My Oscars Predictions

¨And the Oscar goes to…¨

I finally finished watching all the Oscar nominated films and therefore feel ready to make my predictions about how things might turn out on February 24^th although I expect the race to be very close this year considering the frontrunner for best picture, Argo, hasn’t received a best director nomination and that can hurt its chances. Lincoln can pick up the slack if Argo fails to deliver with the Academy although Argo has been winning all the major awards up to now. I will make my prediction on the ¨Who I think will win¨ category, I will also add the possible upset in the ¨Who might surprise¨ category, and finally I will mention my favorite nominee in the ¨Who I would vote¨ category.

BEST PICTURE

-Who I think will win: Argo

-Who might surprise: Lincoln

-Who I would vote: Life of Pi or Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST DIRECTOR

-Who I think will win: Steven Spielberg

-Who might surprise: Ang Lee

-Who I would vote: Ang Lee

BEST LEAD ACTOR

-Who I think will win: Daniel Day Lewis

-Who might surprise: Joaquin Phoenix

-Who I would vote: Joaquin Phoenix

BEST LEAD ACTRESS

-Who I think will win: Jennifer Lawrence

-Who might surprise: Jessica Chastain or Emmanuelle Riva

-Who I would vote: Jessica Chastain

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

-Who I think will win: Robert De Niro

-Who might surprise: Tommy Lee Jones

-Who I would vote: Christoph Waltz

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

-Who I think will win: Anne Hathaway

-Who might surprise: Sally Field

-Who I would vote: Anne Hathaway for The Dark Knight Rises

BEST ANIMATED FILM

-Who I think will win: Frankenweenie

-Who might surprise: Wreck it Ralph

-Who I would vote: Wreck it Ralph

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

-Who I think will win: Life of Pi

-Who might surprise: Skyfall

-Who I would vote: Life of Pi

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

-Who I think will win: Anna Karenina

-Who might surprise: Les Miserables

-Who I would vote: Anna Karenina

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM

-Who I think will win: Searching for Sugar Man

-Who might surprise: How to Survive a Plague

-Who I would vote: Searching for Sugar Man

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

-Who I think will win: Amour

-Who might surprise: A Royal Affair

-Who I would vote: A Royal Affair

BEST EDITING

-Who I think will win: Argo

-Who might surprise: Zero Dark Thirty

-Who I would vote: Zero Dark Thirty

  

BEST MAKEUP

-Who I think will win: Les Miserables

-Who might surprise: The Hobbit

-Who I would vote: Les Miserables

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

-Who I think will win: Life of Pi

-Who might surprise: Lincoln

-Who I would vote: Life of Pi

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

-Who I think will win: Skyfall

-Who might surprise: Pi´s Lullaby

-Who I would vote: Skyfall

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

-Who I think will win: Anna Karenina

-Who might surprise: Les Miserables

-Who I would vote: Life of Pi

BEST SOUND EDITING

-Who I think will win: Zero Dark Thirty

-Who might surprise: Argo

-Who I would vote: Zero Dark Thirty

BEST SOUND MIXING

-Who I think will win: Les Miserables

-Who might surprise: Life of Pi or Skyfall

-Who I would vote: Les Miserables

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

-Who I think will win: Life of Pi

-Who might surprise: The Hobbit

-Who I would vote: Life of Pi

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

-Who I think will win: Lincoln

-Who might surprise: Argo

-Who I would vote: Silver Linings Playbook

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

-Who I think will win: Zero Dark Thirty

-Who might surprise: Django Unchained or Amour

-Who I would vote: Django Unchained

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

-Who I think will win: Open Heart

BEST SHORT FILM LIVE ACTION

-Who I think will win: Curfew

BEST SHORT FILM ANIMATED

-Who I think will win: Paperman

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My Oscar Reactions

And the Oscar finally went to The Artist as predicted, although I didn`t do a good job at guessing the minor categories. Everything went sort of as predicted in the main categories with Dujardin winning the best actor, Christopher Plummer winning the best supporting actor, and Octavia Spencer winning the award for Supporting Actress. The only big award I didn’t guess was Meryl Streep taking home the Oscar for Best Actress instead of heavy favorite Viola Davis. This was Streep`s third Oscar win and she is simply the best actress in the world, having been nominated seventeen times. It`s sad Viola Davis didn’t win, but Streep is Streep. The other major category I missed was Best Documentary, which went to Undefeated instead of Purgatory 3: Paradise Lost. Rango won Best Animated film as predicted, Woody Allen won Best Original Screenplay for Midnight in Paris, and Alexander Payne won Best Adaptive Screenplay for The Descendants. A Separation won for Best Foreign film and should have competed for Best Picture as well. I went 9 for 11 in these major categories.

Now for the minor categories I did pretty terrible. Best short documentary went to Undefeated, Best Short Film to The Shore, and Best Short Animated for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. I didn’t guess any of those wins. I also missed a couple of awards that ended up going to Hugo. I predicted three of its five wins, since it did take home both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing awards and Art Direction. The two wins I didn’t see coming for Hugo was for Best Visual Effects which I thought would go to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Best Cinematography that I thought would go to The Tree of Life. The Malick film went home empty handed, and I thought he really would win for Best Cinematography. It was just gorgeous. My other miss on the night was Best Makeup which went to The Iron Lady instead of Deathly Hallows.

The Artist was the biggest winner of the night although it won the same amount of Oscars that Hugo did, but it did take the major categories (Picture, Director, Actor, Costume Design, and Original Score). Hugo won for best visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing, art direction, and cinematography. The Iron Lady took two awards (Actress and Makeup). The Help won one award thanks to Olivia Spencer, The Descendants and Midnight in Paris won the Screenplay awards, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won for Best Editing. War Horse, Moneyball, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and The Tree of Life went home empty handed. In general I did do pretty well with my predictions, although these weren’t the movies I would`ve personally picked.

As for the show goes, I really enjoyed it; Billy Crystal was great as always. I loved his parody of the best picture contenders, his song, and the part in which he read the actors minds. It was a great presentation. As for the presenters they were great as well. My favorites were Will Ferrell with Zach Galifianakis, Ben Stiller with Emma Stone, and Robert Downey Jr. with Gwyneth Paltrow. The show went by really fast and smooth for me. I enjoyed it and congratulations to the winners. I just hope next time my favorite movies get nominated.

  

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My 2012 Oscar Predictions

¨And the Oscar goes to…The Artist¨

I may not always agree with the Oscars nor the movies they nominate, but I do have to admit that I´m a huge fan and always find myself watching the show every year and trying to predict the winners. This year I was disappointed that most of my favorite movies weren’t nominated such as Drive, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Warrior, and Harry Potter, but I`m glad for some of the films chosen like Moneyball, The Tree of Life, The Artist, Hugo, and Midnight in Paris which were all excellent choices. Since I`m going to try to predict the Oscars I will pick who I think will win in every category and also pick who I would vote for out of the nominees. My favorite movie of the year was Drive and it wasn’t nominated, but I will choose from the nominated films which one was my favorite, and so on in each category.

Best Film: The Artist will win, but my favorite of the group was Moneyball.

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) will win, but if I voted I would choose Scorsese.

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist), but my favorite was Gary Oldman from Tinker Tailor

Best Actress: Viola Davis (The Help), but I enjoyed Rooney Mara`s performance the most.

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer (Begginners), but my favorite was Nick Nolte.

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer (The Help) will win and is an excellent choice.

Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris was the best and it will win.

Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants will win, but I enjoyed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy more.

Animated Feature: Rango will win, but my favorite was Rio.

Foreign Film: A Separation will win and it is well deserved.

Best Documentary: This is a tight race, I`m going with Paradise Lost 3.

Art Direction: Hugo

Cinematography: The Tree of Life should win, it`s the best by far.

Costume Design: The Artist will sweep the Oscars in my opinion

Editing: The Artist

Makeup: Harry Potter

Best Song: Man or Muppet from The Muppets

Best Score: The Artist

Sound Mixing: Hugo

Sound Editing: Hugo will sweep both sound categories.

Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes was impressive.

Animated Short: I will have to guess here: La Luna takes the Oscar

Documentary Short: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Live Action Short: My guess is Raju, but The Shore could also take it.

If my predictions are correct then the big winner of the night will be The Artist with 6 Oscar wins, while Hugo will earn 3 statuettes, and The Help will get two from the female performances. The rest of the films will not earn more than one Oscar, but that is my prediction and with the Oscars we will never know for sure. This is what I`m betting on for the big night and we`ll see how close I came to guessing the 24 winners.

If I would have to give out the Oscars then I would probably give Drive the Oscar for Best Picture and Nicolas Winding Refn the Oscar for best director. Best Actor for Ryan Gosling (Drive), Supporting a tie between Nick Nolte (Warrior) and Alan Rickman (Harry Potter), Best Actress Rooney Mara (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and Supporting Actress for Elle Fanning in Super 8. I would also give a special recognition to Mel Gibson for his work in The Beaver which was greatly ignored.

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My Review: Inside Job (8/10)

¨The global economic crisis of 2008 cost tens of millions of people their savings, their jobs, and their homes. This is how it happened.¨

Inside Job is a very insightful documentary about the global financial crisis of 2008 that produced the worst recession since the Great Depression. Millions of people lost their jobs and savings in middle of the crisis and according to this documentary it could all have been prevented. Charles Ferguson produced, directed, and wrote this Oscar nominated documentary. It is really well developed, beautifully shot, and will surely leave your blood boiling by the end of the two hour film. Ferguson (who also directed the Oscar nominated documentary No End in Sight, about America`s involvement in Iraq) successfully manages to take a complicated and dull subject matter and make it easy to understand and entertaining at the same time. One of the reasons the film works so well apart from all the research, interviews, and great shots is that Matt Damon got on board to narrate the movie. His renowned voice gave even more credibility to the film. The film was also really well edited by Ferguson`s usual collaborators: Chad Beck and Adam Bolt, who also co-wrote the script with him. Inside Job is the critic`s favorite pick to take home this year`s Oscar for Best Documentary, although I enjoyed Exit Through the Gift Shop a lot more. Inside Job is still mandatory viewing if we want to avoid another catastrophe like the one that happened less than three years ago; the movie is much more informative than any other documentary that came out, although I wouldn`t say it’s the most entertaining one.

The film opens with a prologue about the financial collapse in Iceland back in 2000, which should have served as a warning for what was going to happen in the future at a much larger scale. Ferguson claims that the crisis wasn`t an accident and that it was caused by an out of control and unregulated financial industry. Thanks to Ferguson`s exhaustive research and Matt Damon`s narration we are informed of how reckless risk-taking, poor risk assessments by the credit rating agencies, and predatory lending all led to the financial downfall. Inside Job is divided in five parts: Part I How We Got Here (Beginning from the Reagan era up to the Bush presidency), Part II the Bubble (2000-2007), Part III The Crisis (2008), Part IV Accountability (the men responsible for the crisis were left unpunished and wealthy; they continue to teach economics at prestigious schools shaping economics to their convenience), and Part V Where Are We Now (things have stayed pretty much the same since the same advisors in today’s government are the same people who built the economic structure that led to the downfall). Ferguson gives us a great amount of important facts along with interviews with key financial academics, politicians, and journalists. Many of the men responsible for the crisis declined to be interviewed for obvious reasons, but others like David McCormick, Glenn Hubbard, and Frederic Mishkin foolishly did so, and answered exactly like guilty people would do so. The interviews with them were one of the highlights of the film. They were left speechless.

Before watching Inside Job I personally had very little insight about the causes of the financial crisis due to my lack of financial knowledge, but Ferguson does a great job of explaining the situation and making it accessible and easy to understand. Some people may argue that the film oversimplifies the causes of the crisis, but I can`t really comment on that. What I can say is that Ferguson really did a lot of exhaustive research on the subject and that can be seen clearly in his interviews where he leaves his interviewees speechless or mumbling empty and unreasonable words most of the time. McCormick (the Secretary of the Treasury during the Bush Administration) never knew how to answer his questions and simply had to state ¨financial markets today are incredibly complicated.¨ Others like Henry Paulson declined to be interviewed (which makes me think they are guilty if they aren`t able to defend themselves). Others like Glenn Hubbard (Dean of Columbia Business School) got upset for not admitting that corrupted Academic economists have been major advocates of deregulation and he didn`t think there was a conflict of interests there (big mistake). But the true clown of the film is Frederic Mishkin, an economist who supported financial deregulation in Iceland and wrote a paper called Financial Stability in Iceland (another big mistake). After Iceland went through such a financial disaster which Mishkin foolishly never foresaw, he decided to change the title of his paper in his CV to Financial Instability in Iceland trying to look smart and making people think he had predicted the disaster beforehand (an even bigger mistake). When Ferguson pointed out this lie to Mishkin he simply attributed it to a typo (a rather convenient one I would think).  The film really has a strong ending and claims nothing really has changed since we still live under a Wall Street Government.

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My Oscar Predictions for the 83d Academy Awards

The Oscars are only less than a week from today and after seeing all ten nominated films for Best Picture I`m ready to make my predictions. I will predict what I think will win for each of the 24 categories based on Award Season, but I will also let you know what my personal favorites are. So here we go:

1.      

BEST PICTURE

 Who Will Win: The King`s Speech

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

 2.       ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Who Will Win: Colin Firth

Who I Would Vote for: Colin Firth

3.       ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Who Will Win: Christian Bale

Who I Would Vote For: Christian Bale

4.       ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Who Will Win: Natalie Portman

Who I Would Vote for: Natalie Portman

5.       ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Who Will Win: Hailee Steinfeld

Who I Would Vote for: Hailee Steinfeld

6.       BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Who Will Win: toy Story 3

Who I Would Vote for: Toy Story 3

7.       ART DIRECTION

Who Will Win: The King`s Speech

Who I Would Vote for: Alice in Wonderland

8.       CINEMATOGRAPHY

Who Will Win: True Grit

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

9.       COSTUME DESIGN

Who Will Win: The King`s Speech

Who I Would Vote for: Alice in Wonderland

10.   DIRECTING

Who Will Win: David Fincher

Who I Would Vote for: Christopher Nolan (not nominated)

11.   DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Who Will Win: Inside Job

Who I Would Vote for: Exit Through the Gift Shop

12.   DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

Who Will Win: Strangers No More

Who I Would Vote for: Haven`t seen any of them

13.   FILM EDITING

Who Will Win: The Social Network

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

14.   FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Who Will Win: Incendies

Who I Would Vote for: Haven`t seen any of them

15.   MAKEUP

Who Will Win: The Wolfman

Who I Would Vote for: The Wolfman

16.   MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

Who Will Win: The Social Network

Who I Would Vote for: The Social Network

17.   MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)

Who Will Win: Toy Story 3

Who I Would Vote for: Tangled

18.   SHORT FILM (ANIMATED

Who Will Win: The Gruffalo

Who I Would Vote for: Day and Night

19.   SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)

Who Will Win: Wish 143

Who I Would Vote for: Haven`t seen any of them

20.   SOUND EDITING

Who Will Win: Inception

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

21.   SOUND MIXING

Who Will Win: Inception

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

22.   VISSUAL EFFECTS

Who Will Win: Inception

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

23.   WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

Who Will Win: The Social Network

Who I Would Vote for: The Social Network

24.   WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

Who Will Win: The King`s Speech

Who I Would Vote for: Inception

So there you have it! My 24 predictions for this year`s Academy Awards beginning on Sunday February 27.

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My Oscar Predictions

Leading Actor: Jeff Bridges in Crazy Hearts

Supporting Actor: Cristoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds

Leading Actress: Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia

Supporting Actress: Mo´Nique in Precious

Animated Feature: Up

Art Direction: Avatar

Cinematography: The Hurt Locker

Costume Design: The Young Victoria

Directing: The Hurt Locker

Documentary Feature: The Cove

Documentary Short: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

Film Editing: The Hurt Locker

Foreign Language Film: El Secreto de Sus Ojos

Makeup: Star Trek

Original Score: Up

Original Song: The Weary Kind (theme from Crazy Heart)

Short Film Animated: Logorama

Short Film Live Action: Kavi

Sound Editing: Avatar

Sound Mixing: Avatar

Visual Effects: Avatar

Screenplay Adapted: Up in the Air

Original Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker