Oscar Reflections (points deducted for late submission)

And so it’s been over two weeks since the Oscars, so why post now?  Maybe it’s because of my students.  They’re so sweet, you know?  They actually asked me questions about what did I think about Seth McFarlane?  So, ok.  What did I think?

First off, regarding Seth McFarlane.  The Oscars are seen as an old fogey show.  So, they’re trying to make it more relevant (or fun) to the kiddies.  They couldn’t do that with James Franco and Anne Hathaway two years ago, so they tried with Seth McFarlane this year.   And you know what?  It worked.  18-35 year olds want to see numbers like “We Saw Your Boobs.”  It was a win for the Academy, even though they shot their actual audience in the foot.  I both appreciate and bemoan Seth McFarlane.  I get him, but hate why.  Was he offensive?  Yes.  Did I get to see him attack Sally Fields and her reciprocate? Yes.  You can’t exploit someone who says yes.

So there is the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Where did everything fall?

The Good:

Yay for Oscars!!!  Because I was all “they got it right!” and impressed with some votes.

THE BIGGEST HIGHLIGHT BY FAR OF THE WHOLE SHOW WAS ANG LEE WINNING FOR BEST DIRECTOR.  I really cannot underscore that enough, and it blew my mind that he actually won.  I know from the get-go that I am way too emotionally involved in Life of Pi, but if you haven’t seen it, try to go see it before it leaves theaters.  You can see Amour at home.  Life of Pi is not the same.  If you don’t get to see it on wide screen, I’m sorry.

The second biggest “YES, WIN!!!” was for Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained.  Believe me, I don’t think Tarantino is the end-all, be-all, and other than Deathproof, this is his worst film.  But without a doubt, Waltz owned that part.  There was no protagonist in this film, because Foxx’s Django was so insipid.  I hope another talented director, like Fincher, gets ahold of this guy, because he is so amazing.

Third, Mychael Danna won for best score.  Yes all around.  What is weird is that I remembered the score when it was important, in dialogue sessions, not in action sequences.  He so got this from the beginning, and I love the fact that he finally got recognition.

Life of Pi winning for cinematography and visual effects.  Maybe I’m biased (in fact, I know I am), but I’m certainly not alone, with this winning the major tech awards.  This wasn’t by chance.  Again, if you can, see it before it leaves theaters.

Lincoln winning for production design.  There was some impressive attention to detail.

The Bad:

Argo for Best Picture, even though that is so obviously false and shows the flaws in the system.  Seriously, FUCK BEN AFFLECK.  I am working from a deficit since I haven’t seen Les Miserables, but of the 8 of the 9, this isn’t even in the top three.  But with all of the politics, whatever.  This was a really decent year for movies, and to see one win that wasn’t all that great win is disheartening.

And Argo winning for best adapted screenplay is sort of odious, too.  Silver Linings Playbook and Life of Pi didn’t win?

The Ugly:

I couldn’t say this is bad, because it isn’t, but I do think it is wrong, so I’ll put it under ugly.  Without a doubt, Emmanuelle Riva should have won for best actress.  The physicality of what she had to do for the part, and she was 85, was astounding.  I’m not trying to say Jennifer Lawrence was bad in her role, but she is so clearly second place behind Riva here.  I’m not sure if this is age bias or foreign bias, but this was a glaring oversight.

Sorry Steven, but all that overt, garish Oscar campaigning for your movie didn’t pan out.  It’s a bit sickening hearing about all the studio did to try to get votes.  I used to be a big Spielberg fan, but now, he’s diminishing quickly.

I’m still mad that Searching for Sugar Man won.  It’s not a bad movie, but Five Broken Cameras was so amazing.

You’re telling me that Argo was better edited than Zero Dark Thirty?  Wow, Hollywood was really ticked off by the waterboarding.

The Obvious: 

Daniel-Day Lewis for best actor.  DDL gave a great speech about him playing Margaret Thatcher and her playing Lincoln.  Can you imagine those movies?  Great speech by a great actor, though.

Anne Hathaway for best actress, although I still think Helen Hunt probably deserved it more.

Amour for best foreign film.

Les Miserables for best sound mixing.  All those live vocals.  All that noise.  No one else should have probably been in this category.

Adele winning for “Skyfall.”  But I didn’t know beforehand that Scarlett Johansson sang that ice movie’s song.  I didn’t know she sang.  Why hasn’t she been tapped for a musical?

Tarantino winning for best original screenplay.  They had to give Django more than just one award, right?

Surprises:

We had a tie?!?  Do you know how often that happens?  Like almost never.  And both Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall deserved the award, so that was really cool all around.

Brave won instead of Wreck It Ralph.  That is really too bad.  Given the positive message that Ralph was trying to send out, in this world of bullying, I was genuinely surprised that Brave won, since it was by-the-boards pedantic.  This honestly was my biggest surprise.

Can you find religion in a tiger?

No, this isn’t a Criterion post, but it is something that’s been nagging at me since last weekend, and since it is movie-related, I want to mull it over.  The topic is religion in movies.  Last weekend, I watched Flight and The Master, both of which had actors up for best actor at this year’s Academy Awards (Denzel Washington and Joaquin Phoenix) and had actors up for best supporting roles (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams for The Master).  Yesterday, I bought a copy of Life of Pi, my favorite release of last year.  All three films explicitly or implicitly have religion at the heart of their stories.  But I disliked (hate is such a strong word) two and adored one.  They were all competently made with established directors (Robert Zemeckis [Back to the Future series], Paul Thomas Anderson [There Will Be Blood], and Ang Lee [who won best director for Life of Pi, as well he should]).  My problem is that I don’t understand religion very well, and what I do understand of it is a mixture of positive and negative (true of most things, actually, but the good and the bad here seem more polarized).  So this may be an exercise in flaunting my ignorance, but even though work has been taking up most of my life, thinking about these three movies and how religion factors into them keeps resurfacing in my head all week.

The Master is purported to be about Scientology.  I know very little about the religion itself.  It seems to get bad press and looked at rather derisively.  I haven’t seen the South Park episode that rips it apart but have heard synopses.  I’ve listened to the NPR Morning Edition segment on Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear:  Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief.  There’s the now infamous interviews with Tom Cruise that have him attesting he’s never ill due to Scientology.  When I was young, my dad read Dianetics and said it was amazing but that he didn’t quite understand it all (which was a mean feat for a book to get my father to admit he didn’t get something – he wasn’t much for admitting personal weaknesses).  I haven’t read Slate’s article on this yet, but definitely will.  I know the Scientologists were pissed off at the movie being made and tried to block its release.  Hoffman’s Hubbard character, Lancaster Dodd, is trying to legitimize his religion to a post-WWII America.  It seems he is sometimes sued after someone gives him money, feeling they’ve been “taken” in what sounds like a confidence scam, and that is telling, because faith has a lot to do with believing what you are being told, whatever that may be.  He also has an anger management issue that has him exploding at people for perfectly reasonable questions and statements.  I’m fairly certain the movie wasn’t trying to explain Scientology, which is probably the best thing about the movie.  It was looking at characters and how they exerted their wills upon each other, especially Quell, Dodd and his wife.  Control, at least for most organized religions, is vital.  Just looking at the dog-and-pony show that has been Pope Benedict stepping down and being replaced by Pope Francis is good enough example of who’s in charge and how information is disseminated.  It also has me revisiting the title.  “Master” is someone in control.  Dodd is attempting to be Quell’s (great choice of name, by the way, as it is something Quell can rarely attain) master.  But Quell is too much the “animal” that Dodd insists that humans stand above.  Quell is pure instinct and impulse.  While Dodd sets himself up to be the thinking man, and that his religion can help those by delving into their past existences, Quell is all about the here and now.  But that’s not completely true either, given his almost suicidal regiment of alcohol (some of which isn’t even drinking alcohol, for crying out loud – hair tonic, missile fuel, paint thinner?!?).  How is this guy alive?  And soused or not, he’ll bang anything in the room, including himself (not to sound prudish, but I can’t recall a film in recently memory with this much … um … self service).  Eat, drink, fuck, pass out, repeat.  Mix well before serving.  Dodd says he likes Quell, so Quell starts an odd allegiance with Dodd.  He’ll fight like a dog for Dodd, but eventually, and I’m not sure how this occurs, but Quell realizes that Dodd is not his master.  This is prefaced by his flight from Dodd with Dodd’s motorcycle in order to see Doris.  When he finds Doris has married and left, instead of going back to Dodd, he goes back to drinking.  It is then Dodd who pursues Quell.  But Dodd’s ultimatum (stay now or go away forever) while singing “Slow Boat to China” is the final push out the door for Quell.  So Quell isn’t the animal after all.  He can make a conscious decision, regardless of the motivations, however base they may be.  The scene between Hoffman and Phoenix made me think of the scene between Day-Lewis and Dano at the end of There Will Be Blood, but where TWBB rang true for me, the scene in Master felt contrived and meant to tie things up too neatly.  Dodd’s whole through line was to help Quell, using the methods of his religion.  But he is unable to do so.  What he offers isn’t good enough for Quell.  Free will – 1, Religion – 0

Flight is also about control and alcoholism.  Whip Whitaker is a raging alcoholic with a side car of cocaine.  But if one was to float the idea that he was not in control of the situation, ‘twould be heresy.  It is made quite clear throughout the movie that his prowess in flying is unmatched.  Imagine how awesome he’d be at his job if he was sober instead of blotto every minute of his life?  Maybe that isn’t enough of a challenge for him?  Whatever the case may be, he pulls an amazing maneuver and saves a great many lives with an insanely high BAC and cocaine pumping through his veins.  He decides after such a life-changing experience to go straight, toss all the vices, and be the hero he will soon be hailed as.  But, that doesn’t last for very long.  What follows degenerates into an after-school special and / or advertisement for AA, complete with the 12 steps, one of the earlier steps being to turn everything over to a higher power, so there are a great many mentions of God and Jesus.  Also, peripheral characters like his co-pilot and wife are extremely religious.  The girl he met in the hospital who ODed just as his plane crashed shacks up with him and decides to go straight, too.  She’s willing to stay with Whitaker if he will clean up his act.  However, Whitaker is incapable of doing so (he hasn’t admitted to himself that he has a problem – step 1), so she leaves him just as he is about to be saved by his guileful lawyer, Don Cheadle.  When blame for drinking is about to be put incorrectly on a stewardess he banged that morning but who died in the crash, Whitaker suddenly has a crisis of conscious and admits his problems to a federal investigation committee, thus landing his butt in jail for a large chunk of time.  This was very by-the-numbers.  What is infinitely better is Washington’s portrayal of an alcoholic in Man on Fire, a far superior movie than this one, which was heavy-handed and didactic.  The only outstanding part was the intensely realistic plane crash sequence.  Unfortunately, I’m deathly afraid of flying, so this movie didn’t do much to instill faith in the airline industry (it was actually concluded that mechanical error in the way of gross negligence on the part of the airplane manufacturer is the culprit and not pilot error).  Free will – 1, Religion – 0, ABC’s Afterschool Specials and Driving Everywhere for Vacation – 1

So we have two films, one pushing religion as a means of recovery and the other using it as a sort of backdrop to watching three characters wrestle with each other.  One is cast as savior while the other is more a solution set to a problem (apply ideology here).  But while there was so much brouhaha about one centering on a religion, that was not the main theme (at least I don’t consider it to be The Master’s main idea – perhaps some do).  But Life of Pi clearly states outright that the story we are about to hear is intended to make us believe in God.  You have two audiences – the believers (in which case, you don’t need a story, as that is already perceived as fact) or nonbelievers (in which case, does a two hour movie have the capacity to do that?).  The protagonist, Pi, is interested in different religions.  He’s born Hindu, discovers Christianity, and accepts Islam.  I like how James Berardinelli puts that he “cherry-picks various aspects of different religions to create his own iteration.”  However, given some of his comments about bookending the story with the Canadian writer talking to the now middle aged Pi cutting all suspense shows he didn’t read the novel.  But the movie is about belief and faith.  In a situation such as Pi is in, you can either believe and have faith that you are going to be rescued or reach land before you die or give up.  For a large part of his ordeal, Pi tells himself that he is staying alive to insure that Richard Parker is alive, because Richard Parker cannot make it out of this situation, him being an animal with instinct instead of wit.  Because Pi had helped tend the animals in his family’s zoo, he feels an obligation to keep Richard Parker alive.  Richard Parker forces Pi not to give up, at least for most of the ordeal.  The tiger is still viciously dangerous, and there may be times that Pi considers leaving Richard Parker to his fate, but he doesn’t.  Pi tries so hard for so long and has to use his cunning to keep them both alive, all the while hoping for the miracle that someone will find them.  For me, there were three heartbreaking instances in the film.  The first is when Pi catches a fish in order to feed Richard Parker.  There is an emergency food and water supply on board the lifeboat, and Pi says that while he can eat biscuits, Richard Parker can’t.  Pi catches a fish and bashes its head to kill it.  Immediately, he starts sobbing and apologizing to the fish for what he has done.  His family is devoutly Hindu and vegetarian, so the killing of one being to keep another alive is mortifying to Pi’s sensibilities, and he truly mourns the fish.  He asks forgiveness of the fish, even though in the dire position he is in, there is no way Richard Parker can be kept alive otherwise; Pi must become a killer in that sense, or at least a carnivore (and he does eventually eat fish because of an accident that wipes away his food supply).  The second is towards the end of the film where the present-day Pi is recounting when the lifeboat finally reached Mexico and Richard Parker goes to the edge of the jungle and disappears, never looking back once at Pi.  Pi is devastated by this.  The two had gone through so much together, and Pi breaks his father’s rule somewhat of not seeing Richard Parker always as a beast that intends to kill him but a friend that he has helped keep alive (for his own sanity’s sake, much like Wilson in Cast Away, as noted by Berardinelli).  This leads Pi to talk about how awful it is that we are not allowed to say goodbye to those we lose forever.  Pi never gets to say goodbye to his family as the ship sinks, he cannot say goodbye to the zebra, orangutan or hyena (he probably wouldn’t want to for the hyena), and with Richard Parker’s surreptitious exit, he never says goodbye to the tiger.  The viewer gets the sense that this pain is something that Pi feels every day of his life, and even though his life is good now (married, kids, house, Canada), every day of his existence he grapples with the gifts that have been given and taken away.  But where there is pain in the taking away, there is love for the giving.  Most people can empathize with this condition of human existence.  To continue past this pain is akin to waiting to be saved, that there has to be meaning in the endurance.  The third, and most wrenching, is when Pi and Richard Parker are near death and no longer have the strength to scrounge food or purify water.  They lay listless, together, on the boat (Pi has been spending most of the shipwreck not on the lifeboat but on a fashioned raft, leaving Richard Parker the lifeboat).  Richard Parker can’t even pick up his head.  Pi crawls over to Richard Parker and lifts his head onto his lap, crying, saying that it is the end, and that he is sorry he couldn’t save the tiger.  It is then that Pi looks skyward and says that he is ready for God to take him.  He does not feel forsaken.  All the horrible things he has gone through, and he still believes.  A criticism sometimes leveled at religion is that the rules put in place by a belief system are for people to try to stay in line so that they can have everlasting pleasure in heaven.  That promise is meant to keep people following the rules.  Otherwise, they would just range uncontrolled without religion guiding them, doing as they pleased (no afterlife = no eternal consequences).  It’s that veil of religion that keeps them in check.  I don’t accept that is Pi.  His giving of his life does not feel like a selfish act to me.  And I don’t believe he is giving up.  He knows he is going to die.  He feels that he has failed.  Death isn’t Pi’s key to paradise, nor his opportunity to make the suffering end.  What it is for him, I am not sure I can say, but it seems antithetical to what I know of previously hearing and seeing how people perceive heaven and unending paradise.

Pi always believed in God.  Does the film make me?  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.  But the beauty of this film, from technical, character and theme-related standpoints, yet again reaffirms the assertion I made towards the end of my Third Man post that humans are capable of such amazing feats.  To borrow from my non-tiger buddy, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.  It does make me believe a little more.

Oskars 2013

The Oscars.  My Superbowl.  However, what frustrates me (to a truly unreasonable degree) is that awards should be based on merit and not be popularity contests or recognition for past work when it was overlooked.  As much as I love the Oscars and watching them and rooting for films, I end up feeling empty because some “winners” aren’t really winners.  That’s annoying.  When I fill out a ballot, meaning competition-wise, I go with the odds and popular feedback, because I want to win.  And yeah, this isn’t a Criterion post, but exercise is exercise.  I’ll italicize films I’ve seen so you can assess the credibility of commentary.

Best Picture (Amour, Argo, Beasts, Django, Les Mis, Life, Lincoln, Silver, Zero):  A few years ago, HCC hosted a speaker (my apologies for forgetting his name) that was an Academy voter (and to vote, you had to have gone through this nominating process – it seems pretty involved and insider-ish).  He explained this whole new system of having more than five films in the hunt and how it isn’t just most votes but also the ranking of each vote.  There’s also the whole being nominated by your peers.  Then there’s the weirdness of how foreign language pictures get chosen.  Then there’s the final vote.  That’s when things get all political and shit.  This has been explained in entertainment publications already, but the reason why Argo is going to win is because 1/5 of the Academy are actors, and Affleck, an “actor” (I use that term very loosely – other than Hollywoodland, what has he been remotely good in?  I still want my 104 minutes of life back for Reindeer Games [did you know there’s a director’s cut of that movie?]) has been … snubbed … by the Academy!  Say it isn’t so?!?!  You don’t have to be a math genius to realize that if there are five director slots for best director and nine films up for best picture, there’s going to be some directors that don’t get nominated.  So, yeah, Tarantino, Bigelow, Hooper, and Affleck were “snubbed.”  The actors are bitter that one of their own was “left out,” (because I dare you to count Tarantino as an actor), so they all will pile on.   There’s also that intangible momentum of how many awards Affleck has garnered so far (AFI Movie of the Year, BAFTA [really?], Broadcast Film Critics’ Association, DGA Feature Film [omg, really?!], Golden Globes, National Board of Review – how did he not win at Cannes?), so that can’t account for solidarity of actors alone.  The film was good, don’t get me wrong.  But, it wasn’t great.  What was?  Amour, Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook.  I think they were the best I saw for 2012.  Zero Dark Thirty, like Argo, was good.  Beasts of the Southern Wild was good, but it was trying way too hard.  I really could care less about Lincoln, because it was a great example of Hollywood pooling resources and talent to make a historical feature (and it was effective, but overall not inspiring).  You had the most important Hollywood director telling one of the most central American stories.  He could have asked Santa Claus to show up and he would’ve.  This is Hollywood at its excessive best, but it still couldn’t be the best.  Kim thinks the popularity of Argo rests with it being self-congratulatory (the film industry saved lives!!!).   There’s something to that.  The Artist won last year, and certainly not on box office or popular actors – it was about the glory of film.  How else do you beat out Woody, Steven, Martin, George, Brad and all the Hollywood poster children?  I’m still having a hard time determining which was the best out of Amour, Life of Pi, and Silver Linings Playbook.  One is focused on characters (SLP), one is on technical prowess (Life of Pi) but one gets both (Amour).  All three are outstanding and masterful, which makes me all the more pissed off that none will win this category.

Best Director (Haneke, Zeitlin, Lee, Spielberg, Russell):  Three people have a pony in this race:  Haneke, Lee and Russell.  Spielberg’s already won enough (and his movie wasn’t all that impressive), and Zeitlin was trying too hard (still a good movie – wonder how hard it was to direct a 5 year old?).  Haneke is just amazing.  If you haven’t seen Amour, you don’t recognize what Haneke accomplished with a small group (seriously, watch the credits).  The White Ribbon and Cache are devastating films.  But, he won’t get it (too outside, filming in French).  Lee’s closer inside, and his feat of directing Martel’s unfilmable novel should make him win.  To say the visuals in Pi are stunning is a gross understatement (I can’t recall in the last five years being so stunned in a theater as when the ship sinks, or the jellyfish sequence), but that’s not all.  For someone like myself who is not a religious person, to find a movie essentially in the pursuit of proving God, it is such a beautiful, eloquent work of art that I am still misty-eyed (out of 8 of the 9 films I saw, only one made me cry, and it wasn’t Amour, proving perhaps that I am a heartless bastard).  There is something so profound at the base of Life of Pi.  But for Russell, his movie is subtle.  The performances were genuine and bare and eloquent.  I think his true feat was taking two actors, DeNiro and Tucker, who have only played themselves for the longest time, and made them play characters.  But a lot of this film’s success is a shared affair:  great acting and writing detract from what the director is doing, meaning he’s not pulling all the rabbits out of the hat.  But, he’s pulling enough.  The Academy will give it to Spielberg, incorrectly (maybe, just maybe, to Lee, correctly).

Best Actor (Cooper, Day-Lewis, Jackman, Phoenix, Washington):  So, Daniel walked around for two years before production started acting like Lincoln.  Dressed up as him, even.  Yeah, I don’t know what the point of arguing this one is.  Cooper was solid, as is Washington in any movie he’s in, the same with the other two guys.  But Day-Lewis takes it to the next level.  Scary bastard.

Best Actress (Chastain, Lawrence, Riva, Wallis, Watts).  I do NOT want to see The Impossible, even though I’ve heard it is amazing.  Do you know how long it took me to watch Hotel Rwanda?  I had that for years before I put it in the player.  Misery porn is not really my cup of tea.  It’s not Chastain’s fault she won’t win – no one gave her a real character to play.  Wallis is just too young.  Who should win is Riva, because her performance, at her age, is devastating.  Lawrence was good, and she’s received a lot of accolades for her performance, but great or outstanding?  Riva should win, but Lawrence will.

Best Supporting Actor (Arkin, DeNiro, Hoffman, Jones, Waltz):  Arkin was in Argo so briefly that they might as well just have nominated Goodman.  DeNiro was thankfully not DeNiro, which made Silver Linings Playbook all the more refreshing.  Hoffman’s good in anything.  Jones is like DeNiro, and I just don’t care about Lincoln.  But yet again, Christoph Waltz is the best part of yet another Tarantino movie (the other being Inglorious Basterds, which he won his previous Oscar).  For me, it’s between Waltz and DeNiro, and I’d give the edge to DeNiro.  Jones will probably win (can someone please explain to me why Strathairn wasn’t nominated instead of Jones?  He was much better.  Hell, I was constantly waiting for James Spader or John Hawkes to come back on the screen).  Odds are laying even right now for Jones and Waltz.

Best Supporting Actress (Adams, Field, Hathaway, Hunt, Weaver):  From what I’ve heard, Hunt’s performance in The Sessions is amazing in its raw power.  I am looking forward to seeing that movie sometime soon.  Weaver was not a very big part of Silver Linings Playbook, so no.  But everyone is practically orgasmic for Hathaway’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” in Les Mis, so she’ll get yet another award for that.

Best Animated Feature Film (Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, Pirates, Wreck).  Brave was just ok – very formulaic.  There’s no anime up for an award this year (although anime was definitely released last year, but whatever).  Kim said Wreck-It Ralph was good and had an actual positive message to convey to kids.  That’s good to hear.  And good that it’s everyone’s favorite.

Best Foreign Film (Amour, Kon-Tiki, No, A Royal Affair, War Witch):  I hate it when goofy Academy process splits votes for things, like a film being up for both best picture and best foreign language film.  Yet this is how Amour will easily win this category (which, quite frankly, it should possibly win best picture for the whole she-bang).  A Royal Affair and Kon-Tiki look like really interesting films.  And maybe this is a  stupid distinction, but all the films in this category look indicative of the cultures they are heralding from (Germany/France, Norway, Chile, and Denmark), but I have no clue what ties War Witch to Canada.  Is it just that the money is from there, because this looks completely incongruous.

Best Original Screenplay (Amour, Django, Flight, Moonrise, Zero):  This may be the only shot that Zero Dark Thirty gets for an award, so I lean towards that.  I honestly thought Django was the worst Tarantino film I’d seen, but then I saw Deathproof and revised my ranking.  What is with movies that are way too long and don’t seem to know how to end?  I’d be interested to see if Amour would win, because if this is really based on screenplay, would voters have read the original French script or a translation?  I’m not a Wes Anderson fan, so that kicks Moonrise Kingdom out for me.  I heard Flight is really good, though.  Really surprised to see odds indicating Django for this.

Best Adapted Screenplay (Argo, Beasts, Life, Lincoln, Silver):  Yay, my category!  But alas, I haven’t read any of the works these movies are based off (though just bought Life of Pi) of, so while I will go with Silver Linings Playbook, this is something else Argo will probably win.  ::sigh::

Best Costume (Anna, Les, Lincoln, Mirror, Snow):  Um, ok, period pieces and fantasy.  Two are about Snow White.  How weird.  Can I just vote for none of them?  Odds on favorite is Anna.

Best Original Song … you know what?  I’m not even going to list them.  I think this is such a dumb category meant to, I don’t know, make the Oscars more hip?  Everyone knows Adele is going to win.  Maybe this category was more relevant earlier, when the song from the movie really had a connection to the plot or atmosphere of the film, where radio airplay was like an advertisement.  “Skyfall” from Skyfall runs over such a visually engaging opening credit sequence that I didn’t even really catch the words when I watched it.  And who listens to radio anymore?  The performances of the songs during the Oscars is when I usually get a drink or use the bathroom.

Best Original Score (Anna, Argo, Life, Lincoln, Skyfall):  Ok, this I care about.  The problem is, John Williams is 81 years old.  And while he’s won 5 Oscars, he hasn’t won since 1994 (Schindler’s List), and, well, he’s 81 years old.  This is where the Spielberg camp may chalk a win other than DDL (actually, based on odds, and how bad the music was, then no).  The music in Skyfall was fun because it was so iconic.  But I’m willing to bet the movie with the score being a huge contributing factor was Life of Pi.  And Mychael Danna has done some consistently quality work (cool – odds have him out in front).

Best Documentary (5 Broken, The Gatekeepers, How to Survive, Invisible War, Searching):  (Note – I will watch SfS tomorrow, and unless it blows me the fuck away, I don’t see this post changing).  This is where my blood pressure will spike.  Everyone’s so high on Searching for Sugarman.  This may be because it is a more happy, light-hearted documentary.  Last year’s winner, Undefeated, was about a high school football team that went from underdog to champion.  That was a hell of a lot more upbeat than people waiting on death row or the Earth Liberation Front.  And the year before, while Inside Job wasn’t a feel-good movie, it was a damn sight easier to sit through than Gasland or Restrepo and had Matt Damon narrating (given his recent release of Promised Land, he would have narrated Gasland instead).  One of the most powerful movies I’ve seen lately is 5 Broken Cameras.  But, given its politics, no one is probably going to vote for it.  That’s a crime.  Odds have it dead last.  See?  What the fuck do I know?  I’m deeply offended by this.

Best Documentary Short (Inocente, Kings Point, Mondays at Racine, Open Heart, Redemption):  There are three strong works here:  Inocente, Mondays at Racine, and Open Heart.  I don’t know which one will get it, but if Kings Point or Redemption wins, then that’s a serious problem.  Odds favorite is Open Heart.  EW favors Inocente.

Best Makeup & Hairstyle (Hitchcock, The Hobbit, Les Mis):  A lot of focus was put on capturing everything for real in Les Mis, which requires unbroken takes.  That’s hard on hair and makeup people, so they’ve got to be convincing the first time around.  We’ve already seen The Hobbit shit in three other movies, so no.  Hitchcock failed so hard that it will be forgotten.  Odds have Hobbits winning.

Best Production Design (Anna, Hobbit, Les Mis, Life, Lincoln):  Ah, another category I love.  Filming shit on a boat is pretty limiting, but what Lee does is jaw-droppingly astounding.  Like Smeagol says “We’ve seenses The Hobbits four timeses already.”  This one’s a three-way between Lincoln, Les Mis and Anna, with the latter two in a dead heat odds-wise and EW going with Lincoln.

Best Editing (Argo, Life, Lincoln, Silver, Zero):  Editing usually always goes to the action film, so we’ve got Argo and Zero Dark Thirty.  Zero has a lot more ground to cover timeline wise, so I’d give it to that film, but Argo will probably win (odds favorite).

Best Cinematography (Anna, Django, Life, Lincoln, Skyfall):  For me, the cinematographer can sometimes eclipse the director in level of importance to filmmaking.  I’m cutting Anna and Django out right now.  It comes down to Lincoln, Pi and Skyfall.  Skyfall was a beautiful film.  The sequences in Turkey, Shanghai and Macau were breathtaking.  Shot setup during the Scotland sequence (however overly long it was) was deft.  I don’t see much inventive camera work happening in Lincoln – just point and shoot.  But consider Life of Pi.  My god but what a gorgeous film.  Odds and Entertainment Weekly have this going to Life of Pi, as well it should.

Best Sound Editing (Argo, Django, Life, Skyfall, Zero):  Ahhhh, I love the technical shit.  This is where everyone else gets a drink or uses the bathroom.  I’m riveted.  I get pissed that they don’t show the Scientific and Technical Awards (they always bring on two B-list actors and say “at a ceremony held previously …” Just go here and give these people a minute of your time.  Seriously.  Anyway, this is between Argo, Zero and Skyfall.  Zero is the odds-on favorite, but if you saw Skyfall in a theater, with all the surround channels firing, it was intense.  Sound editing in Zero was only a big deal in the final sequence.

Best Sound Mixing (Argo, Les Mis, Life, Lincoln, Skyfall):  This is one of the few no-brainers.  They live captured all of the singing in Les Mis.  No overdubbing, no looping.  That’s sick and a huge technical achievement, not just for the actors but all the people trying to capture the sound, in as few takes as possible (shot on film, not digital, nudge-nudge).  Ridiculous.

Best Visual Effects (Hobbit, Life, The Avengers, Prometheus, Snow White):  While The Avengers had some real whiz-bang moments, this one needs to go to Life of Pi, and I would be shocked if the Academy didn’t vote that way.  The majority of the movie, the tiger does not look CGI, and from what I’ve read, it wasn’t.

Best Animated Short Film (Adam and Dog, Fresh Guacomole, Head over Heels, Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare,” Paperman):  Paperman will win (it’s Disney), but given what’s going on with my cat Loki right now, I have a soft spot for Adam and Dog.  The dog has big eyes like Loki.

Best Life Action Short Film (Asad, Buzkashi Boys, Curfew, Death of a Shadow, Henry):  Haven’t seen any of these, but the trailer for Death of a Shadow looks way cool.  Odds have Curfew winning.  The Buzkashi Boys thing with the dead goat polo is just gross.