The 2013 Oscars (part one)

Ordinarily I watch the Oscars while on the couch in my pyjamas eating junk food. Damn this diet, the junk food is out this year, and I get the feeling I'm really gonna miss it (how entertaining is this show when you're not buzzing on a sugar high?). A friend suggested that I should get out of my pyjamas first thing in the morning, to put a nice psychological break between me and my usual Oscars routine ... but it's midday now, and it hasn't happened yet.


BEST PICTURE

Usually you can draw a line through anything which is nominated for Best Picture which isn't also nominated for Best Director. This year, though, the Director nominations fucked up big time, so the list of movies with snubbed directors (Argo, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty) is incredibly strong. At the same time, films with no realistic shot did get Director nominations (Amour, which is too arty; Beasts of the Southern Wild, which is too not Hollywood; Life of Pi, which is too shit), so everything's all up for grabs. Argo is cleaning up all the lead-in awards, and Lincoln has the kind of pedigree Oscar loves, so I suspect it will come down to those two.

I liked both of those movies a lot, but there are two films nominated that I consider flat-out fucking masterpieces: Zero Dark Thirty and Amour. I'm assuming Michael Haneke's slow drama about old people dying has no chance (too real, too painful), but Zero Dark Thirty has a genuine shot, I think, so that's what I'm rooting for. I doubt they'll give it to two Kathryn Bigelow war(ish) movies in a row, but you never know.

Honestly, so long as they keep it away from Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi or Les Miserables, the rest are all very good movies, and I'm kind of not fussed who ends up taking it out. They'd all be fairly worthy.

My hope: Amour or Zero Dark Thirty
My prediction: Argo


BEST DIRECTOR

It's gotta be Spielberg for Lincoln. Michael Haneke for Amour and Benh Zeitlin for Beasts both deserve it more, I think, but their films are just too odd and unwieldy for Oscar voters (though apparently the demographics of the Academy skews heavily towards 'old as fuck', so maybe Haneke and his paean to approaching death has more of a chance than I'm giving it). I'm dismissing David O. Russell for Silver Linings and Ang Lee for Pi because, frankly, those films weren't good enough for them to deserve jack shit. So Spielberg is left by a process of elimination. Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck and Quentin Tarantino can feel a bit cheesed off that they missed nominations (and their presence would have made for a more interesting field), but Spielberg did good work this year, so I'm happy for him to collect another win. At least Lincoln wasn't no fucking War Horse.

My hope: Michael Haneke
My prediction: Steven Spielberg


BEST ACTOR

Daniel Day-Lewis will win. That's a given, surely? The most respected actor in the world, playing the most respected man in American history ... hell, he'd won this Oscar before they even started shooting. If there's any chance of a shock, it's probably our Hugh for Les Mis, which in a way is fair enough. You could count the movie stars who can do what he did in that movie on one finger (evidence: Russell Crowe's spectacular failure in the same film). The performance I really loved, though, was Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. Bizarre, hypnotic, transcendent, whatever you want to call it, he was frickin' amazing. In the absence of nominations for a pair of brilliant French performances (Denis Lavant in Holy Motors, Jean-Louis Trintignant in Amour), Phoenix is a clear stand-out in this field. Shame that doesn't seem to be what matters. Bradley Cooper and Denzel Washington, on the other hand, are simply making up the numbers.

My hope: Joaquin Phoenix
My prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis


BEST ACTRESS

Jennifer Lawrence seems to be the front-runner for this one, for Silver Linings Playbook, and if she wins, I'll admit it, this would be the award that would piss me off a bit. She was charismatic as hell, sure, but her character was pretty one-note, a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl who hinted at having greater depths but never actually revealed them. Quvenzhane Wallis is a gag nomination, and Naomi Watts (who did nothing but suffer) surely has been completely shown up by Emmanuelle Riva (who did nothing but suffer, but made it into something beautiful and sublime). Riva, for Amour, or Jessica Chastain, for Zero Dark Thirty, were both dead-set brilliant in their respective movies, but I fear they were both too subtle for the academy. There's acting, and then there's ACTING!!1!, and I fear they're gonna be seduced by the latter, and by Lawrence.

My hope: Jessica Chastain or Emmanuelle Riva
My prediction: Jennifer Lawrence


SUPPORTING ACTOR/TRESS

Supporting Actress is all about Anne Hathaway this year. She sung a couple of songs, she made us all cry, she's paid her dues, she's the shortest of short priced favourites (seriously, sportsbet has her paying $1.01; in a five horse race, that's ridiculous). And honestly, in this field, I won't mind (too much): Sally Field, Helen Hunt and Jacki Weaver were all fine, but none of them knocked my socks off either. The only worthy adversary for 'Crusher' Hathaway is Amy Adams for The Master, but again, obviousness is gonna beat subtlety, I fear.

Best Supporting Bloke is a bit more wide open. Using the process of elimination, Tommy Lee Jones is probably the favourite, and his performance in Lincoln was a hell of a lot of fun (and very nearly the best thing about the movie). Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Arkin and Christoph Waltz all won Oscars pretty recently, and I doubt the academy will love any of their performances enough to feel they deserve a second so soon. Which leaves Robert De Niro as the main contender, but surely they can't give a guy an Oscar just for (finally) deciding to start acting again? Can they?

My hopes: Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman
My predictions: Anne Hathaway and Tommy Lee Jones


ORIGINAL & ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

In the Original Screenplay list, I'm pretty comfortable dismissing the chances of John Gatins, for Flight, and Wes Anderson, for Moonrise Kingdom, simply because they're barely up for anything else, and that's just not the way this shit works (though a massive part of me wants to see Wes Anderson give an acceptance speech). After that, it gets interesting: Tarantino is up for Django, Haneke is up for Amour, and Mark Boal is up for Zero Dark Thirty. Everybody wants to see Quentin on that stage, but I suspect Django is a bit wild and dangerous for the academy to  give it a tick. Haneke's not a realistic shot at the Director gong, but they do sometimes use the screenplay awards as 'encouragement Oscars', basically saying "Look, we're not gonna give you one of the really big ones, but keep doing what you're doing, it's good stuff!" I wouldn't be surprised if Haneke actually pulls this one out. Mark Boal, on the other hand, won for Hurt Locker just a few years ago, which might count against him. So the academy has to choose: the uber-violent wise-cracker; the haughty European master; or a not particularly well known recent winner? I honestly don't know which way it'll go.

Adapted Screenplay is a little simpler. Chris Terrio is gonna win for Argo. You could make a case for Tony Kushner for breathing life into Lincoln, and I'm a little worried about David Magee (for Pi) and David O. Russell (for Silver Linings) winning 'encouragement Oscars' on behalf of their strangely well-liked films. But Argo is gonna win it. Terrio has won every lead-in award of note, and it's not possible that the film wins Best Picture without snagging either Director or Screenplay ... and Affleck's not nominated, so it has to win here.

My hopes: Mark Boal or Michael Haneke, and Chris Terrio
My predictions: Quentin Tarantino and Chris Terrio


ELSEWHERE

I suspect Life of Pi is gonna take out Visual Effects, which is probably fair. The CG tiger was pretty amazing. Anna Karenina, Lincoln and Les Mis are gonna go to the mattresses over Costume, and probably over Production Design as well, unless Pi can nip in and grab it by being stylised, rather than ye-olde-looking. If Hitchcock wins for Make-Up I will get genuinely angry, because Hopkins' prosthetic jowls were absolutely fucking terrible. Skyfall (from, um, Skyfall) is the only nominated song that anybody remembers, so it's a shoo-in (and will apparently be the first ever Bond theme to win the Oscar ... incredible!), and Amour surely wins Foreign Language Film given it's the only one nominated for other shit too. Zero Dark Thirty ought to win Editing, but Argo will probably take this one out too.

Cinematography is interesting. Roger Deakins (Skyfall) deserves it: despite my reservations about that movie, it was undeniably beautiful to look at in a way that Bond has just never been. But cinematography is a big award, and I'm not sure you can win it without also being up for the other biggies. If Deakins doesn't pull it out, it'll probably fall to Claudio Miranda for Life of Pi, because again, obviousness beats subtlety.


So there you go, I'm now one more lonely blogger pissing his Oscar predictions into the wind. I'll be back later for a debrief, but for now you'll have to excuse me, the couch is calling.

(Don't think about popcorn. Don't think about popcorn. Don't think about popcorn. Aagh, I thought about it.)

Cheers, JC.


currently reading: The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
books to go: 72