My 2013 Academy Award Predictions (for movies released in 2012)
For those who are wondering, I went for the scotch this year. That was fine, although the drawback to drinking too much scotch at all hours of the morning (in my time zone the post-Oscar party is called “breakfast”) is that I started hallucinating that Seth MacFarlane was hosting the awards ceremony. Wow, how weird is that?
Not only that but I also hallucinated that the Academy voters dissed both Steven Spielberg and Kathryn Bigelow but did their best to try to un-dis Ben Affleck. And I hallucinated that Daniel Day-Lewis gave an extremely moving and heartfelt acceptance speech which, when one actually listened to the words, was basically a prolonged gag about how he was meant to have played Margaret Thatcher instead of Abraham Lincoln. And I hallucinated that the young woman who could dodge and escape and overcome every manner of life-threatening obstacle in the dystopian Hunger Games couldn’t manage to walk up a few steps to the Dolby Theatre stage. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the one hallucination that I really would have loved to have experienced: the sight of Michelle Obama announcing Zero Dark Thirty as the Best Picture. Oh well.
This year the actual results in the voting were all over the place. So, while the trend of a dwindling number of spontaneous moments in the telecast continued apace, there was actual suspense in waiting to hear the names of a number of the winners. When I made my predictions, I (like most people at the time) never saw Argo getting Best Picture or Lincoln getting shut out. But I’m actually pleased with Argo and Ang Lee getting their deserved recognition. Too bad, Steve Spielberg, but somehow I suspect that, when you go home and count your money, you don’t actually feel too bad about it.
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Category |
Most Likely to Win |
Most Deserving to Win |
Surprise! |
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Best Picture |
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Best Actor |
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) |
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) |
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Best Actress |
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) |
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) |
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Best Supporting Actor |
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) |
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master) |
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) |
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Best Supporting Actress |
Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) |
Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) |
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Best Director |
Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) |
Ang Lee (Life of Pi) |
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Best Original Screenplay |
Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty) |
Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom) |
Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) |
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Best Adapted Screenplay |
Tony Kushner (Lincoln) |
David Magee (Life of Pi) |
Chris Terrio (Argo) |
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Best Animated Feature |
Brave |
Frankenweenie |
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Best Foreign Language Film |
Amour (Austria) |
A Royal Affair (Denmark) |
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Total Scores |
5 validations for the early bookmakers |
3 cases of justice done |
4 times I never saw it coming |