The Oscars 2013 - OR - Life Of Lincoln's Unchained Misérables Playbook

The Oscars are a pretty big thing. You might have heard of them. They’re some kind of movie award or something that everybody loves to mock and yet takes incredibly seriously anyway.

Such is life.

The nominations for 2013 were unveiled a couple of days ago to the standard symphony of cynical murmurs, heated discussion by self-titled buffs on the Internets (note: I heartily include myself in that category, I take nothing that I write seriously. Have no fear.) and a sprinkling of mandatory controversy by this year’s host Seth Macfarlane. Apparently, Hitler jokes still aren’t cool to those ultra-hip whiter-than-white centenarians fused to the Academy’s voting list.

So, for the three people who haven’t seen the nominations (and actually care about it, if only a little bit) have no fear! Look at the lists below with your eyes and process them with the bits of your brain that do eye stuff. Or just read them:

After winning the lottery, the Terminator got all...indulgent,

(NOTE: There are a lot of awards. Now I legitimately do not want to inadvertently insult any specific award - films are constructed of far more than pretty music and pretty actors - but for the sake of space and time only the traditionally ‘bigger’ awards will be listed. For a full list of all the nominees click here.)

Best Picture
:              Amour
                      Beasts Of The Southern Wild
             
                                    Argo
                         Les Misérables
          
                                    Life Of Pi        
         Silver Linings Playbook


                                    Zero Dark Thirty
      Django Unchained

                                    Lincoln


Best Director:              Steven Spielberg
- Lincoln
                                      Ang Lee
- Life of Pi 
                                      
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild         
                                      David O. Russell
- Silver Linings Playbook
                                      Michael Haneke - Amour 

Best Actor:
                 Denzel Washington - Flight

                                    Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook

                                    Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

                                    Hugh Jackman - Les Misérables

                                    Joaquin Phoenix - The Master

Best Actress:                        Emmanuelle Riva - Amour
                                                Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook
                                                Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty
                                                Naomi Watts - The Impossible                                                Quvenzhané Wallis - Beasts Of The Southern Wild


Best Supporting Actor:
        Alan Arkin - Argo

                                                Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

                                                Robert De Niro - Silver Linings Playbook

                                                Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master

                                                Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln

Best Supporting Actress: 
    Jacky Weaver - Silver Linings Playbook
                                                Anne Hathaway - Les Misérables

                                                Helen Hunt - The Sessions

                                                Sally Field - Lincoln

                                                Amy Adams - The Master


Best Animated Film:             Paranorman


                                                Frankenweenie

                                                Brave
                                                The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists

                                                Wreck-it-Ralph

Best Adapted Screenplay: 
               Chris Terrio - Argo

                                                            Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin - Beasts Of The Southern Wild                                                                  
                                                            David Magee - Life Of Pi

                                                            Tony Kushner - Lincoln

                                                            David O. Russell - Silver Linings Playbook

Best Original Screenplay:  
  Michael Haneke - Amour

                                                Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained

                                                Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola - Moonrise Kingdom

                                                Mark Boal - Zero Dark Thirty

                                                John Gatins - Flight

Best Film Editing:                William Goldenberg
- Argo
                                                Tim Squyres
- Life of Pi
                                                Dylan Tichenor, William Goldberg – Zero Dark Thirty
                                                Michael Kahn
- Lincoln
                                                Jay Cassidy & Crispin Struthers – Silver Linings Playbook                                                   

So what do we think? Interested, outraged, bemused, confused, apathetic, lethargic, psychotic? Any predictions on the outcome? It’d be wonderful to hear people’s opinions so go on, let us know! You see that comment box down there? You can write in that. It’s wicked cool, give it a try. It won't much hurt I promise.

To add fuel to the fire, here are my malformed musings:

 100 years later and he still couldn't remember where his keys were.

Overall, this is the most progressive list of nominations the Academy has coughed up in a while. There’s the standard Oscar-friendly fair (Lincolnand its 12 noms) but there’s also an awful lot of variability, with some very creative and undeniably small-scale films getting some loving attention. No-one saw Beasts of the Southern Wild getting quite so much appraisal despite its Palm D’or success earlier in the year and the attention given to other somewhat oddball productions – Silver Linings, Django – is something we call feel very positive about. Ben Affleck will justifiably feel a bit sick after the Best Director snub which seriously harms Argo’s Best Picture chances but its attention is still something to cheer. Furthermore, Amour’s utterly remarkable success follows nicely on the coattails of The Artist (European Revolution in Hollywood?) and the support for Life of Pi is reassuring: its uber-spiritual subtext practically makes love to the Academy’s senisiblities; its action packed effects-focused beauty…not so much. The total disregard for The Dark Knight Rises and Avenger’s Assemble, while as surprising as white on paper, is testament to the Academy’s aversion to most things modern.

None of this will matter of course as Lincoln goes on to win absolutely everything. Including four Grammies and a Tony because Prez Lincoln is big like that.

Making predictions is historically pointless before some of the smaller award’s ceremonies have their time in the limelight (which The Oscar’s will then copy with slightly more bombastic interlude music.) But what is life without a bit of fun, a bit of a gamble?

Below are my provisional predications based off little more than total conjecture and warm feelings in my special parts. Meaning my heart and brain obviously. Sickos.

'No matter what you do, no matter how you do it, I will always matter more than you.'

Best Picture: Lincoln

Nine Best Picture nominations this time and the whole ‘hey guys, let’s do more than five nominations to look all cool and generous’ thing continues to feel pointless. Very rarely does the Best Picture go to a different film than Best Director (last time was Crash (2004)) and even more rarely is a Best Picture winner not nominated for Best Editing (last time that happened was around 30 years ago). Keeping all this in mind we’re left with three options: Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook and Lincoln. Of those three, there’s a definite Academy-loving frontrunner…

It’s Lincoln, Daniel-Day Lewis and Steven Spielberg all mixed in one ultra emotional pot. If the Academy voters weren’t so against sexual joviality, that’d definitely be one threesome they’d pay to watch.

Quick Note: Argo is a definite dark horse. Or maybe even kinda dark grey horse. It’s performed strongly in the early awards season and it’s Best Editing nomination bodes well. Affleck’s omission is the issue however.

Best Director: Lincoln – Steven Spielberg

A bit more open this one but following the genius algorithm outlined above it is again down to just three films: Ang Lee and Life of Pi, Steven Spielberg and Lincoln, David O. Russell and Silver Linings. Very very rarely will the Academy put an effects heavy director in front of Mr. Political Message (Or Mrs., of course, the Hurt Locker Vs. Avatarbattle perhaps the best example here) and Silver Linings may be just a tad too ‘quirky’.

Spielberg will reign supreme again.

Best Actor: Daniel-Day Lewis – Lincoln

Now we’re into complete conjecture territory. Hugh Jackman, though commendable in Les Miz, arguably hasn’t got enough of a presence in his own film to be seriously considered while Bradley Cooper suffers from the sheer strength of the competition and his virginal experience in the field. Joachim Pheonix could definitely be something of a dark horse but The Master’s mixed reception could be its downfall. So we’re left with a face-off between Washington and Lewis – both two-time winners previously – which would be exciting.

As it stands, Lewis is arguably the front-runner based on Lincoln’s momentum. It’s his to lose.


Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained 

All of these guys have won before and this is a hugely open category. Honestly, any of them could win it. I adored Silver Linings Playbook and would love to see it pick up some gongs, that De Niro was excellent is useful too. Tommy Lee-Jones may benefit from Lincoln’s Academy friendliness but, as it stands, I’ll support Waltz based purely on the fact that he’s cooler than a frozen cucumber on Pluto. Wearing sunglasses. Naturally.

Just look at this sexy sonofabitch, his beard is better than your entire being.

Best Actress: Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty

What a great category! With both the oldest and youngest nominations in The Oscar’s history and general quality all around this year’s Best Actress nominations are something to feel positive about indeed. Another one almost impossible to call this early on but I’ll lump for Chastain based on the initial positivity and buzz regarding her performance. Personally, I’d love it to go to Jennifer Lawrence (already on her second nomination at just 23!) but she’s a tad young.

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables

It’s hers, simple as that. She’s incredible. Only actually in the film for less than a third of its running time but…yeah, wow. Debate over.

Best Animated Film: Brave

Throw a dart. It’s your best chance here. I haven’t actually – sadly - seen any of the nominations but based on its pure beauty and the relative niche-ness of the other nominations (Video Games? Urgh!) I’d bet a penny on Brave. It’s Pixar too, who doesn’t love those guys?

Best Adapted Screenplay: Tony Kushner - Lincoln

It’s another academy rarity that the Best Picture winner doesn’t win in its respective writing category (which is normally Adapted Screenplay because no originality herpity derp). Seeing as, at least so far as I’m concerned, Lincolnseems poised to perform strongest, I’ll lump for it again here. Total guess though, this one is very much open (outside of Life of Pi, it’s a great movie and a great adaptation but no movie that effects-heavy will be picking up a writing credit any time soon).

Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained

Moonrise Kingdom could definitely pop up for an anomalous win here but I’d argue that the ball is in Quentin Tarantio’s court. If the Academy decide to give Amour anything it’ll be an all or nothing deal and Zero Dark Thirty’s prospects look ill following Katheryn Bigelow’s omission from the Best Director race. Flight, well, who knows. But I’d argue for a toss-up between Moonrise Kingdom and Django Unchained, with QT’s Oscar previous helping him out here.

Best Film Editing: Michael Kahn
- Lincoln

To win Best Picture you have to be at least nominated for Best Editing, you don’t necessarily have to win it. As it stands it could go anywhere: effects heavy films naturally need spectacular editing, especially so in Life of Pi’s case and it’s mixture of green-screen and hard-graft, and all of the others are duking it out on fairly similar territory. Based purely on my other predications I’ll go for Lincoln  for now, but that may very well change.                                              

'Oscars? I can't chew that.'

So there you go, what did you think? Agree? Disagree? Think I’m talking out of my arse? It’s more than likely to be fair.

As I said, these are all almost entirely based on conjecture, guesswork and coin flipping. I may have another crack at predicting closer to the date when we have a better idea of who’s winning elsewhere, but only if you’re lucky mind. And eat your greens.

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As a final note, please follow me on Twitter: @smariman. You'll get told of updates and new posts as soon as they happen as well as the odd desperate attempt at being funny, entertaining and likeable. Such is life.