Who Won the Oscars?

This years Oscars were a lot of fun. Seth MacFarlane did a good job keeping up the laughs but not going too far like Ricky Gervais did in the Golden Globes a few years ago. Out of Lincoln’s twelve nominations, only Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor and Production Design picked up the statues. Life of Pi picked up the most awards tonight (Director, Adapted Screenplay, Score, Cinematography, Visual Effects, etc) with Argo picking up the biggest award of the night: Best Picture. Ben Affleck had the most amazing speech of the night, getting really emotional and rambling and it was so cute. My other favourite winner of the night was Jennifer Lawrence. As she was walking up the stairs to collect her award she tripped and fell with Jean Dujardin and Hugh Jackman running over to help her get her footing. She seemed completely bewildered by finding herself on stage with the award in hand, I’m just so happy for her.

Check below for a full list of the winners!

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

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Denzel Washington, Flight
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Best Actress
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Alan Arkin, Argo
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Best Supporting Actress
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Amy Adams, The Master

Best Original Song
“Before My Time,” Chasing Ice
“Pi’s Lullaby,” Life of Pi
“Suddenly,” Les Miserables
“Everybody Needs A Best Friend,” Ted
“Skyfall,” Skyfall

Best Animated Feature Film
Frankenweenie
Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph
Paranorman
Brave

Best Foreign Language Film
Austria: Amour
Chile: No
Canada: War Witch
Denmark: A Royal Affair
Norway: Kon-Tiki

Best Director
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Original Screenplay
John Gatins, Flight
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Michael Haneke, Amour
Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Best Adapted Screenplay
Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Chris Terrio, Argo
Tony Kushner, Lincoln
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
David Magee, Life of Pi

Best Cinematography
Seamus McGarvey, Anna Karenina
Robert Richardson, Django Unchained
Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi
Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln
Roger Deakins, Skyfall

Best Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
Paco Delgado, Les Misérables
Joanna Johnston, Lincoln
Eiko Ishioka, Mirror Mirror
Colleen Atwood, Snow White and the Huntsman

Documentary Feature
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers,
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man

Documentary Short
“Inocente,” Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
“Kings Point,” Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
“Mondays at Racine,” Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
“Open Heart,” Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
“Redemption,” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

Film Editing
William Goldenberg, Argo
Tim Squyres, Life of Pi
Michael Kahn, Lincoln
Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers, Silver Linings Playbook
Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg, Zero Dark Thirty

Makeup and Hairstyling
Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel, Hichcock
Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell, Les Miserables

Best Original Score
Dario Marianelli, Anna Karenina
Alexandre Desplat, Argo
Mychael Danna, Life of Pi
John Williams, Lincoln
Thomas Newman, Skyfall

Best Production Design
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer, Anna Karenina
Dan Hennah, Ra Vincent and Simon Bright, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Eve Stewart and Anna Lynch-Robinson, Les Miserables
David Gropman and Anna Pinnock, Life of Pi
Rick Carter and Jim Erickson, Lincoln

Best Animated Short
“Adam and Dog,” Minkyu Lee
“Fresh Guacamole,” PES
“Head over Heels,” Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly
“Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare,’” David Silverman
“Paperman,” John Kahrs

Best Live Action Short
Asad, Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
Buzkashi Boys, Sam French and Ariel Nasr
Curfew, Shawn Christensen
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw), Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
Henry, Yan England

Best Sound Editing
Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, Argo
Wylie Stateman, Django Unchained
Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton, Life of Pi
Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers, Skyfall (tie)
Paul N.J. Ottosson, Zero Dark Thirty (tie)

Best Sound Mixing
John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia, Argo
Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes, Les Misérables
Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin, Life of Pi
Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins, Lincoln
Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson, Skyfall

Best Visual Effects
Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott, Life of Pi
Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick, Marvel’s The Avengers
Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill, Prometheus
Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson, Snow White and the Huntsman

I got 16/24 right… How’d you do?

What do you think of the winners?

Oscar Nominations: Best Director

This category is a curious one. Neither Ben Affleck (Argo), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), nor Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) were nominated in this category, cutting out three of the front runners which have been noted in the other award shows. This year will be an interesting one. Although I don’t think Bigelow should have been nominated, I do think Affleck and Tarantino have been majorly snubbed. If those two were nominated like I wish they would have been I would immediately put Affleck as the winner with Tarantino next.

As Affleck is not nominated, Spielberg seems to be the obvious choice for winner. Spielberg has not won in fifteen years so the Academy has had enough time to give him another award and it’s a movie about President Lincoln which will be a big pull. Although I would love to see first time nominee Benh Zeitlin win for his incredible Beasts of the Southern Wild, it is not likely. The two nominees with the best chance of beating Spielberg are probably David O Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) and Ang Lee (Life of Pi) but their biggest problem is that Spielberg is nominated against them.

1. Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) provides his usual flare without overdoing it, and he’s always a front runner when he’s nominated. He hasn’t won in fifteen years, so there is a good chance he’ll win again. He has won two of the six Best Director Oscar’s he has been nominated for, most recently Saving Private Ryan in 1998.
2. Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) created such an interesting, melancholic world dealing with disaster. The Academy definitely seems willing to honor the new directors and I would love to see him win. This is Zeitlin’s first nomination.
3. Ang Lee (Life of Pi) made a movie I didn’t expect to like but discovered that I loved. The way everything was put to screen was magnificent. I had been very concerned that the emotion wouldn’t come across to audiences in this format but with Lee undertaking this project it was in good hands. This is Lee’s third nomination which he has won once before in 2005 for Brokeback Mountain.
4. David O Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) is a wonderful, honest story. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but it is a comedy (no matter how much I’d like to disagree with that) and comedy hasn’t won in decades. This is Russell’s second nomination.
5. Michael Haneke (Amour) is the story of a couple in their eighties and the problems they face. It is also nominated for Best Foreign Film and Best Picture. This is Haneke’s first nomination for Best Director and his second film in the Oscars.

BAFTA Repercussions

The Oscars are on Sunday (!!!) and the BAFTAs commonly help predict what will happen. For the past ten years, the BAFTA Best Film winner has won the Oscar five times (the Golden Globe Drama has won the Oscar twice, and the Comedy has won twice as well), giving the BAFTA a better chance at being a predictor.

This year, Argo has picked up the Best Film award in both the Golden Globes and BAFTAs and has a RT rating of 96% giving it a good chance of winning, unless the Oscars do something a little weird. The bigger problem is Best Director. The Golden Globes awarded Ben Affleck (Argo) for Best Director as did the BAFTAs, but here’s the catch… The Oscars don’t have Affleck as a nominee. Nor did they include Bigelow or Tarantino, leaving only two of the nominees in the BAFTAs (Haneke and Lee) as nominees for the Academy Award. With Spielberg also nominated for the Best Director Oscar, he has a good bet against Ang Lee.

In the acting categories, although there are a few changes the frontrunners have stayed the same. SAGs, Globes, and BAFTAs are on a consensus for Lincoln’s Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor, with Hugh Jackman getting the Comedy/Musical Best Actor award at the Globes. Hugh Jackman has his first nomination for Les Miserables, and Daniel Day-Lewis has won two previous Oscars, but I think Day-Lewis still is a better bet for the award. Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emmanuelle Riva have all won for Best Actress. Christoph Waltz and Tommy Lee Jones are the big players in Best Supporting Actor, and Anne Hathaway seems to have it locked down for Best Supporting Actress after winning all three previous award shows.

The other categories have enough changes in nominees that it becomes more difficult to tell who will win, but I’d bet on Adele winning for her original song Skyfall, and perhaps Brave winning for Animated Film as well.

Read below for a full list of awards and nominees.

Best Film:
Argo
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director:
Ben Affleck (Argo)
Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
Michael Haneke (Amour)
Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

Best Actor in a Leading Role:
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Ben Affleck (Argo)
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

Best Actress in a Leading Role:
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Helen Mirren (Hitchcock)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Javier Bardem (Skyfall)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:
Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Amy Adams (The Master)
Judi Dench (Skyfall)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

Best Official Screenplay:
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Amour (Michael Haneke)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola)
Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
Argo (Chris Terrio)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin)
Life of Pi (David Magee)
Lincoln (Tony Kushner)

Best Cinematography:
Life of Pi
Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Skyfall

Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer:
Bart Layton and Dmitri Doganis (The Imposter, director/producer)
James Bobin (The Muppets, director)
Dexter Fletcher and Danny King (Wild Bill, director writer/writer)
Tina Gharavi (I Am Nasrine, director writer)
David Morris and Jaqui Morris (McCullin, director/director producer)

Outstanding British Film:
Skyfall
Anna Karenina
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Les Miserables
Seven Psychopaths

Best Documentary:
Searching for Sugar Man
The Imposter
Marley
McCullin
West of Memphis

Best Original Music:
Skyfall
Anna Karenina
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln

Best Sound:
Les Miserables
Django Unchained
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Skyfall

Best Production Design:
Les Miserables
Anna Karenina
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

Best Special Visual Effects:
Life of Pi
The Avengers
The Dark Knight Rises
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Prometheus

Best Costume Design:
Anna Karenina
Great Expectations
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Makeup and Hair:
Les Miserables
Anna Karenina
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Lincoln

Best Editing:
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

Best Film not in the English Language:
Amour
Headhunters
The Hunt
Rust and Bone
The Intouchables

Best Animated Film:
Brave
Frankenweenie
Paranorman

Best Short Animation:
The Making of Longbird
Here to Fall
I’m Fine Thanks

Best Short Film:
Swimmer
The Curse
Good Night
Tumult
The Voorman Problem

EE Rising Star Award:
Juno Temple
Elizabeth Olsen
Andrea Riseborough
Suraj Sharma
Alicia Vikander

What do you think will win the awards?