2013 Oscar Picks

[the_deep_magic]

My record since I’ve been keeping track:
2008: 11 of 24 (45.8%)
2009: 16 of 24 (66.6%)
2010: 15 of 24 (62.5%)
2011: 11 of 24 (45.8%)
2012: 10 of 24 (41.7%)

So as you can see, I peaked a few years ago and I’ve been steadily getting worse at this.  Good thing I never put any money on it.

Picture: Argo
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence
Director: Steven Spielberg
Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway
Feature Doc: How to Survive a Plague
Short Doc: Open Heart
Foreign: Amour
Animated: Wreck-It Ralph
Cinematography: Life of Pi
Makeup & Hair: The Hobbit
Production Design: Les Miserables
Original Screenplay: Zero Dark Thirty
Adapted Screenplay: Lincoln
Animated Short: Head Over Heels
Live Action Short: Asad
Visual Effects: Life of Pi
Costume Design: Les Miserables
Film Editing: Argo
Sound Mixing: Les Miserables
Sound Editing: Skyfall
Original Score: Lincoln
Song: “Skyfall”

I hate how all the big categories are never a surprise anymore.  Supporting Actor is the only one I'm not confident on.  Anyway, some thoughts on the Best Picture nominees I’ve seen. 

Argo:
Good, solid movie, but best picture candidate?  I don’t know.  It was well-directed and suspenseful, even though you knew how it was going to turn out (and they made just about everything up – from what I can tell, the actual rescue operation went pretty smoothly).  Maybe if Ben Affleck hadn’t picked himself to play the real-life Mexican main character.  But at least he wasn’t as bad as Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil.  Then again, maybe a thick, macho mustache would’ve helped…  Anyway, it’s going to win, no matter how I feel about it.

Django Unchained:
Not Tarantino’s best work.  The last half-hour is more like a parody of a Tarantino movie than anything else.   Plus, Leonardo DiCaprio always sets my teeth on edge; he doesn’t even have to be hamming it up as a stupidly over-the-top villain.

Lincoln:
Good in that Oscar-bait sort of way.  Kind of like The King’s Speech: nothing extra-special, but memorable for the actors’ performances.  Well, most of them.  I wasn’t crazy about Sally Field, but the Academy disagrees.  And I’m not sure how I feel about the script.  I honestly don’t know much about the actual Lincoln’s personality, whether he was really That Guy That Always Answers Every Question With a Vaguely Related (or Not) Anecdote or whether that was a Kushner creation.  Oh, Tony Kushner, you do love your speechifyin’.

Silver Linings Playbook:
Definitely the most different of the nominees (that I saw) and, as has been reported, a much better portrayal of the reality of mental illness, both diagnosed and not, than just about any other movie out there.   I was with it up until the end, when it succumbed to the tired Two Crazy People Heal Each Other With the Power of Lurrrrrrve trope.  It would be great in a fuck-the-establishment sort of way if that were the reality of it, and I’m not saying that’s never happened to anyone, but it is far, far more likely (and I speak from personal experience here) that, without active help, mentally ill people amplify each other’s crazy.  At least it is insinuated that Bradley Cooper’s character has started taking his meds, though he may or may not still be in therapy, and it didn’t seem like Jennifer Lawrence’s character was receiving any kind of treatment.  Great performances from both of them, but the ending just made me groan.

Zero Dark Thirty:
Probably my choice for Best Picture, though I wasn’t really bowled over by any of the nominees.   And here I may be a little biased by my girl!crush on Jessica Chastain.  After I watched it, I was reading about the controversy over the torture scenes (which are certainly disturbing, but not graphic) and thinking about the vastly different ways they could be interpreted, and that Kathryn Bigelow’s strength as a filmmaker was in choosing not to force an interpretation on them, but I’ve forgotten the very important and no-doubt terrifically eloquent things I was going to say about that.  So, yeah, not a movie I would want to see over and over again, but the best of the bunch, in my opinion.

I would have liked to have seen Life of Pi and Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I have not read the book yet and no theaters around here were playing it, respectively.  I wasn’t really interested in Amour’s meditation on death, and I was pretty sure watching Les Mis would force me to meditate on death (I don’t do musicals, and I’d rather remember Russell Crowe from his L.A. Confidential days, thank you very much).  Anyway, I’m not super-invested in any of the movies this year – except Frankenweenie, which isn’t going to win Animated Film but should – so mostly I’m in it just to see how far Seth McFarlane pushes the censors.  Really, did the Academy people think that decision through?