Oscar Predictions 2012

That annual post where I predict, nitpick, and whenever I can, eviscerate the yearly academy award winners.

2012 wasn't a bad year for movies. For all that it may have lacked (see the sorry summer blockbuster season, or the dearth of great performances) it made up for in some ambitious work behind the camera from a host of directors new and old. And as my forthcoming film awards, complete with a top 25 favorite flicks, will bear witness to, it was a year with surprising deep pockets.

Of course, you wouldn't know it from looking at the Academy's choices, collectively the most uninspiring batch since the dreaded 2005 (06' was a worse year, but the nominees made the best of it). It's not without bright spots. Best Director is particularly swanky, even with that pesky Alexander Payne invited to the party, and across the board there are some delightful inclusions that weren't necessarily expected, such as Drive and Jane Eyre nabbing one nod apiece, or the oddball Animated Feature category. But overall, there's just not a whole lot that interests me here, and I'll illustrate that with a small teaser for my own personal top 25. The Academy's Best Picture category of nine manages 3 films in common with my own list, not bad at all in my opinion, but turn instead to the 20 acting nominees and only 2 performances hail from that same grouping on my list. This has really been the season of sad Tristan. Yeah, I do have a few horses in this race (and they will still probably finish ahead of Mr. Spielberg's) but I've braced myself for the most unmagical Oscar ceremony in recent memory. In fact, I'll be working, and not racing home too fast afterward either. That'll show 'em. See how much I care.

Well, enough to still make predictions. So that's what you're looking at. Commentary where it feels right. And yeah, there are still a handful of these I've not seen, a few of which I will continue to avoid.

Best Picture
Will Win: The Artist
Should Win*: Hugo
Shouldn't Be There: The Help

*Should Win reflects only my pick among the nominees. Personal winners coming very, very soon.

Best Director
Will Win: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist




Should Win: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Shouldn't Be There: Alexander Payne, The Descendants



A great category, with three old dogs who rightly earn there spots, and a frontrunner who at the very least left an impression. This may all just be a dream of Alexander Payne's, who I'm still convinced directed his movie while sleepwalking.

Best Actor
Will Win: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Should Win: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Shouldn't Be There: George Clooney, The Descendants

Best Actress
Will Win: Viola Davis, The Help
Should Win: Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Shouldn't Be There: absolutely everyone but Mara, but especially Glenn Close

Rooney Mara's nomination single-handedly stopped my head from exploding on nomination morning. Oh, and yeah, Streep is probably in a good place to take it too, but it would really just be better for all concerned if Davis took it so let's go with that.

Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Should Win: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Shouldn't Be There: Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Jonah Hill is also in Alexander Payne's dream. Really, wtf is he doing here? He did nothing in that movie except speak math. And now we have to call him, Oscar Nominee, Jonah Hill. This fact is slowly killing me.

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Should Win: Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Shouldn't Be There: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids


Not a great category, but not as bad as some of the films involved would suggest. Bejo, McTeer and Chastain are all really good, and Spencer alright I suppose. But let's just not talk about McCarthy, k?

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: A Separation
Should Win: A Separation
Shouldn't Be Nominated: Bridesmaids


There is really only one correct choice here.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: The Descendants
Should Win: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Shouldn't Be Nominated: The Ides of March

Best Film Editing
Will Win: The Artist
Should Win: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Shouldn't Be There: The Descendants (I truly do not understand)

Best Cinematography
Will Win: The Tree of Life
Should Win: The Tree of Life
Shouldn't Be There: The Artist


They may be old as fuck, but I refuse to believe that the average Academy voter is blind. Hence why the only correct choice is The Tree of Life.

Best Costume Design
Will Win: Hugo
Should Win: probably Hugo, but really, Jane Eyre

Shouldn't Be There: Eh, it's all fair

Best Art Direction
Will Win: Hugo
Should Win: Hugo
Shouldn't Be There: Midnight in Paris (really liked the movie, but this is random)

Best Makeup
Will Win: Albert Nobbs
Should Win: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
Shouldn't Be There: no complaints

Best Sound Mixing
Will Win: War Horse
Should Win: Hugo

Best Sound Editing
Will Win: Hugo
Should Win: Hugo, but I kinda want to cheer for Drive

Best Visual Effects
Will Win: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Should Win: Hugo
But Really: Where the fuck is Tree of Life

Best Original Score
Will Win: The Artist
Should Win: Hugo
Shouldn't Be There: War Horse

Best Original Song
Will Win: Real in Rio, Rio
Shouldn't Be There: this category

Best Foreign-Language Film
Will Win: In Darkness
Should Win: A Separation


Ok, so not fair to really comment here since I've only seen A Separation, which clearly I loved, but given how wacky foreign film always ends up, I just can't go with that for my prediction. And when in doubt, go WWII.

Best Animated Feature
Will Win: Rango

Rango did kind of rock, but it was the only nominee (and animated film!) that I saw all year so I can't really say. Would be cool to see one of the foreign films nab a win.

Best Animated Short
Will Win: The Fantastic Flying Books of Dr. Morris Lessmore

Best Documentary
Will Win: Undefeated

Best Documentary Short
Will Win: Saving Face

Best Live-Action Short
Will Win: Tuba Atlantic

And with that, I am quite ready to go to sleep. This was not supposed to take up so much of my time this year.

Hugo: Or, Young Scorsese in Love

 Oh, hello.  I swear I didn't mean to set down the pen for so long.  It's actually been a very eventful few months.  There was much frolicking around the New York Film Festival, and my extensive foray into the films of '11 has kept pace ever since.  I've even managed to work in some revival screenings of favorites - the exhilarating Raiders of the Lost Ark, the mesmerizing Red Desert - so suffice it to say I've been having a good year.  And yet it's telling that it took a film like Hugo to inspire me to reopen the Library after what has been my longest absence since I first got it up and running.  Hugo, you see, is my favorite kind of film, a movie fueled solely by a burning passion of movies, and as such, it's a movie about falling in love.  That is was made by the reigning cinemagician of the day was just too perfect.  And now, awestruck and inspired, I've returned to recount what dazzling sights I've now seen.

You likely only know the vaguest details about Hugo, Martin Scorsese's first sojourn into the family film, and perhaps more significantly, the current 3D craze.  Residing within the walls of a Parisian train station is a mischievous waif who embarks on what's sure to be a wild and magical adventure.  So the trailer indicates.  That it reveals little else is just as well, for it allows even those who get a whiff of what's coming derive not-insignificant wonderment from the artfully handled reveals.  But I've already made up my mind to lay the cards on the table, so while this is not a film which hinges on any grand twist, should you prefer to remain in the dark, now is the time to turn away.  Just do so with my most enthusiastic endorsement on your mind.

Down to business.  Movie about movies come in all colors.  There are the clever, insider baseball kinds (The Player), the ones who take rapture in the creative process itself (8 1/2), and the one's that do or die based on your tolerance for name-checking (hi Quentin!).  And on the rarest of occasions, there are those that lovingly crafted odes to the medium itself, which without fail win me over every time, whether they're maudlin (Cinema Paradiso), erotic (The Dreamers), or practically perfect in every way, which I may prematurely be stating, is how I'm feeling about Hugo.  I mean, this film gets quite literally to the core of the medium, what with a budding cinefile stumbling upon the aging George Melies in (of course) a fucking train station.  And no one but no one was better suited to bring this story to the silver screen than Marty Scorsese, as not a director alive (save Godard...perhaps) possesses a better command of film grammar, nor a more deeply rooted love for his chosen profession.

And we're back again to love (or have we ever left the topic?).  Here it's a quantifiable object emanating from every frame of the film, though how much of that translates to each member of the audience will vary considerably.  While in no way inappropriate viewing for kids of any age, I suspect many will find the first half especially an exceptionally nice nap.  More than a few adults will sympathize with this as well, but I don't doubt that those who have a genuine love for movies will find within Hugo the ultimate validation for their obsession.  Here we get an automaton reminiscent of Metropolis, and our hero hanging Harold Lloyd style from a clock hand, and a runaway train breaking off the rails (and through the 4th wall!) as it careens through the station.  And of course the great Melies himself, illuminated late in the film though the most magical and heart-wrenching flashbacks you'll ever lay eyes on.  The honest devotion of Scorsese's achievement is enough to silence any cries of pretension, and those who find it overlong, my reasoning is that I'd rather spend a slow hour in a world as enchanting as Hugo's than a quick one anywhere else.  The movie isn't too long.  Your attention span is too short.

I haven't even scratched the surface, have I?  Perhaps some specifics then.  The cast populating Scorsese's Parisian snow globe circa 1930 is an absolute dream.  As Hugo, Asa Butterfield makes the ideal mirror image of any young artist or dreamer, not the least of whom would be Marty himself.  Chloe Moretz provides a nice foil, what with her literary aspirations aligned to counter his cinematic ones, and she delivers with great relish a handful of precocious adjectives ("clandestine" being my favorite).  There is Christopher Lee in a marvelous brief turn as a bookseller and Michael Stuhlbarg nearly stealing the show later on in full film preservationist glory.  We all could have used a little more Emily Mortimer, Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour, but their parts were the minor details that really elevated the show, and love him or hate him, Sacha Baron Cohen has all the mannerisms of the stars of silent cinema in his bones, and nowhere has this daring been put to better use.  Ben Kingsley and Helen McCrory are better still.  They're situated right at the emotional crux of the only film this year to bring tears to my eyes (three times, but who's counting?) and they breath such humanity into Georges and Jeanne, but also sadness, fear, and eventually wonder.

Technically, Hugo is no less an achievement.  Scorsese's use of 3D is never flashy, and if not absolutely crucial to the viewing experience, here marks one of the few instances where I've found it add to, as opposed to cheapen, the overall impact.  Thelma Schoonmaker's editing reaches new heights in the artfully constructed flashback sequences, Robert Richardson's photography thrives from being ever curious of its surroundings, and Howard Shore's score may even top his exceptional work in A Dangerous Method. 

But my superlatives are starting to sound silly.  It's abundantly clear by now that I love movies that love movies, and that Hugo is practically my new gold standard.  But while I'm here telling, Scorsese is out there doing a bang up job of showing, and you really won't find a better argument for why movies can mean so much to people than this film here.  And so that's what brings me back to this site, hopefully with a little more frequency, but certainly with a reignited passion for the medium I'm writing about.