There is an entire Internet subculture devoted to predicting the Oscars. Like sporting events, it has its own Vegas odds-makers, and several blogs are devoted to handicapping the ceremony. Hard and fast rules don't work, and even renowned statistician Nate Silver wasn't as good at predicting who got little gold men as he was at predicting how the 2012 election would unfold.
No matter. If you followed my advice last year, you went with a tried-and-true regimen of pre-Oscar indicators, gut instinct and a resolution to not take it so seriously. You also got 18 out of 24 categories correct, which is more than enough to win most office Oscar pools.
This year should be no different if you follow my foolproof guide to the Oscars. These are the winners wrought by the awards season narrative, and I'll be absolutely sure of each one — until a few of them are wrong on Sunday.
Argo has made a late-season push to the front of the pack for Best Picture. Hollywood loves itself, so a movie about making movies (sort of) could swoop in and prevent the solid but straightforward Lincoln from Mitt-Romney-ing its way to victory.
Argo should pick up Editing and Adapted Screenplay awards as well, while Lincoln consoles itself with wins for performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones and Steven Spielberg's direction.
In the other major categories, Jennifer Lawrence wins Best Actress by a nose for Silver Linings Playbook, while Anne Hathaway wins Best Supporting Actress in a landslide (pretty much just for singing the Susan Boyle song from Les Mis, which will also win Sound Mixing for its innovative live-singing production).
In a wide-open race, Django Unchained stands poised to take Original Screenplay.
Life of Pi should take a bunch of technical awards for looking pretty. Skyfall will become only the third Bond movie to win an Oscar, taking home both Sound Effects Editing and Best Original Song for Adele's titular ballad.
Anna Karennina easily wins Best Costumes, and The Hobbit wins makeup for dusting off the hobbit feet.
That leaves Wreck-It Ralph winning Best Animated Feature, Amour (a Best Picture nominee) easily winning Best Foreign Language Film, Searching For Sugar Man taking Best Documentary and, finally, the unpredictable short films.
Getting one short film right is a good day: at least Paperman (a partially hand-drawn industry favorite) is a lock for Animated Short. I have gone with Curfew in Live Action Short (it has a cute little kid), and Mondays at Racine (it's about cancer) in Documentary Short.
Without further ado, here's my comprehensive guide to the Academy Awards. Best of luck! And if I'm way off, I promise all of your money back.
Picture: Argo Director: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables Original Screenplay: Django Unchained Adapted Screenplay:Argo Editing:Argo Cinematography:Life of Pi Score:Life of Pi Song: "Skyfall" by Adele from Skyfall Art Direction:Life of Pi Costumes:Anna Karennina Sound Mixing:Les Miserables Sound Effects Editing:Skyfall Makeup: The Hobbit Visual Effects: Life of Pi Foreign:Amour Animated Feature:Wreck-It Ralph Doc Feature:Searching for Sugar Man Doc Short:Mondays at Racine Animated Short: Paperman Live Short: Curfew
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In the top six categories of CultureMap's "Pick the Oscar Winners" Contest, readers agreed with Duncan except for Best Supporting Actor, where the pick was Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained. And in a surprise for Best Director, newcomer Benh Zeitlin, who directed the haunting Beastsof the Southern Wild, narrowly beat out Spielberg in our readers poll.
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables, for Best Supporting Actress.
For a story that is 3,000 years old and has been referenced innumerable times since the advent of the moving picture, it’s striking that The Odyssey has not been adapted into a film more often. Christopher Nolan’s new film is, depending on your definition, just the fourth time in film history that someone has attempted to tell the original story (oddly, the third film — The Return — came out just two years ago).
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, who has been gone from his home of Ithaca for over 20 years. Waiting at home for him is his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), as well as a hall full of suitors — most notably Antinous (Robert Pattinson) — who are hoping that Penelope will finally believe that Odysseus is dead and choose to marry one of them.
In typical Nolan fashion, the film goes back-and-forth in time often to show what has happened to Odysseus in the past two decades. His sea voyages with his crew have him attacking Troy using the legendary Trojan Horse; taking on the cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin); trying to escape the clutches of the witch Circe (Samantha Morton); living with the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron); communing with the vision of Athena (Zendaya); and more.
Nolan, who wrote and directed the epic film, has a clear reverence for the material and, perhaps more than any current filmmaker, has the chops to make the sprawling story feel coherent. With a plethora of characters who have names that take some time to understand for those not familiar with the ancient tale, it’s extremely tough to wrangle everything and everyone together, and Nolan and his team make that trick seem relatively easy.
However, there’s a difference between making the story comprehensible and making it compelling, and Nolan is not as successful on this front. As portrayed in this film, it’s difficult to care whether Odysseus ever finds his way home. His connection with Penelope and Telemachus is tenuous, at best, and his status as a hero is called into question on multiple occasions. Complicated protagonists are nothing new, but in a story where the hero’s journey is the whole point, Nolan fails to make the quest all encompassing.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some standout moments along the way. The sequence in Polyphemus’ cave is tremendous, as are a few other scenes in which Nolan’s reported reliance on practical effects make you wonder how the crew accomplished what they did. Damon has said this is the hardest movie he’s ever made, and that effort shows up in every scene, especially those on the water.
At 56 years old, Damon is getting close to elder statesman status in Hollywood, and he ably embodies the role of the respected and feared leader. Hathaway, Holland, and Pattinson get the next most screentime, and each makes their character interesting if not mesmerizing. The murderer’s row of the supporting cast — Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, Elliot Page, Morton, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, and more — give each scene a nice sheen whether or not their individual arc makes sense.
While the technical achievements of Nolan and his team in The Odyssey are admirable and occasionally awe-inspiring, the story he lays out is not quite as overwhelming. The structure he chose to use doesn’t allow the story to overcome the episodic nature of Odysseus’ brutal journey, keeping big emotions mostly at bay.
