Best Supporting Actress
Nominees:
Who Will Win: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
This is one of the few locks of this year's Oscars. Though I thought the actor-dominated Academy might be more inclined to support Sally Field, whose return to cinema prominence is a nice surprise for someone who's acted for nearly 50 years, there's virtually no chance Hathaway doesn't come away with her first Oscar. (One upside to the fact that this is always one of the first categories awarded: we'll get Hathaway's weepy, artificial acceptance speech out of the way early.)
Who Should Win: Hmm... good question.
I'm not an Anne Hathaway fan and though she is as tolerable as ever here, it is a brief performance and a showy one. Unfortunately, good female roles are so hard to come by, that it's tough to argue a better choice. Amy Adams deserves to be more than a biennial bridesmaid, but The Master doesn't give her all that much to do. Jacki Weaver is good in Silver Linings Playbook, but she's the focal point in one scene and reduced to periphery beyond that. Ordinarily, I'd back any alumnus of "Mad About You", but The Sessions wasn't all that good and Helen Hunt wasn't the best part of it.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
I'm kind of surprised that Smith didn't get nominated, because it was a strong performance in a likable film that got a decent amount of awards attention. I chalk it up to timing; if the film opened around Thanksgiving instead of Memorial Day, Smith is nominated, if largely for her unfakable age and long cinema legacy.
Best Original Screenplay
Nominees:
What Will Win: Amour
This is one of the least predictable categories in a ceremony more capable of surprising than most. Having not seen Amour, I can only suspect that Michael Haneke's tale of aging will resonate with the Academy, where the median age is 62. It's been almost twenty years since Tarantino won his first and only Oscar, but I suspect that the language (you know what I'm talking about) doesn't sit well with the socially progressive votership.
What Should Win: Zero Dark Thirty or Moonrise Kingdom
Boal just won this award three years ago for The Hurt Locker, so it may be tough for him to repeat, since it would be a win for research (including the stupidly controversial torture aspect) rather than artfulness. You can't read too much into its Writers Guild Award win this week, since Django and Amour were ineligible. Moonrise Kingdom is the kind of witty, original script that has often fared well in this category (e.g. Juno, Midnight in Paris) and Wes Anderson is over ten years due for an Oscar, but again the timing is against this, as all the film's buzz seems to have faded by now.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Django Unchained
What Should Have Been Nominated: The Master
For being the vision of one individual, Paul Thomas Anderson's films boast a wealth of ideas. This one's ideas didn't grab everybody and surely made some uncomfortable, but give the man some credit. Wreck-It Ralph shows enough creativity to warrant consideration too, if the Academy took non-Pixar animation seriously.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominees:
What Will Win: Lincoln
Everyone kind of assumed that this award was a shoo-in for Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, but it seems to me its narrow vision and belabored structure is the thing most responsible for the film's stuffy boredom. I think and hope there's a decent chance it doesn't win.
What Should Win: Any of the other four nominees.
There's so much more vitality and color to the other nominees. Argo's win at this week's Writers Guild of America Award gives it an advantage, as the Oscars have only departed from the WGA in this category once in the past eight years. Life of Pi perhaps has the strongest foundation and deserves credit for making the unfilmable perfectly captivating. And you'd be foolish to discount Silver Linings Playbook, which the nominations show the Academy clearly liked. Beasts is probably the biggest longshot.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Lincoln
What Should Have Been Nominated: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
I don't know that this is a better screenplay than Lincoln, but Stephen Chbosky did a most admirable job of adapting his evidently beloved novel. This is the only place for such a film to be recognized, which it should be. The same goes for The Hunger Games, though people stopped seeing that as a genuine contender long ago.
Best Animated Feature
Nominees:
What Will Win: Wreck-It Ralph
What Should Win: Wreck-It Ralph
It's a little ridiculous that Walt Disney Animation Studios, the pioneer and longtime powerhouse in animation, has yet to win this award in its 12-year history. They've made some very good films in that time, just not as good as Pixar's. This year, they've bested a lesser but still very good Pixar effort and deserve to be recognized for it. DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Wreck-It Ralph
What Should Have Been Nominated: The Secret World of Arrietty
Arrietty was ineligible because Disney waited too long after its Japanese theatrical release to put it in American theaters. A seemingly arbitrary rule, but Disney should have known it. After all, this is the Disney that gives their Tinker Bell movies qualifying engagements at their El Capitan Theatre to better the odds of having this category support five nominees. (Is it sheer coincidence that Ghibli is going to have GKIDS handle North American distribution on at least some of its future titles?)
If eligible, Arrietty was a more deserving nominee than ParaNorman. Otherwise, I am in complete agreement with this great field and especially pleased that the charming The Pirates! managed to get a nod over less deserving fare released later in the year. Disney has three nominees in this category for the first time since 2002, when Spirited Away won the award over two in-house films.
Best Animated Short Film
Nominees:
What Will Win: Paperman
What Should Win: Paperman
This is the first year I've seen more than a couple of nominees in this category. In fact, I've seen all five; thank you, Internet and Wreck-It Ralph. I ordinarily root for the Pixar short, but this year they did not have one, since La Luna competed last year, when it was unknown to the general public. Disney's Paperman is the most striking of the five both visually and thematically. Fresh Guacamole is fun, but slight (running around 104 seconds). Over 10 minutes each, Adam and Dog and Head Over Heels are both longer than they need to be, since they lack dialogue; the stop-motion Head has a creative concept, while the quasi-Biblical Adam makes nice use of the traditional animation medium that many love and miss. The Simpsons short is fun, which in some years would probably be enough to win, but I think it's going to have to be a two-Oscar night for Disney Animation Studios.
What Should Be Nominated: Who knows?
Best Production Design
Nominees:
What Will Win: Les Misérables
What Should Win: Life of Pi
The category formerly known as Art Direction is up for grabs. Since The Hobbit is essentially an extension of Peter Jackson and company's Lord of the Rings work (which, like most aspects of that series, lost twice before winning for Return of the King), it probably won't win. Anything else could, so it might just come down to what movie voters like the best.
What Should Be Nominated: The Master and Moonrise Kingdom, but you could make a case for most of these two Andersons' films.
Best Costume Design
Nominees:
What Will Win: Anna Karenina
What Should Win: Anna Karenina
Ah, Costume Design. The one Oscar category where bad movies get love and sometimes even win. That's what's going on here, with the year's two feeble Snow White movies joined by the two Best Picture nominees set furthest in the past. With its opulence, Anna Karenina is expected to defeat all of the above for what could be its only Oscar.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Anna Karenina
What Should Be Nominated: Django had a pretty sweet blue suit. Maybe if he did more twirling?
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Nominees:
What Will Win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
What Should Win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The three nominees each represent something different in the field of makeup (and, now, hairstyling). You've got the biopic recreation in Hitchcock, the aging required of epics in Les Mis, and the sheer fantasy of The Hobbit. Of the three films, the Academy clearly likes Les Mis best, but it seems ridiculous that its unbecoming haircuts could deserve this award over Hobbit's far more extensive (and unenviable) work needed to create a dozen hirsute dwarves. Hitchcock was a nice try, but it didn't really pull off its lofty goals. DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
What Should Have Been Nominated: If this category supported five, Men in Black 3 and Holy Motors could have been included.
Best Cinematography
Nominees:
What Will Win: Life of Pi
What Should Win: Life of Pi
When in doubt, bet on Pi. Skyfall could drum up some sympathy for Roger Deakins, the Coen Brothers director of photography who has been nominated for this award ten times and never won.
DVDizzy.com Readers' Choice: Life of Pi
What Should Have Been Nominated: The Master and Moonrise Kingdom would have made suitable substitutes for any of these.
Best Live-Action Short
Nominees:
What Will Win: Curfew
What Should Win: Beats me. Haven't seen any of them.
Makers of Oscar-aspiring short films should spend nearly as much time deciding on a title as making the film. After all, more people will see the title and use that to make their blind picks in this category. I picked Curfew because the first letter of those titles resemble a multiple choice test: A, B, C, D, E (I'm assuming the "H" in Henry is silent like it is to Eliza Doolittle). As you know... when in doubt, pick "C." That's just common test-taking sense.
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