Well, it's that time of year! The Oscar nominations were announced a few years ago, so it's time to do what I've been doing since I started blogging in the late-1990s. It's time for me to do my Oscar picks!
Now, as I've been doing since the late 1990s, I tend to do my Oscar picks in the categories that I care about. I mean, you're going to get all kinds of speculation for the big ones like Best Picture and Best Actor and Best Actress and stuff like that. So, when I started doing this, I started by focusing on the categories that I care about: Best Original Song and Best Visual Effects. So let's take a look at what we've got.
Best Visual Effects
The nominees are:
Wow, lots of good choices there. I think that, when it comes to The Hobbit, the Academy will probably do what they did with The Lord of the Rings. They'll save all the awards for the third and final film. So that's probably out of the running. Snow White and the Huntsman, didn't see it, can't speak to it. And as much as I loved The Avengers, I really don't think there's anything new and groundbreaking visual effects-wise. However, the one that the critics keep coming back to...the one that they keep raving about the effects in, is Life of Pi. Everyone's taking about it's use of 3D, and how a combination of a real tiger, animatronics, and CGI is all coupled together to bring the film's tiger to life.
My Prediction: Life of Pi
Best Original Song
The nominees are:
- "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
This category has gotten tougher and tougher for me to call. The main reason why I started predicting this one back in the 1990s was because, in the 90s, Disney animated films ruled this category. But I don't think a Disney movie has been nominated in this category for a great many year. Most of these songs, I have not heard. I'll try to link all the nominees up there to the song on YouTube. But let's see..being a James Bond fan, I thought Skyfall the song was pretty good. Ted was from the creators of Family Guy, and I see that Everybody Needs a Best Friend was done by all the composers who work on Family Guy. They've done some good songs, it would be nice to see them win. But still, the critics generally love Les Miserables, and with people saying the film was shunned because it didn't pick up nominees for Best Director, so I'm sure a lot of people will go for that one.
My Prediction: Les Miserables
Best Animated Film
It's funny...I just wrote up a Fishing in the Discount Bin for Chicken Run, and as the urban legend goes, this category was created because the Academy felt guilty about not being able to give Chicken Run anything. I started predicting this one when the category was new 11 years ago, and I was still running down to the theatre to see every new animated movie that came out. Which reminds me...I think I'm due for another Animated Film Catch-Up. Anyway, the nominees are:
Wow! I've seen three out five nominations this year! I think that's a personal record. This seems like a category that'll be too close to call. While Brave really didn't gel for me, Pixar is an Oscar darling. I missed The Pirates! in its theatrical release, but I still really want to see it, because it's from the UK's Aardman Animations, which is another Oscar darling. And ParaNorman, while it fizzled at the box office, got a lot of love from the critics. With this one, though, I'm really leaning towards Wreck-It Ralph, because when I went to see it, I found it to be very pleasantly surprising, so maybe the Academy will feel that way, too.My Prediction: Wreck-It Ralph
And, as always, just to sell out and be mainstream, let's do the big one, shall we?
Best Picture
- Amour
- Argo
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Django Unchained
- Les Miserables
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Zero Dark Thirty
My Prediction: Les Miserables
The Oscars are on February 24 this year. Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, is the host.
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