Picking the winners in a very uncertain year

by Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN A&E Writer

THE 85TH ACADEMY AWARDS
ABC-TV
February 24, 4 p.m. (PT)

It's been a strange road to the 85th annual Academy Awards - this Sunday's telecast and presentation is one of the more unusual the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has ever encountered. By moving up the nomination deadline to presage influence by various critics' organizations, artists' guilds, and other awards shows (namely, the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs), the Academy inadvertently threw things into all kinds of disarray, creating an atmosphere of odd uncertainty this year that has many perplexed.

You might think this uncertainty would be a good thing, but in the case of the 85th Oscars you'd be hard-pressed to find many who agree. The reason can be summed up in one word (or title): Argo. While the movie received a healthy seven nominations including a nod for Best Picture, Ben Affleck was left out of the Best Director race, leading many to assume the movie's chances for the top award were DOA. But then came a weird sympathetic backlash decrying this perceived snubbing, Affleck and Argo going on to win a seemingly never-ending series of awards from critics and guilds alike, including the BAFTA prize for Best Picture, the WGA for adapted screenplay, and the SAG for best ensemble.

Why has this created such a controversy? In this history of the Academy Awards, while other movies have won Best Picture without a Best Director nomination (Driving Miss Daisy being the last to do so), the fact that there are nine nominees in the top category, coupled with the fact that nomination voting was scheduled so early, many in the industry look at the historical stats and are perplexed by what is going on. An Argo win would break the mold in numerous ways, and some insiders (not all, of course) believe it would tarnish the award's prestige.

Is this true? Would Argo winning really damage Oscar beyond repair? Personally, I don't see a gigantic problem. The Academy pushed itself into a corner in its frantic push to beat all other movie awards to the punch, forcing members to vote without ample time to see all the contenders, using a new, unfamiliar online voting system. Studios didn't have time to set up screenings or get screeners to everyone, allowing entertainments like Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Silver Linings Playbook, considered (rightly or wrongly) more audience-friendly and 'safe' than the majority of their competitors, to receive the majority of nominations and be instantly proclaimed frontrunners.

We haven't even mentioned the politicking and mudslinging the presaged much of the voting process, unfairly sullying movies like Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, and The Master in ways none of those films were entirely able to overcome (all still received a number of nominations, yet none are expected to do that well Sunday night). But that's a discussion for another day as the big question remains: What does Argo winning mean to the future perception of the Academy Awards? On that front I don't have an answer at this point, but as a longtime cinephile and professional critic I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extraordinarily curious to find out.

The following are my predictions for which films will win Oscars. With the unpredictability factor of this year's ceremony so incredibly high I suggest you copy my guesses - for once, that's all they are, guesses - at your own peril.

BEST PICTURE
Nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
Will win: Argo
Should win: Zero Dark Thirty, Amour, or Silver Linings Playbook

BEST DIRECTOR
Nominees: 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: Michael Haneke
Should win: Michael Haneke or David O. Russell

BEST ACTOR
Nominees: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Denzel Washington (Flight)
Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Should win: Denzel Washington

BEST ACTRESS
Nominees: 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: Jennifer Lawrence
Should win: Emmanuelle Riva

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nominees: Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Will win: Christoph Waltz
Should win: Philip Seymour Hoffman

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Nominees: Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables), Helen Hunt (The Sessions), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
Will win: Anne Hathaway
Should win: Amy Adams

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nominees: Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook
Will win: Argo
Should win: Lincoln

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Nominees: Amour, Django Unchained, Flight, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty
Will win: Amour
Should win: Moonrise Kingdom

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Nominees: Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Wreck-It Ralph
Will/should win: Wreck-It Ralph

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Nominees: 5 Broken Cameras, The Gatekeepers, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War, Searching for Sugar Man
Will win: Searching for Sugar Man
Should win: How to Survive a Plague

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Nominees: Amour, Kon-Tiki, No, A Royal Affair, War Witch
Will/should win: Amour

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Nominees: Anna Karenina, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Skyfall
Will win: Skyfall
Should win: Anna Karenina

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Nominees: Anna Karenina, Les Misérables, Lincoln, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman
Will/should win: Anna Karenina

BEST EDITING
Nominees: Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty Will win: Argo Should win: Zero Dark Thirty

BEST MAKEUP
Nominees: Hitchcock, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Les Misérables
Will/should win: Les Misérables

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Nominees: Anna Karenina, Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Skyfall
Will win: Mychael Danna (Life of Pi)
Should win: Dario Marianelli (Anna Karenina)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Nominees: 'Before My Time' from Chasing Ice, 'Everybody Needs a Friend' from Ted, 'Pi's Lullaby' from Life of Pi, 'Skyfall' from Skyfall, 'Suddenly' from Les Misérables
Will/should win: 'Skyfall' from Skyfall

BEST SOUND EDITING
Nominees: Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty
Will/should win: Zero Dark Thirty

BEST SOUND MIXING
Nominees: Argo, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Skyfall
Will win: Skyfall
Should win: Life of Pi

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Nominees: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Life of Pi, Marvel's The Avengers, Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman
Will win: Life of Pi
Should win: Prometheus

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Nominees: Inocente, King's Point, Mondays at Racine, Open Heart, Redemption
Will win: Inocente
Should win: Redemption

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Nominees: Azad, Buzkashi Boys, Curfew, Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw), Henry
Will/should win: Curfew

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Nominees: Adam and Dog, Fresh Guacamole, Head Over Heels, Maggie Simpson in 'The Longest Daycare', Paperman
Will/should win: Paperman

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