Film: Oscar Wishes and Predictions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRw3nE67aw&feature=player_embedded
EDIT: Welp, managed to forget to put a song. My bad. I love the MGS theme.

Well, Academy Award nominees are released now. Let's throw up some predictions.

Red titles are ones I've seen.
Bold titles are ones I predict to win (without regard for my own wishes).
Italic titles are ones I hope will win (without regard for their probability of winning).

BEST PICTURE:
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

The Academy are a group of dumbasses for not including my ACTUAL wish:
Looper
(note: this is gonna be a running theme).
I mean, I understand what Zero Dark Thirty does and how great it is, but come on, it's too obvious and Argo is a fantastic movie.

BEST ACTOR:
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Denzel Washington (Flight)

Again, either of Bruce Willis or Joseph Gordon-Levitt are not here for some reason. If Daniel Day-Lewis actually does win though, I'm not gonna be upset about this one.

BEST ACTRESS:
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

God damn it Academy you're making me look like I didn't watch a lot of movies this year. And no, I'm not gonna suggest Looper for this one. Jessica Chastain probably deserves this one.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

Huh, lots of well-known guys on support this year. And heck, Waltz certainly didn't FEEL like just a support. Prediction based on hearing amazing things about the acting in Lincoln, wish based on loving Alan Arkin's character. Waltz did good, but isn't as amazing a shoe-in for Supporting Actor as he had been in Inglorious Basterds.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Amay Adams (The Master)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

Just a guess, and I honestly don't care so I'll make my wish the same.

ANIMATED FEATURE
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph

I didn't watch any new animated features this year. I meant to see Wreck-It Ralph though. I'm put off by the very rounded CG style common nowadays - I don't have any issues with CG, but the particular near-uncanny-valley style they choose to use bothers me.

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Anna Karenina
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

Prediction is somewhat a guess. I want Django to win because, while not always as interesting in its individual shots, it had a particular style that I really appreciated. Chronicle is the real winner here.

DIRECTING
Amour
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

Mostly a guess, I don't care, none of the nominees are actually interesting to me.

DOCUMENTARY, FEATURE OR SHORT

I don't watch documentaries, I know nothing, I don't care about them.

FILM EDITING
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

I actually really liked Argo's editing. A lot.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Amour
Kon-Tiki
No
A Royal Affair
War Witch

Seriously, Canada counts as a foreign film for these purposes? Bah. Support is just for being from Canada.

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables

The Hobbit was good enough to be good but usually not good enough for awards, but the makeup of the characters made people who are ten years older now look like they did back then. They also made tall people look short and all the other fun stuff they needed to do with scale. That part's also cinematography and set design though. I imagine Les Miserables will win handily though.
The true winner though is Looper, for multiple parts: a great makeup and costuming job evoking a future-but-dingy feel, and, more than anything else, the makeup to Joseph and Bruce to make them look like each other. Seriously, it's crazy subtle but it really makes them look a lot like each other - when they first came on screen facing each other and we got close-ups of their faces cut next to each other, I went "wow, have they always been that similar? That's amazing." I didn't even realize it was a make-up job.

MUSIC (SCORE)
Anna Karenina
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall 

Skyfall had a great soundtrack, both with Adele's intro and a very fresh working of the Bond theme in addition to just generally good music. John Williams in Lincoln is a strong force to contend with though. I confess though - while I love his theme work and he creates some fantastic and withstanding melodies, I'm not so fond of his work on the general background music he does.

MUSIC (SONG)
"Before My Time" from Chasing Ice
"Everybody Needs A Best Friend" from Ted
"Pi's Lullaby" from Life of Pi
"Skyfall" from Skyfall
"Suddenly" from Les Miserables

I liked Skyfall's main theme, and being down on it just for being done by Adele is petty and stupid. It was enjoyable. Les Mis is a musical thing though, it's gonna pull it easily. (now that I've said that I'm gonna be wrong)

PRODUCTION DESIGN
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln

I think Jackson and his crew did a great job on this regard and deserve the award.

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) OR (LIVE ACTION)

Don't watch 'em, seen none of 'em, don't care about 'em.

SOUND EDITING
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

I'll admit right now, I have no idea how to differentiate sound editing and sound mixing while watching the film. But I think Django did it with style, and if you haven't been able to tell yet, I prize style over technical perfection. I suspect Zero Dark Thirty could pull it off though, just on its merit of being a powerhouse film.

SOUND MIXING
Argo
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

Total guess based on liking Argo as a movie, I don't know what sound mixing even technically means.

VISUAL EFFECTS
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Marvel's The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman

Wow, if Snow White managed to get here Looper REALLY deserved to be here. Actually, Chronicle is the one that actually deserves the award. I love Avengers, but it's not a jewel of VFX, Prometheus and Snow White are just undeserving, and I don't know Life of Pi but Gollum alone allowed The Hobbit to win for me. I loved Gollum SO MUCH.

WRITING (ADAPTED)

Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

Argo was an adaptation? Oh well. I loved its writing, and I don't know the writing of the others to judge. Seriously, the only one here I knew was an adaptation was Life of Pi.

WRITING (ORIGINAL)
Amour
Django Unchained
Flight
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty

Surprised to not see Moonrise Kingdom in more places - its, what 98% Rotten Tomatoes rating isn't worth as much as I thought, I suppose. Freakin' tragedy to not see Chronicle or Looper here. Zero Dark Thirty I expect to win, and of these choices I bet it's the best.

And that's it. In summary: Looper and Chronicle got 0 nominations and deserved them all over the place, Dark Knight Rises got no mentions (which confuses me), Argo got a lot that it deserved, Django is here a lot for being Tarantino despite not being on par with his other stuff, Zero Dark Thirty is going to take the lion's share is a landslide with Argo and Lincoln following closely.
That's the Oscars. The best two things of the year aren't here, but my own third-favorite is coming in for a lot, so whatever. The awards mean very little anyway.

Later.
End Recording,
Ego.