Best Supporting Actor:
- Alan Arkin – Argo
- Robert Deniro – Silver Lining’s Playbook
- Phillip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
- Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
- Cristoph Waltz – Django: Unchained
Something notable about this year’s crop of Supporting Actor nominees is that all of these fine blokes (been watching Hugh Jackman interviews all day, sorry) have actually WON Acting Oscar’s before. Can’t say I remember the last time I heard about a category entirely dominated with “veterans” so to speak, but you can just imagine the kind of talent competing for this award this year, if you haven’t already done yourself the favor of watching these films. I absolutely loved all of these performances but if you pointed a gun at my head and made me choose one (you sadist) I think I’d have to go with Robert DeNiro in SLP (pompously abbreviate movie titles: check). The last time Robert DeNiro acted this good everyone was playing a Super Nintendo and gas prices were cheaper than Jr Bacon Cheeseburgers, and I for one welcome his return to legitimacy as a dramatic actor with open arms. But truthfully, I’d be fine with anybody else winning EXCEPT Alan Arkin in Argo. Although it was a stand out performance that provided the much needed comedic relief for the film, it isn’t anywhere near the caliber of the other nominees. It’s like the Ringo Starr of the group here. Your solo album was great man… but you’re just not one of the other guys. - Who I’d give the Award to: Robert DeNiro -
Best Supporting Actress:
- Amy Adams – The Master
- Sally Field – Lincoln
- Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables
- Helen Hunt – The Sessions
- Jackie Weaver – Siler Lining’s Playbook
As most of the entertainment news media (and female friends) will assure you, Anne Hathaway’s performance in Les Misérables is *gasp* AMAZING! Like, the best performance of all time! Just give her the Oscar already!.... And I guess I could somewhat agree that she deserves to take the gold statue home on Oscar night (despite dreading the thought of having to hear another one of her unbearable overly perky speeches again)… but quite frankly, her performance, like that guy with perfect personality and great career you won’t marry, is just TOO SHORT. It’s undeniably one of the best onscreen, no-holds-barred, completely-going-bananas-and-losing-it meltdowns in acting history… but it all transpires so fast and it’s over all too soon. Plus it’s very ‘SHOWY’. I’ve always been a sucker for subtler performances. Jackie Weaver’s for example. As much as I hate looking like the biggest SLP fanboy ever (which I assure you, I’m not) by picking two performances from the same film back to back, I just can’t’ deny the level of satisfaction Jackie Weaver’s role brought me. Playing the compassionate, humble, and noble mother not unlike any of ours was so precise and quietly stood out among all the flashy and loud performances the film had, oftentimes in the same scene. Jackie Weaver wasn’t this hot, crazy, outspoken or sassy lady telling everyone off. She was an adorable lady who loved cooking for her family and providing the only effort for sanity amongst all the dysfunction, even if nobody around her knew it or gave her credit for it. It was like a testament to all the true mothers out there and I’m so glad I’m not the only one who noticed the brilliance of it. Should Sally Field take this though, I’d be happy as well. - Who I’d give the Award to: Jackie Weaver -
Best Animated Feature Film:
- Brave
- Frankenweenie
- Paranorman
- Pirates! Band of Misfits
- Wreck-it Ralph
First off, I just want to say what a FANTASTIC year it was for animated films. Unlike last year, there were actually boatloads of great animated movies getting released in our shores all year. I gotta give props to THREE stop motion films making the cut. Stop-motion, or “Claymation” (or, all those cartoons that look super-duper scary) was a form of animated film looking scarcer and scarcer in the mainstream as the new millennium came about. It was never a dominating form of animation and with the rising popularity of computer generated “3D” graphics, ushered by Shrek and all of the Pixar classics; I honestly expected it to die pretty soon. Thankfully, Frankenweenie, Paranorman and Pirates, all argued otherwise and made a pretty strong statement for the longevity of stop motion features in this business. Paranorman was unlike ANYTHING else I saw at the theater in 2012. That being said, I’m going to sound like the biggest sell out ever here, but my favorite animated film of 2012 was Wreck-it Ralph. Disney rarely outdoes its yearly Pixar counterparts, but Wreck-it Ralph totally blew Brave out of the water. I feel like Wreck-it Ralph is the closest that a Disney animated film has felt to achieving the magic of Pixar, with its balance of humor, cleverness, accessibility, and having those scenes were you exclusively have to be an adult to cry in them. When I heard Disney was making a cartoon about video games, I expected to have some laughs and perhaps get some subtle cultural references that no one around me understood and I’d just end up feeling cooler than everyone…. NOT to reflect on the nature of friendship and the fragility of the human spirit. If you ask me, the princess IS in THIS castle (cultural reference you don’t get) - Who I’d give the Award to: Wreck-it Ralph
Best Cinematography
- Anna Karenina
- Django; Unchained
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- Skyfall
This is always one of my favorite categories. Not only because it’s a six syllable word and I can sound smarter than you throwing it around in film discussions, but because this award is simply about how gorgeous a film was and how compelling it was told through its lenses and remarkable camera work. If these films were female models and this category was a beauty pageant, we wouldn’t have to care about the stupid and inane speeches they were going to give later… we’d simply have to judge them on how FRIGGIN HAWT these ladies looked. Of course in this case, how beautiful these films are. Not only because I think it has the best personality too, but I’d choose Life of Pi over any of these other bi-, er, movies, ANY day. It’s a visual spectacle; you can watch ‘Pi’ on mute and still enjoy it. I believe I literally had my jaw dropped in the “candle scene” in the beginning of the film and from that point on the beauty never let up. For a film that relied heavily on CG to make one of the most dazzling film experiences of all time, it’s nothing short of amazing how the cinematographers managed to keep the visual consistency in the scenes that were straight up photography. Pile on that the ridiculously good camera work on everything from the shipwreck sequence to the portions spent lost-at-sea, where it goes without saying that interesting camerawork is a significant contributor to keeping the film from becoming stale and there you have it. Need I say more? - Who I’d give the Award to: Life of Pi
Best Costume Design:
- Anna Karenina
- Les Misérables
- Lincoln
- Mirror Mirror
- Snow White and the Huntsmen
I secretly really, REALLY want one of the Snow White movies to win this. It’d just be so great. The presenter walks up to the podium to announce the winner and everyone from the Lincoln and Les Mis camp (two of the biggest Award season contenders this year) start unfolding their acceptance speeches… only to hear “And the award goes to Mirror, Mirror!” and costume designer Eiko Ishioka walks up the podium waving her middle finger at everyone because while the film she won for has significantly less positive reviews in Rotten Tomatoes and nobody is calling it a masterpiece, she KNOWS she TORE IT UP in the costume department. In her acceptance speech she thanks her fellow nominees for SUCKING more than her. At least that’s how I like to imagine it. Anyway who am I kidding; give this to Les Mis (totally souled out again). The detail put into each and every get-up of each and every extra on set, spanning a variety of classes and professions, is staggering and does a lot more to evoke an accurate sense of the time period we’re placed in, than we give it credit for. That and I’d really like to see Paco Delgado, fellow member of the MALE gender, top these other ladies in a category they usually dominate. Maybe he can throw the middle finger at them!? No, no, that wouldn’t be nice. - Who I’d give the Award to: Les Misérables
Best Film Editing:
- Argo
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- Silver Lining’s Playbook
- Zero Dark Thirty
Good Film Editing is virtually an invisible art form that goes unnoticed to about 99 percent of the people. I like to judge a films editing based on how well the succession of images on screen managed to develop the necessary intensity or emotional impact of important scenes and on top of that, how cohesive a films narrative is from its opening shot to its final one. All of the nominees here are great films worthy of this accolade but you couldn’t pay me to say Life of Pi doesn’t run away with this award (unless you want my account number… to find out for sure….). While the rest of these films follow a pretty straightforward and linear plot structure and undoubtedly do an excellent job doing so, Life of Pi makes things interesting with flashback sequences occupying what is roughly the entire movie’s screen time. The shifts from present to past and then back and forth are done effortlessly and in a manner that never confuses or overwhelms the viewer. It’s quite seamless really, and let’s not forget to mention the bone chilling shipwreck sequence which I think was one of the best edited scenes of the film. Life of Pi’s transition from novel to film could’ve made for an absolute debacle in this department but the fact that it pretty much turned out flawless is just insane. Kudos to the editors. - Who I would give the Award to: Life of Pi (duh)
Best Make Up and Hair Styling:
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- Hitchcock
- Les Misérables
I’ve never worn make up in my life. I swear I don’t even know what make up IS. My Mom, and anyone who’s ever sat behind me, would also say that I don’t know what HAIR STYLING is either. I probably don’t. What I DO know is that dwarves, orcs and elves (unfortunately) don’t actually exist in our world. But there are some people who DO know a thing or two about makeup and hairstyling and through some advanced and completely preposterous techniques find a way to make regular people look like those dwarves and orcs and elves. So for a moment, if only on film, these dwarves and orcs and evles… get to EXIST. I don’t care what anyone says, this make-up jobs like this are infinitely better than anything done to the actors of the other films to simulate age or sickness. It just doesn’t compare. - Who I would give the Award to: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Best Production Design:
- Anna Karenina
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- Les Misérables
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
Best Original Score:
- Anna Karenina
- Life of Pi
- Argo
- Lincoln
- Skyfall
I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of not extremely impressed by any of these films scores. I mean, they were each great in their own right and serve the purpose of the films setting and emotional atmosphere and whatnot but I really wouldn’t see myself listening to any of these films original music just for pleasure. That being said, I’m going to have to choose Life of Pi for its ethnic compositions that were nothing but appropriate to the films themes and ambitions. While a couple other film scores on this list also have that Indian-inspired ethnic feel, Life of Pi was the one that did it best and sounded most authentic. That and I have fleeting memories of a haunting melody that trickled just delicate enough during those creepy and surreal portions of the film to engulf us into the depths of its mystery and aura even more. That pretty much does it for me. You all can keep your blaring orchestrated epics. - What I would give the Award to: Life of Pi
Best Original Song:
- Before My Time – Chasing Ice
- Everybody Needs a Best Friend – Ted
- Pi’s Lullaby – Life of Pi
- Skyfall- Skyfall
- Suddenly – Les Misérables
In complete contrast to last year’s embarrassing number of nominees for Original Song (which had as many nominations as times I have eaten vegetables in my life: two), the Academy decided to right their wrongs and actually make this award worthy of contending for this time around. I think it’s safe the say the Academy branch for music knows no discrimination; we got a documentary, a musical, an action movie, a juvenile comedy (which I loved btw) and then an actual good movie (‘Pi’, duh) all in the running for the award this year and I just LOVE IT. For all we know Ted can be an “Oscar Winner” come February 24th; there’s never a real way of knowing which one wins this. Adele’s is probably the most bombastic tune here, t’was certainly appropriate for Skyfall and continuing the franchise’s legacy of having an iconic song to set off the opening credits. ‘Pi’s Lullaby’ is also great, it’s such a relaxed and transcendent track, I just really wish I spoke Tamil so can understand what it’s actually saying. Having been listening to these five songs on repeat for a while now, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I like ‘Suddenly’ from Les Mis the most. As far as which of these songs had the most impact in a scene that’s part of the actual film, it remains unmatched, which pretty much goes without saying being that it was part of a musical. Still I can’t seem to get the melody and Hugh Jackman’s surprisingly apt voice out of my head. When he utters the lyrics “…I’m so afraid of failing you” as if he’s struggling just to whisper the words, it just melts my heart every time. I’d love to see him sing it live at the Oscars if they’re even planning on doing that this year. - Who I would give the Award to: ‘Suddenly’ – Les Misérables
Editor's Note: Stay tuned for Part II of Franky's Oscar Picks, you can also check out Franky's 2013 Oscar Picks Into
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