Best Supporting Actor
Should win: Christoph Waltz or Robert DeNiro
Will win: Waltz
Christoph Waltz plays every role he is in perfectly and his role as Dr. King Schultz is no different. Making an enjoyable character really fun to watch on screen and help tell the story. It was great to see Robert DeNiro playing a more powerful role than his other recent roles. Proving he still has his acting chops about him. It'd be great to see him win. And finally there's Tommy Lee Jones, who worked well in Lincoln and showed audiences how difficult compromising politically was in those times, but I don't think this is his year.
Best Supporting Actress
Should and will win (without question): Anne Hathaway
Using the live singing to its fullest, she nearly steals the entire movie with her brief time on screen. Showing anguish, pain, and a little bit of hope, Hathaway as Fantine blew this role out of the water and showed that she can get serious when she's not flirting with death as Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises.
Best Screenplay
Should win: Django Unchained
Will win: Django Unchained
Possibly one of Quentin Tarantino's best scripts, I think it will take home the Oscar for best screenplay this year. With creative dialogue he sets up his gruesome violence, which he's known for, and makes you laugh when the violence is directed at slave owners/drivers. Only screenplay that might beat this out is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. His story of young love holds true to his quirky style of humor and show an odd take on the first love of two young children.
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Should win: Lincoln or Silver Linings Playbook
Will win: Argo
Having not read any of the things these stories are based on, I am looking at them solely based on the translation to the screen. Nothing can stop the Academy and every other award show giving the award to Argo, probably to make up for the fact that Affleck wasn't nominated for best director. That's why it'll win this award. It's not the best movie of the year. The most deserving of this award is Silver Linings Playbook. I didn't know it would be such an enjoyable film. Every twist and line of dialogue combined with the various extreme characters, made this a ton of fun to watch from beginning to end. Lincoln on the other hand is equally as good as Playbook, but much more dramatic and slow-paced. The part of Lincoln is seemingly written directly for Daniel Day-Lewis, much like his last award winning role as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.
Best Director:
Should win: David O. Russell
Will win: Steven Spielberg
With Affleck getting snubbed for this category, it could very feasibly fall into the hands of Steven Spielberg, again. Spielberg is a master of storytelling and he deserves this nomination as much as anyone. However, I'd like to see a comedic director win and Sliver Linings Playbook is just the movie that could do it.
Best Actress:
Should and will win: Jennifer Lawrence
Many critics claim that Jessica Chastain's performance in Zero Dark Thirty is the best female performance of the year, but that is simply not true. Jennifer Lawrence is more passionate and embraces her character's crazy side. She plays Tiffany, a recent widow, dealing with her new found intimacy issues. At the most pivotal moment she proves that she cares about Pat (Bradley Cooper) and does what Pat can't: stand up to his father Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro). She sells this moment of genius absolutely perfectly. Lawrence fulfills what it means to be a best actress, whereas Jessica Chastain has very brief explosions of emotion that generally do nothing for the character.
Best Actor:
Should and will win: Daniel Day-Lewis
The Academy can make history this year. If Daniel Day-Lewis he will become the first actor to win this award three times. Only Walter Brennan (three times for best supporting actor) and Jack Nicholson (two for lead actor, one for supporting actor) have won three acting Oscars. Who is more deserving of this honor than Daniel Day-Lewis. A character actor who always finds a way to embody his character, whether it is a writer/painter who can only move his left foot (My Left Foot 1989), a gang leading butcher (Gangs of New York, 2002), or his most recent best actor win as a greedy oil prospector (There Will Be Blood, 2007). His acting can't be beat. And this year is no different. On screen there is no actor, no Daniel Day-Lewis. There is only Abraham Lincoln. He and Sally Field reportedly would text each other only in 1850s language to never be out of character.
The only performance I could see beating him out would be Bradley Cooper, but that's probably only because I enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook immensely.
Best Picture:
Who will walk away with the biggest prize of the night? Again, critics and other award shows would have you believe that Argo is the best movie of the year, but it might only win to give Ben Affleck some redemption. However it's rare that a movie wins best picture without being nominated in the directing category. But Hollywood loves nothing more than a movie revolving around the production of movies (Last year's The Artist, proved that). While I do agree that Argo is good, it just didn't hit everything I feel a best picture should. There were very few characters I related to, believed, or cared about.
Amour, Life of Pi, and Les Misérables will all fall short due to the nature of the awards. Amour shouldn't win because it will handily take the best foreign film award. Life of Pi ends too ambiguously in my opinion, though the Academy often likes ambiguous endings. Being visually stunning isn't always enough to win. And Les Mis is fine, but it felt too much like watching a stage production, which kind of defeats the purpose of it being a movie.
Django Unchained and Beasts of the Southern Wild are the two dark horses this year. A charming performance by new comer and youngest nominee (at five years old) Quvenzhané Wallis, which carries the entire film, is endearing enough that I think it could take everyone by surprise and win the grand prize. Quentin Tarantino's films have been on the cusp of winning best picture a few times in his career. Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds being the other two. Django has the acting chops, outstanding directing, and great dialogue that it could win, though the lacking best director nomination almost discounts Django from winning, much like Argo.
The final three had been the top three pictures leading into award season, but the late run by Argo winning lots of awards has changed that. Unfortunately for fans of Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty politics have all but killed any momentum it could have gained. Arguments over the portrayal of information-getting tactics among other things turned many voters in the Academy away. The most deserving of this award, to me, is Lincoln. Usually I'm not a fan of period dramas, but it was so expertly crafted and acted that I can't help, but hope it beats all the other movies out. Then there's Silver Linings Playbook, and if you haven't caught on, this was my favorite of the best picture nominees by far. Endearing, relatable characters, a great underdog story, and entertaining dialogue make this a movie that won't soon be forgotten.
Will win: Lincoln
Should win: Lincoln
Who I'd like to see win: Silver Linings Playbook
There you have it. Another great year of movies will soon come to a close, opening the door for the blockbusters (Iron Man 3) and new horror movies (like last year's Cabin in the Woods). But looking back there are a few movies that were completely snubbed as there are every year. The Dark Knight Rises rounding out Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, should have received a few nominations including best picture, just based on how great the entire trilogy was. Sure the acting wasn't always the best, but Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy played two incredibly menacing villains. The Avengers, while being comic-book fanboys wet dreams, is only nominated for best visual effects and it will probably lose to Life of Pi.
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