Argo, but he's doing shtick that's not hilarious enough to compensate for it having no layers whatsoever. If I were casting a ballot, it would probably go to Hoffman, both as a show of support for The Master and to celebrate a sneaky kind of supporting performance: Hoffman brings his character to enigmatic life, lurking all over the movie even when he's not onscreen. Also: he's the only one in the category who gets to scream PIGFUCK! (As far as I can recall.)
Missing: Obviously getting more than one actor from a single movie into one category can be tricky; even more so when your choices are new favorite Christoph Waltz playing with his Basterds persona in a different key; consistent and often Academy-friendly Leonardo DiCaprio doing showy work; and workhouse Sam Jackson giving probably the riskiest performance. The Academy went with Waltz; I'd say DiCaprio and Jackson both deserve Arkin's spot. I would also accept Bruce Willis for Moonrise Kingdom.
Amy Adams, The Master Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook Will win: Hathaway, no contest. Unless... do voters want to reward Sally Field for some reason? Maybe she let them crash on her couch recently, or made them a nice quiche? No, right? It has to be Hathaway.
Should win: Unless you straight-up despise Les Miserables on general principle, it's hard to argue with Hathaway, whose performance doesn't include a mic-dropping "Hathaway out," but might as well have. That said, I'd probably keep the nonexistent Master train rolling and check off Amy Adams. Homegirl is on her fourth Supporting Actress nomination and has deserved to win most of those times. At this point, she's clearly paving the way for a Best Actress win in 2015 or so, probably for some biopic bullshit.
Missing: This is often and unfortunately a relatively thin category, which explains how Jacki Weaver can get in just for being sweet and likable in Silver Linings. I can't think of any real contenders who I was sad to see passed over, so I'll move straight to fantasy: I thought Lizzy Caplan was quite good in Bachelorette. (Responds everyone I know: of course you did, Jesse.)
Seamus McGarvey, Anna Karenina
Robert Richardson, Django Unchained
Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi
Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln
Roger Deakins, Skyfall
Will win: In a solid and varied category, it seems like it should finally be the year of Roger Deakins, especially with only a few serious Best Picture contenders against him. Of course, if Deakins didn't win for No Country for Old Men or True Grit, it might seem counterintuitive that a popcorn movie could get him the award. But people did like Skyfall a lot, so that's my guess.
Should win: I admire the 3-D work in Life of Pi, but some of images themselves still have a digital-ish texture. I try not to go by Academy-style lifetime-achievement rules, where the guy or gal who's been nominated the most times without winning deserves it most, but then again: Deakins shot the gorgeous hell out of Skyfall; it's a great-looking movie, and if it's not as important as his work with the Coen Brothers, well, I'm inclined to give him a pass based on how much my eyes loved the movie.
Missing: I get that after four Nolan-directed nominations in a row, Wally Pfister probably isn't sweating the lack of a Dark Knight Rises nomination, but I still thought his work was swell there. I'm also a fan of fictional DP Peter Andrews and the lovely digital coloring of his work on both Haywire and Magic Mike.
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Will win: The usual signs make this a tough call. Editing usually goes to the Best Picture winner, which would imply Argo or Lincoln. I think Silver Linings has an outside shot at the big prize, but even if it does, that probably won't manifest in an editing win. But sometimes the voters ignore the picture agreement and go with something a little showier and more popcorny: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Matrix, and The Bourne Ultimatum have all won without even getting nominated for Best Picture. There's nothing that quite fits that bill here, but maybe Zero Dark Thirty will get some recognition for being a bit bigger and noisier than its competitors. That's my guess: Zero Dark Thirty.
Should win: I don't have strong feelings about this category; I'd be inclined to go for Life of Pi, I suppose, because that movie has a lot of segments but never feels disjointed.
Missing: Bob Ducsay's work on Looper had a controlled sense of timing and pacing, not necessarily an easy feat when you're jumping around through a timeline—or, perhaps even more challenging, setting the back half of your sci-fi thriller mostly on a farm.
Hitchock
The Hobbit Les Miserables
Will win: Unless The Hobbit conjures up soft-focus memories of Oscar sweeps past, probably Les Miserables for the way it smudges dirt on most of its attractive actors.
Should win: If we're going by movie I least object to winning an award of any kind, it's Les Miserables.
Missing: Most of the Prometheus stuff is probably digital, right? How does that figure into things? This is never my category.
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit
Les Miserables Life of Pi
Lincoln
Will win: This feels like Anna Karenina's time to shine, doesn't it?
Should win: I tend to skew as fantastical as possible here, so I'd normally say Life of Pi, but the Lincoln sets felt very vivid, and were crucial to such an interior-heavy movie.
Missing: Moonrise Kingdom blended Wes Anderson's fussy aesthetic with the wilds of nature. I liked the spaceships of Prometheus, too, but then, I like spaceships almost as much as Oscar voters like boring crap.
Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Mirror Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsman
Will win: I feel like whatever stars Keira Knightley or, failing that, other British people, tends to win here, so probably Anna Karenina again.
Should win: In the unanticipated rematch between the battle of the Snow White movies that most people answered with a resounding "please cancel due to lack of interest," I'd love to see Eiko Ishioka's inventive work for Mirror Mirror rewarded. It could happen, too: Ishioka passed away this year, and voters may want to honor her memory.
Missing: When I think of costumes for 2012, I don't think of full movies: I think of Matthew McConaughey's leather vest and cowboy hat in Magic Mike or Anne Hathaway's spandexy Catwoman costume with the goggle-ear things. But this award isn't strictly for iconography, so I'm fine with this group of five. SOUND MIXING
Argo
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Will win: This often goes to a big, noisy blockbuster, but Les Miserables had so much attention paid to its live-singing gimmick that it seems likely in a surprisingly blockbuster-light category. (Plus it kind of is a big, noisy blockbuster, in its emo way.)
Should win: Life of Pi, I guess. I thought the audio mix on Les Miserables was actually kind of weird, like you wouldn't believe the actors actually sang their songs unless their voices were way at the front of the mix.
Missing: I think we're good here.
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Will win: Skyfall? Or maybe Life of Pi?
Should win: Skyfall? Or maybe Life of Pi?
Missing: Maybe... nah, I got nothing.
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight
Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis has this about as sewn up as humanly possible. Mere mortal actors might get a demerit from having won twice before, but there is literally nothing anyone in Los Angeles enjoys more than checking Daniel Day-Lewis's name off of awards ballot. It gives them so much more satisfaction than charity work or even an $8 slice of red velvet cake ever could.
Should win: I can't front: Daniel Day-Lewis is fucking phenomenal in Lincoln. He deserves to win as much as I deserve to eat a piece of $8 red velvet cake after writing a long Oscar-prediction article. Maybe even more than that. Given that Day-Lewis absolutely deserves it as usual, here's the thought experiment I played with: if Day-Lewis got beat by someone, which beating would make me excited for the shocking upset and the rich deservedness? The answer to that is Joaquin Phoenix. Who totally got beat for Walk the Line by his Master costar Philip Seymour Hoffman, by the way. Actually, all three of the Master nominees were up that year.
Missing: These five are pretty solid. I feel like I should want to kick Jackman out for someone else, but I can't figure out who (as fine as he is, probably not presumptive sixth-placer John Hawkes for The Sessions). I did think Brad Pitt was pretty awesome in Killing Them Softly but even that would be more of a make-up award for his unrecognized career-best work in Tree of Life and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Will win: This one is a tough call; only Naomi Watts seems to be completely out of contention (and even she apparently has her supporters; in an unscientific Entertainment Weekly article asking a few anonymous industry folk, she was a popular Best Actress vote, proving once again how thoroughly onscreen suffering has been equated with great acting). Wallis could win for the novelty factor, but the other novelty-age candidate seems a bit more urgent, as Emmanuelle Riva turns 86 on Oscar night. I don't know if voters will follow this line of thinking, but check it: presumed frontrunners Lawrence and Chastain have already been nominated twice each; they will assuredly be back in this category. Riva has pretty much capped off her career (though as much as I admire her work, I do wonder if she's just doing the French version of Watts in The Impossible: convey physical suffering, elicit sympathy, acting!). So I'm going to predict her to take down all of those under-80 whippersnappers.
Should win: If we're going by characters that heterosexual males are most likely to get crushes on, obviously Jennifer Lawrence deserves it, which is kind of why I wouldn't feel right voting for her even though her (slightly fantastical) character is the most enjoyable person to be around in the category outside of possibly Wallis's Hushpuppy (and I'm not sure how much acting Wallis was doing there; I think more likely, she's "just" an awesome little kid being awesome, and we all know being an awesome person is not how you win awards!). If we're going by leadingest lead performance, the person who most forcefully holds her movie together without showing off or playing pretend at suffering, then it should go to Jessica Chastain. I can imagine a blanker version of Zero Dark Thirty very easily, and I credit her for a lot of the movie's success.
Missing: Melanie Lynskey didn't suffer visibly enough in Hello, I Must Be Going, but she's terrific as a mid-30s woman who moves back home after a big break-up.
Anna Karenina
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Will win: Life of Pi seems like the ticket here: it's more eclectic and often more emotional than its competitors.
Should win: I liked the music in Lincoln. I liked the music in Skyfall. Really, I don't remember disliking any of this music so I don't have a clear favorite.
Missing: I liked Alexandre Desplat's work for Moonrise Kingdom, but I understand that Wes Anderson's use of outside music sources might obscure his composers' often-excellent work.
"Before My Time," Chasing Ice
"Everyone Needs a Best Friend," Ted
"Pi's Lullaby," Life of Pi
"Skyfall," Skyfall
"Suddenly," Les Miserables
Will win: "Skyfall." It's by Adele. Case closed.
Should win: Adele's Bond song is just a smidge overrated (though probably less overrated than your average Adele song), but she'll give a charming acceptance speech and it's also one of only two songs in this category that I actually remember hearing, so let's go with that.
Missing: I was going to say there's no point in lamenting the absence of the Liz Phair song "Dotted Line," featured prominently in the barely-seen Chris Pine/Elizabeth Banks dramedy People Like Us, but who the hell saw Chasing Ice?
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph
Will win: I feel like ParaNorman has been campaigning hard, and Brave is probably the default choice, but Wreck-It Ralph will probably prevail.
Should win: Without a clear Pixar frontrunner (Brave being "only" very good) or any DreamWorks nonsense, this is perhaps the top-to-bottom best group in this category's young history. As much as I delight in all three (!) nominated stop-motion movies, Wreck-It Ralph is even better: fast, funny, sweet, beautifully designed and voiced.
Missing: I was going to make a sarcastic complaint about the lack of a DreamWorks movie, but it would be more fun in a year with a Shrekquel. Instead, I'll just be happy that five movies
"Adam and Dog"
"Fresh Guacamole"
"Head over Heels"
"Maggie Simpson in: The Longest Daycare"
"Paperman"
Will win: "Adam and Dog" seems to be the favorite among other predictors, but "Paperman" is so damn charming that I think it'll complete a rare Non-Pixar Disney double win.
Should win: I'm a "Paperman" partisan.
Missing: I'm sure hardcore animation fans can tell me the score here.
"Asad" "Buzkashi Boys"
"Curfew"
"Death of a Shadow"
"Henry"
Will win: From what I've read, "Henry" sounds like the one to beat. I'm assuming it's about The L Mag's film and culture editor.
Should win: I haven't seen any of these. My experience watching last year's crop was kind of disappointing, so I didn't make time to return this year. Maybe I'll give them another chance in 2013.
Missing: I wish live-action shorts were common enough so that I had even a hint of an idea of what to nag about here.
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man
Will win: I'm betting on Searching for Sugar Man.
Should win: Another category with a perfect zero-seen record for me. Honestly, I don't care much for documentaries.
Missing: Seriously, the only documentary I saw all year was that one Morgan Spurlock made about Comic-Con. I'm not even going to try with the documentary shorts.
Amour Kon-Tiki
No
A Royal Affair
War Witch
Will win: Amour,
Should win: I've only seen Amour. This is partly because I suck at keeping up with foreign-language films and partly because the companies with the rights to these movies kind of suck at releasing them before the awards actually happen.
Missing: Why didn't Romania submit Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance?
The Avengers
The Hobbit
Life of Pi
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
Will win: If Oscar voters liked the shitty-looking animals in Chronicles of Narnia (and they did! It beat Revenge of the Sith and King Kong! I'm still pointlessly mad about it!), I can only imagine how much they'll dig the actually well-rendered animals of Life of Pi. Plus, it's the only prestige movie on the list.
Should win: Life of Pi used effects most centrally and beautifully, so it's tough to argue with it—though I will say that I loved lots of the creaturework in Prometheus.
Missing: I can't really quibble with these five. Which is to say, I will anyway, just a little. The effects in Dark Shadows had a bit more style and flair than anything in The Hobbit or even the technically impressive Snow White and the Huntsman, but I understand why it didn't make it in. I'd also add that though I pretty much hated Ted, the character animation/effects on the bear were pretty damn good. Finally, Dark Knight Rises must've either employed too many practical effects or faked the look of practical effects, because they always looked super-convincing.
Amour
Django Unchained
Flight
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty
Will win: I can't imagine even the bigger Zero Dark Thirty fans are that excited by the screenplay, though maybe voters will be wowed by the level of research. With the three biggest Best Picture contenders off in Adapted Screenplay, that leaves an opening for Quentin Tarantino, who has won before, but not in almost 20 years. Then again, this category has been a favorite way to reward directors of foreign films, so Michael Haneke could sneak in. In fact, I'm kinda feeling like he will.
Should win: I'd be fine with awarding Tarantino, but Moonrise Kingdom is so lovely, delicate, and hilarious all at once; it's the best piece of writing in the bunch.
Missing: Rian Johnson's Looper has cleverness, coolness, and resonance, but Flight is about alcoholism and contains no science fiction, so please, by all means, nominate another movie where the script is its weakest major facet because it seems so heartfelt and personal. Other scripts I like more than many of these: Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, and Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods.
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Will win: If Affleck was credited on the Argo screenplay, it would seem like the perfect opportunity to play make-up with a second (!) writing statuette. But he's not, so I think it'll be hard to deny Lincoln's Tony Kushner for all of that elaborate yet crowd-pleasing dialogue. I think I may have just proposed a scenario where Argo wins just one Oscar, but for Best Picture, and I think I'm okay with that. It's not a one-movie-down-the-line sort of year.
Should win: Maybe my prediction is clouded by the fact that Lincoln really deserves the award than anything else here.
Missing: Killing Them Softly wrung great scene after great scene from the George V. Higgins novel; it's lousy with sharp, funny dialogue. I can forgive a little thematic heavy-handedness.
Michael Haneke, Amour
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Will win: Without Affleck around to pick up the easy actor-directs statuette, it's surprisingly wide open. Spielberg and Lee have two of the biggest films, but they've both won before. The nomination is probably the reward for Zeitlin. I'd say that David O. Russell actually has the best-positioned career for a win: he's been around awhile, nominated once before, and seems to have been reborn as an Academy-friendly actor's-director following some years as an experiment-friendly actor's nightmare. But there's Haneke again, staring down the semi-maverick. This is probably the highest-profile toss-up of the night; my gut says it'll go to Spielberg, but I think Russell is the dark horse who might pull an upset.
Should win: Of this crew: Spielberg, honestly.
Missing: With a strong year for movies and nine Best Picture nominees, there are notable omissions before you even get to less Oscar-friendly movies. But beyond Tarantino, Affleck, and Bigelow, all worthy choices, and beyond the couldn't-happens like Wes Anderson or Rian Johnson, I'd submit that Paul Thomas Anderson did something both bigger and more intimate than most of these movies with The Master, and while it was nice to see recognition for There Will Be Blood a bunch of years ago, it's a little odd that it was his only Best Director nomination (though he got nominations for writing Blood, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia).
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Will win: Let me be clear: I do think Argo is going to win. That said, I also think the talk of its "momentum" (versus closest competitors Silver Linings Playbook and Lincoln) in the past month or so has been wildly overstated, not least because it began with Argo winning the Golden Globe for Best Drama, because contrary to press generalizations, there isn't a goddamned Academy member on the planet who's sitting around going, "well, I was going to vote for Lincoln, but I'm not so sure if the Hollywood Foreign Press would sign off on this decision." If Argo is going to win (and it probably will), it's not because everyone decided in the past two weeks that they really ought to rally behind Poor Ben; it's because the directing branch didn't nominate Affleck in a competitive but the full Academy voting body (which decides the winners in most of these categories) likes the movie a whole bunch and isn't thinking about whether a movie without its director nominated "can" win Best Picture.
Should win: Lincoln is my favorite of these nine, which I could easily split into three tiers: Tier one, movies I think are legitimately very, very good, has Lincoln, Django, and Life of Pi. Tier two, movies I like but maybe a bit less than their many passionate advocates, has Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, and Amour. And tier three, movies that don't really deserve a nomination but don't make me cringe just thinking of them, has Argo, Les Miserables, and Beasts of the Southern Wild. Say this for Argo: It is definitely my favorite movie in the third tier.
Missing: For the past few years, this is where I've composed a long list of un-nominated movies that I consider superior to the presumed winner. With Argo, such a list won't be nearly so long and winding, because Argo is a pretty good movie. It's also a movie without a whole lot going on beyond telling an interesting story in an efficient and involving way. No small thing, of course, but I'd argue that something like Premium Rush does basically the same thing as Argo, with about as much relevance below the surface. Anyway, here's a shorter-than-usual list of movies that are superior to your eventual Best Picture winner: Moonrise Kingdom; The Master; Looper; The Dark Knight Rises; Magic Mike; Haywire; Damsels in Distress; The Cabin in the Woods; Skyfall; The Avengers; Seven Psychopaths; Prometheus; most of the Best Animated Feature nominees; Cloud Atlas; Take This Waltz; Bachelorette: Fat Kid Rules the World; 21 Jump Street; Safety Not Guaranteed.
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