* Denotes "Worst Nomination" Nominee
DIRECTING
Amour - Michael
Haneke*
Beasts of
the Southern Wild - Benh Zeitlin*
Life of
Pi - Ang Lee
Lincoln -
Steven Spielberg
Silver
Linings Playbook - David O. Russell*
WILL WIN:
Ang Lee – Life of Pi. The most deserving of those not named Spielberg. Justly
termed a “visual epic,” Life of Pi should win something.
SHOULD WIN:
Steven Spielberg – No one has confused me for a Spielberg fan, but quietly over
the past few years he’s mellowed from his blunt messaging and "Just Give Me the Damn Trophy" subject matter. Perhaps he’s said what he has to say and can now just go back
to making movies. Regardless, Lincoln is the best and most important of these movies and it's not close.
BIGGEST
SNUBS: Katherine Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty, Christopher Nolan – the whole Batman
Series, Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained
What’s most
silly about these snubs is that they could easily replace the three indulgent actual nominations I've marked as "worst nomination" nominees. They’re all much more important directors who made much
superior films, both in dollar and artistic terms.
ANIMATED
FEATURE FILM
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The
Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It
Ralph
WILL WIN:
Wreck-It Ralph. Pixar made this category happen, and now that Pixar’s dying we
have to live with the consequences.
SHOULD WIN:
Frankenweenie. There is a chance greater than zero that this is a Burton
masterpiece that will someday be regarded as an overlooked work of genius.
BIGGEST
SNUB: Silver Linings Playbook.
DOCUMENTARY
FEATURE
5 Broken
Cameras – (i.e. the one about nonviolent resistance to Israeli settlement
activity in the West Bank)
The
Gatekeepers – (i.e. the one about 5 Israeli Shin Beit chiefs calling out
Israel’s current course as untenable)
How to
Survive a Plague – (i.e. the one where the 80’s New York gay community
lobbies the government to get an AIDS cure, gets the cure, it turns out it’s not a cure, then
gets another cure).
The
Invisible War – (i.e. the harrowing one about rape in the US military)
Searching
for Sugar Man – (i.e. it’s complicated, but it involves South Africa and
Motown)
WILL WIN:
How to Survive a Plague
SHOULD WIN:
Searching for Sugar Man. I found the most effective “push” film masquerading as
a documentary to be The Invisible War, which is terrific at marching you out of
it ready to go to the barricade. And in terms of its craft, Searching for Sugar
Man is probably the least of these films. But the story it has to tell is so
charming. If you know me, you know I laugh a lot but rarely smile. About 2/3’s
of the way through the movie, I realized I’d been smiling for a half hour. It
kept going like that.
WRITING
- Adapted Screenplay
Argo by
Chris Terrio
*Beasts
of the Southern Wild by Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
Life of
Pi by David Magee
Lincoln by
Tony Kushner
* Silver
Linings Playbook by David O. Russell
WILL WIN:
Argo
SHOULD WIN:
Lincoln
BIGGEST
SNUB: Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight Rises; Joe Carnahan & Ian
Mackenzie Jeffers – The Grey
There is a
scene in Silver Linings Playbook where Bradley Cooper’s brother, unprompted,
and seconds after being introduced, begins listing the ways in which his life
is good and Cooper’s is bad. It is the worst written scene of the year. To make
matters worse, we’re then asked to LIKE this same brother through his actions
the rest of the movie. Of all the bizarre enthusiasm for Silver Linings
Playbook, this is the strangest.
WRITING
- Original Screenplay
Amour by
Michael Haneke
Django
Unchained by Quentin Tarantino
Flight by
John Gatins
Moonrise
Kingdom by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
Zero Dark
Thirty by Mark Boal*
WILL WIN: Tarantino
SHOULD WIN: Wes
Anderson & Roman Coppola
BIGGEST SNUB:
Rian Johnson – Looper
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