The 2013 Oscars and My Yearly Half-Assed Predictions

Ok, so if you’re a frequent follower of mine you know I’m not a big Oscar fan. Once I got to hold a real Oscar and it didn’t make me feel any different. Although I did get to do some fake gushing and got all Sally Field for a moment. Maybe you have to actually win one to make it a genuinely special moment.

I actually haven’t watched the telecast in a acouple of years! I suppose I have a passing interest in the winners, but I really don’t place too much importance on these awards – or any of the countless award ceremonies they have at the end of the year. Most of it just seems like a big popularity contest and most of the audience is only interested in the dresses that are worn on the show.

This year I planned on tuning in to specifically watch this Bond 50th Anniversary Celebration they said they were going to have. Well, now it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be as exciting as how they first promoted it. I’ll get into that at the end of this blog.

So even without a big Bond blast happening I’m still planning on watching the show (unless I get really bored with it, which is very possible). Unlike previous years I wasn’t asked by any friends to fill out their Oscar ballots. I was kind of surprised about that. This will be the exclusive spot I’ll throw out my predictions of the winners and maybe some forecasts about the show itself.

Oh and let just say now I haven’t seen all the nominated films (most of them I haven’t). I’m just going by my gut and what seems to be the trend of what I’ve been hearing of where these Oscar chips are going to fall this year. Don’t rely on my guesses to win any Oscar bets.

So the host this year is Seth MacFarlane. I’ll be honest I know nothing about this guy. I know he’s the dude behind Family Guy and Ted. Never saw Ted. I caught a few minutes of Family Guy once years ago and just didn’t get it. All it seemed was pop culture references with no spin to it. Maybe I just caught a bad episode, I don’t know. People have told me he’s really funny – I guess I’ll find out Oscar night. If those Oscar commercials of his are any indication, I don’t think it’s my type of humor. But who cares I’m not watching the show for the host.

Oh and hey how about this – the Oscars will no longer have those good-looking chicks carry out the Oscar statues to the winners. They’re changing that to aspiring filmmakers doing the handoffs. I thought this was a pretty funny tweak to the show when I read this.

The producer said, “This tradition of the buxom babe that comes out and brings the trophy to the presenter to give to the winner seemed to be very antiquated and kind of sexist too”.

Yeah….so! They’re always trying to update this show and it just never ever seems to work. I don’t know why they just can’t accept it’s a long, square, old-fashioned show and there’s not much you can do to improve it. It is, what it is. Well, maybe they serve lots of alcohol to everyone. That might loosen things up a bit.

It’s kind of nice they’ve given these young film students a chance to participate in the show…..but by filling in for the good-looking chicks in the background? So they’re going to take that added eye-candy away from us now huh?

I don’t get this. I’m not sure I understand the point of having folks who want to work in the film industry play Vanna White at the Oscars. What is it they’re supposed to glean from this experience?

I mean, sure if they had asked me to do this I would. Get a nice tux, hang out backstage, a whole night filled with some awesome stuff to tweet – but I don’t get how this particular exposure is supposed to help with their filmmaking careers.

It’s nice the Oscars want to include the next generation of filmmakers in its show, but is this the best idea they could come up with to include them in the evening festivities? I could understand if the producers hired each of these kids to

help put together an Oscar montage or maybe do a short film for the official website, but just handing out the Oscars? It would seem better if landed a gig as a seat filler. At least then they could pass around their resumes to people! Oh well. I’m going to miss seeing those fleeting glimpses of the hot models walking around in the background.

Ok, lets get to the winners of the night:

Best Picture – For the life of me I don’t understand this category. Ok, so we know they expanded this category from five Best Picture nominees to ten because of The Dark Knight fallout in 2008. So in 2010 we had ten nominees. 2011 gave us ten nominees. Then in 2012 we got…nine. And now in 2013 we are also are given nine.

What happened to the ten?

I’ve tried to grasp the Academy’s method of how they decide what films end up with Best Picture nominations, but really every time I try to listen to or read the rules about the percentages of votes a film must need to get in order to qualify and blah, blah, blah, I completely tune out. I don’t understand it and I’m not sure why it’s so complicated. Maybe it’s me, I was never good with numbers. I don’t see why they can’t just have an even ten nominees every year. If I was in charge I would revamp this rule. But hey it’s their show.

So who’s going to win Best Picture this year?

Out of the nine nominees it seems like it will be between Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty. (Funny how they expand the nominees in this category and everyone knows most of the films don’t have a chance of winning.)

For some reason I’m thinking Argo will win. I saw Argo, liked it, but didn’t think it was as great as most people have proclaimed. It seemed like the story shifted from the light humor of creating the fake Hollywood production to the tense hostage portion too abruptly and that tonal change was a bit too jarring for my taste. All the actors are very good in it, they really capture the time period well and the suspense scenes are effective. Apparently it’s really working for a lot of people.

By the way am I the only one who was mesmerized by all the Star Wars toys at the end of the film? I kept thinking I could trip the film up and see that particular toy was not consistent to the films time-frame, but I think they nailed them all!

The fact that Ben Affleck was not nominated for best director for Argo has only fueled the passion for this film somehow. I find it funny that every other year when a director isn’t nominated for their accompanying Best Picture nominee people complain about it. “Well, the film apparently directed itself!”

Now that they expanded this category to ten – or as in this year nine – Best Picture nominees and there are still only five slots for best directors, there are going to be films and directors who won’t get matched with nominations. Get over it. If it’s such a problem perhaps the Academy should just rule that every Best Picture nominee automatically gets its director nominated. Would that satisfy everyone??? This is going to be a recurring situation every Oscar season.

So yeah, Argo will win for Best Picture with no chance of Affleck winning director. Like I said I haven’t seen all the nominated films, but personally I would have voted Django Unchained over Argo.

Best Director – Stevie gets enough accolades and Lincoln will win in other categories. This year it seems like the tide will be swinging to Life of Pi director Ang Lee. I haven’t seen the film, but I’ve just heard raves about it and folks saying the direction is a major key to what makes the movie so wonderful.

Best Actor -Daniel Day Lewis all the way. I think everyone is in agreement that he was terrific as Honest Abe and a big reason why the film is so special.

Best Supporting Actor – This is usually the most interesting category to look at and predict. I would really like to see Christoph Waltz win this because he was my favorite character in Django Unchained and I loved every minute he was onscreen.

However, I think Django isn’t going to get much love from the Academy. I like Alan Arkin – hey he was one of the best things in The Return of Captain Invincible! In Argo Arkin doesn’t do anything special, he just gives another one of his fun, reliable performances.

I think John Goodman should have been nominated over Arkin actually. His nomination was just a nice gesture. Besides Arkin won not too long ago. It will probably be between Robert DeNiro and Tommy Lee Jones. I’m thinking all this Lincoln love will carry another Oscar into Jones’ hands, who deserves it.

Best Actress –This category has got me a bit stumped. I would have instinctively said Emmanuelle Riva in Amour. Older actress, I’ve heard a lot of talk about her performance. But then I keep hearing Silver Linings Playbook Jennifer Lawrence is a possible candidate to win this.

It kind of makes sense and makes me reconsider things. The last few years the Oscars have leaned towards awarding younger actresses who they suspect will be stick around and will be entertaining us for years to come. Natalie Portman, Sandra Bullock, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Reese Witherspoon, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman…..Halle Berry.

It’s as if the Oscars are saying “ok, you paid your dues, you’ve been able to hang around for awhile, now we’re welcoming you into the club.

The more I look at the list of past best actress winners in the last decade I’m leaning more towards Jennifer Lawrence. They know she’s going to be around with those Hunger Game movies too.

Best Supporting Actress –This is where the Oscars usually would give the award to an older veteran, but not this year. The Oscars love their former host who belted out songs for their show a few years before she would film Les Miserables. Plus, she went on a diet and cut off her hair to play that part! That’s commitment to your art. So Miss Anne Hathaway come on up and collect your Oscar! Dark Knight Rises fans can imagine she’s winning for her performance as Catwoman.

This is kind of strange, we’re going to have two good looking actresses posing at the end of the night with their trophies. Maybe this is the Oscars way of compensating us with getting rid of those hot models walking around on stage.

Original Screenplay –It’s between Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained. I still don’t think Django will get much attention from the Academy. This will be Zero‘s chance to win something.

Adapted Screenplay – This will be another Lincoln win.

Ok, let’s get to the James Bond portion of the program. Skyfall got a five nominations.

Cinematography – I’m really hoping Roger Deakins will win for Cinematography. But it seems Life of Pi is his real competition and I’m afraid it’s too tough for him to overcome.

Original Score – It won’t win. I keep reading Life of Pi taking this too. Plus, John Williams is in here for Lincoln. It’s funny the score for Skyfall was one of the things I didn’t really care for when I first saw the film. I have to see if it’s grown on me next time I rewatch it.

Sound Mixing – This seems like a safe bet it’s going to Les Miserables. People will be aware of all the singing and music in the movie. That’s more impressive than guns and explosions in the eyes of the snooty Academy folk.

Skyfall might have had a chance for Sound Editing, but against Zero Dark Thirty which has a more dramatic real world suspenseful climax than another one of those ‘popcorn James Bond movies’ it will lose yet again.

Best Original Song –Whoa, whoa, whoa wait a second here!!!

I think we got a winner!

Adele will be performing Skyfall on the show and it seems to be the favorite to win the Oscar. This will be the first Oscar win for the Bond series since 1965! This is reason enough to celebrate for Bond fans (those who actually care about the Oscars).

It is kind of crazy when I think about the fifty years and twenty three Bond films that have been made – the series has only won two Oscars! Thunderball for special effects and Goldfinger for sound. What about all those songs, the sets, the stunts, the special effects? It seems unreal and I can start to agree with Judi Dench’s speculation there is a certain bias against 007 by the Academy.

Skyfall‘s nominations were the first the Bond series has gotten since being nominated for Best Song For Your Eyes Only in 1981! In fact, Skyfall‘s five Oscar nominations nearly equaled the seven nominations (not including its two wins) the previous twenty-two films in the series received combined. That is really crazy. Too bad they couldn’t have just thrown Skyfall a bone and given it that tenth empty spot for a Best Picture nod.

With any luck Adele will help win Skyfall a statue for Best Song and I’ve still got my fingers crossed for Deakins to pull out a win for his work. It would be his first Oscar win too.

Lastly, how about that big Bond celebration the Oscars were planning? You know, the whole thing to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the series and the plan to bring all six Bond actors together on stage. The one thing that got all us Bond fans so excited for this show. Well, the latest news is that it won’t be happening.

Oscar producers have now stated there will be a James Bond tribute, but it won’t involve having Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig appearing on stage together for the first time.

“It’s something else, something very unique and very exciting but no, we’re not getting the Bond’s together.”

This pretty much sucks.

There’s been speculation now that the tribute will revolve around Dame Shirley Bassey and Sir Tom Jones belting out their signature Bond tunes. I suspect we’ll get the required Bond montage and possibly some strange interpretive dance to a medley of Bond themes or something.

This was the main reason why I was going to tune into the Oscars. Now since this Bond celebration of all six actors won’t be happening (unless the producers are trying to surprise us…..I really hope they are) I don’t feel very compelled to watch the Oscars this year. I guess I’ll still try to tune in to at least see the James Bond series win its first Oscar in nearly fifty years. That might be a cool moment to see. If I actually cared about the Oscars.

Just for the fun of it, check out the last time 007 was honored at the Oscars with its Best Song nomination for For Your Eyes Only. The 1982 Oscar broadcast went all out to make Sheena Easton’s production as cheesy as possible. It looks like they got For Your Eyes Only confused with Moonraker. At least they had Richard Kiel and Harold Sakata return as Jaws and Oddjob for the show. I’m betting Adele’s performance will be a little more low-key. We probably won’t be seeing any Blofeld impersonators with stuffed cats this year.