IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS: 2013 Oscar Predictions

It's still Awards Month!  And yesterday, the final ballots were due for the 85th Academy Awards (whether they want to call them that or not!).  So now it is time for me to give my final Predictions in the major categories.  And just like previous years, I like to hedge my bets, so to speak.  I love to tell my readers who I think "Will Win," but then follow with a "Dark Horse" or "Spoiler" (this year being referred to as "But...").  One comment you will see often throughout this article is that this has been one crazy Oscar season (for many different reasons!).  And with a crazy season, nothing is easy and anything can happen.  So let's dive right in with

MY 2013 ACADEMY AWARDS PREDICTIONS

BEST PICTURE
The Nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
Category Overview: Just like last year, we have 9 nominated films in the top category.  However unlike last year where The Artist was the early front-runner and pretty much kept that status throughout the precursors, several of this year's nominees have enjoyed that honor in this crazy Awards season.  And now that all the precursor Awards have had their say and it seems like one film has emerged towards the winner's circle, I remind you that in a crazy season like this: anything can happen!
Will Win: Now that it has won ALL the Guild Awards (including the Actors and Writers!), Argo has placed itself into becoming the first film since Driving Miss Daisy (back in 1990) to win Best Picture without even being nominated for Best Director.  It is a favorite of the critics and audiences have rallied around Ben Affleck since his snub from the Director's branch of the Academy.
But...: It's not all over for Spielberg and Company!  Having the most nominations could still have weighed with Academy voters.  Some could feel that with all the Guild wins, Ben Affleck has been sufficiently compensated for the snub and it's now time to be more "traditional."  And as brilliant as Steven Spielberg's gem is, Lincoln does fall into the "traditional" genre that is better known as "Oscar Bait."

BEST DIRECTOR
The Nominees: Michael Haneke, Amour; Ang Lee, Life of Pi; David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook; Steven Spielberg, Lincoln; Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Category Overview: With several high profile snubs in this category (Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson), one would think that this would be an easy win for one of Hollywood's biggest power-players.  But as I said earlier, nothing in this Oscar season is easy.
Will Win: Despite a small band of detractors, Steven Spielberg is one of Hollywood's greatest directors and it surprises people that he only has TWO Academy Awards for Best Director (for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan).  This is the chance for Hollywood to give him his due and honor him with a well-deserved third Oscar for Lincoln (especially now with the likes of Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow out of the race!).
But...: That small band of detractors are rallying behind Ang Lee and his stunning visual achievements in Life of Pi.  And it is possible that their arguments have swayed some of the Academy voters.  While I still say Spielberg has it in the bag, I wouldn't be too surprised should Ang Lee's name be read on Sunday.

BEST ACTRESS
The Nominees: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty; Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook; Emmanuelle Riva, Amour; Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Category Overview: Wallis is the youngest Best Actress nominee ever and Riva is the oldest (and each are receiving their first nod!).  The other three (Lawrence, Chastain and Watts) are receiving their second Oscar nomination.
Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence was an early front-runner in the category the minute Silver Linings Playbook premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.  With a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors' Guild Award under her belt, the young actress is on her way to Oscar glory.
But...: Lawrence is not the only one here with a Golden Globe Award.  Jessica Chastain, who gave a stunningly brilliant performance in Zero Dark Thirty, won both the Golden Globe and the Critics' Choice Award for her efforts as a determined CIA Analyst.  Though the "torture issue" surrounding the film might have made voters squeamish to give ZDT a high-profile prize.
However...: Both Chastain and Lawrence have lost a few critics' prizes (the National Board of Review and the L.A. Film Critics) and last week's British Film Award (BAFTA) to Amour's Emmanuelle Riva.  The French character actress has been a star in France for several decades and many have pointed out that this is her chance to be honored by Hollywood for her many years in French Cinema (and we know how the Academy loves to give "Career Oscars!").

BEST ACTOR
The Nominees: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook; Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln; Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables; Joaquin Phoenix, The Master; Denzel Washington, Flight
Category Overview: Phoenix was an early front-runner, but spoiled his chances when he stated his true feelings about the whole campaigning process.  Jackman and Cooper both wowed audiences with their performances and Washington gave his best in a complex role (as he always does!).  But then there's Daniel Day-Lewis.
Will Win: From the moment critics and audiences saw screenings of Lincoln, the writing was on the wall that Day-Lewis would become the first performer to win a third Best Leading Actor trophy.  His performance is so nuanced and brilliant that no one can really compare to him (which is kind of unfair!).  The best description of Day-Lewis came from Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman who compared his style to a combination of the method attitudes of Marlon Brando and the classical training of Sir Laurence Olivier.  That's a combination that deserves every Award ever made!
But...:  There really isn't one in this category!  It's one of two major categories this year where there is a surefire front-runner from the word "Go."  The only thing that could stop Day-Lewis is a complete and utter shut-out of Spielberg's film.  But then who would the beneficiary of such a shut-out be?  The most likely would be either Jackman or Washington, and both of them have not gained enough traction in any of the precursors to be a real threat (despite Jackman's Golden Globe win!).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Nominees: Amy Adams, The Master; Sally Field, Lincoln; Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables; Helen Hunt, The Sessions; Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Category Overview: All of the actresses in this category have been nominated before (though three of them are new to the Supporting Actress category!).
Will Win: Is there any doubt that Anne Hathaway will win this one?  From the second her voice was heard in the trailer singing the iconic "I Dreamed a Dream" song, pundits placed her at the top of their lists for this category.  Then when the film premiered, critics (even the ones that didn't like the film!) fell in love with her tragedienne performance especially when they discovered she sang the song live in one take!  On top of all that, she has been the most gracious winner at the precursors.  She has given heartfelt speeches and sincere praise to her fellow nominees (especially Sally Field!).  She's become the kind of Oscar contender Academy voters just adore.
But...: Like Best Actor above, if there is a "Spoiler" here, it would be minute.  Sally Field gives a great performance as Mary Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's film.  The fact that she had to fight to keep the role once Liam Neeson backed out of the project is the kind of story Academy voters love.  However, it's a story that is not unfamiliar in Field's career.  Back in 1979, she had to fight to get the title role in Martin Ritt's Norma Rae.  Her endeavors were rewarded with her first of two Academy Awards (the second came for 1984's Places In the Heart, another role for which she "fought").  She's been rewarded enough for fighting for her roles.  It's Anne Hathaway's turn!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Category Overview: This category is going to work a little differently!  This is the toughest category to predict.  Maybe the toughest ever!  ALL of the five actors nominated are previous Oscar champs (a feat which has never happened before!).  And none of the precursors have been any help to any of the pundits.  It seems like they predict one and then someone else wins.  So I will take you through each nominee and give you the reason why I can see ANY ONE of them taking the prize on Sunday.

• Alan Arkin, Argo - For many, Arkin was the scene-stealing best part of Ben Affleck's political thriller.  As the Hollywood producer who joins Affleck's CIA Agent in endeavoring to rescue some American Embassy workers from Iran, Arkin has the best dialogue and the best scenes.  He hasn't won any of the precursors, but he's been nominated for every single one.  And with Argo surging forward in the top category, it is not unlikely that some of that love could fall Arkin's way.
• Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook - Out of all the nominees in this category, his win is the oldest (having won his second Oscar in 1981 for Raging Bull!).  Like Spielberg, it surprises people that De Niro (being the legend he is!) only has two Oscars.  And with his role as Bradley Cooper's tough-talking yet extremely sensitive and caring father, many critics felt that this was De Niro's return to form after years in light/comedic roles (Analyze This/That, Meet the Parents/Fockers, Stardust, etc.).  Actors love this movie (with nods in each of the Acting categories!) and De Niro could benefit from some of that love.
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master - Hoffman made himself an early front-runner with his role as a 1950s cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson's poignant film.  He even won the Critics' Choice Award back in early January.  However with the film falling off the radar and only getting nods in three categories (the other two being Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress!), his chances have dimmed dramatically.  But he is the only contender who won a major Critics' prize.  That may carry weight with some of the Academy voters.
• Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln - He won the Screen Actors' Guild Award for his stirring portrayal of abolitionist Senator Thaddeus Stevens.  Some have even said it was hard to tell where Stevens ended and Lee Jones began (which is both a positive and a negative!).  He is the category front-runner with most of the pundits, but he has fierce competitors.
• Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained - A lot of people felt he should be in the Lead category as he is the contender who has the most screen time in his respective film.  But as he is not the title character, Waltz (my personal favorite!) has been relegated to the Supporting field and has raked in a couple prizes to boot!  Waltz beat his co-star (Leonardo DiCaprio) at the Golden Globes and just last week was honored with the BAFTA in this category.  For someone who at first was not on the radar at the beginning of Oscar season, he has now moved himself in to major contender status.

Will Win: Any one of them could be the winner, but I guess I'll go with the majority (the 27% majority!) and say that Tommy Lee Jones will be the eventual winner.  But I go on record saying that any one of these five names could be read from that envelope by The Help's Octavia Spencer on Sunday night.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS: 2013 Oscar Nominations - Reaction!

Yesterday, the Academy Award Nominations for the films of 2012 were announced...and let me just say: Whoa!!!  I mean, the prognosticators were thrown for a major loop.  And so were the Oscar record books!  So now, it is time for me to run through the major categories and give you all my (somewhat!) initial reactions to the names that appeared (and didn't appear!) on yesterday's list of nominees.

• Again with the 9 nominees for Best Picture!  I was fairly sure that six of the nine were guaranteed (Lincoln, Argo, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Misérables and Silver Linings Playbook) and throwing one more in the mix was not a shock (Django Unchained).  I'm not even surprised by the momentum "outsider" films gained during this awards season (Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild).  But with this new "between 5 and 10 films nominated" rule the Academy has, if just 9 films get nominated again next year, it will truly feel forced!
• I am quite surprised that The Master's Joaquin Phoenix didn't ace himself out of a nomination with his very public and very graphic chiding of the process actors are "forced" to go through in order to obtain an Oscar nod (no matter how right he was!).  Unfortunately his inclusion means the exclusion of The Sessions' John Hawkes who, according to many critics, gave one of the best performances of the year (and he had scored both Golden Globe and Screen Actors' Guild nominations!).
• With 85 year-old Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) and 9 year-old Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), the average age of the Best Actress nominees falls somewhere around 40 - an age that, in Hollywood, is NOT considered "Lead Actress material!"  How Hollywood has changed!!!  Maybe not that much since either 35 year-old Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) or 22 year-old Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) will most likely be the eventual winner!
• For the first time (at least that I can currently recall!), ALL of the nominees for Best Supporting Actor are previous Oscar winners: Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones and Christoph Waltz.  As for a front-runner, it is still a toss-up (although both Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Tommy Lee Jones are the first names mentioned among the critics!).
• With Jacki Weaver garnering her second Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress, she helps put David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook into the elite club of films that had acting nominations in all four categories (this club includes films like Warren Beatty's Reds, Mike Nichols' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire).  Despite all that, Les Misérables' Anne Hathaway is still going to win!
• Jeffrey Katzenberg must be somewhere licking his wounds.  After the poor box-office performance and mixed reviews of the holiday-themed movie Rise of the Guardians, it was pushed out of the Animated Film category by not one...not two...but THREE Disney films - Brave, Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph.  Good thing Dreamworks has Lincoln carrying the studio banner at this year's ceremony!
• In the writing categories, it is small consolation that Wes Anderson's critically lauded comedy Moonrise Kingdom got some recognition.  But it's still disturbing that original and creative genre fare like Looper (science-fiction) and Brave (animated fantasy) get ignored.  Also, is there some scientology-themed conspiracy in Hollywood against Paul Thomas Anderson?  Though The Master has lost some awards momentum, many thought he would at least get his fourth writing nomination.  I would also like to point out that I was one of the few people I know that correctly predicted each of the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay (Lincoln, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Argo and Beasts of the Southern Wild).  Just want to get that fact in there, folks!
• And lastly, what the hell is going on in the Academy's Directors branch!?!?!  Are they afraid of ticking off the CIA so they choose NOT to nominate Ben Affleck (Argo) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)?  Did the mixed reception that Les Misérables and Django Unchained each got from the critics dismay them from including Tom Hooper or Quentin Tarantino, respectively?  Entertainment Weekly's own Owen Gleiberman pointed out that it is odd that FOUR major Hollywood players are excluded from an albeit very crowded category.  Did the branch just clear the way for Steven Spielberg to obtain his third Best Director Oscar?  Maybe!!!

With all this and more going on in Hollywood, it will be an interesting month as the prognosticators try to figure out what the Academy is thinking and what film will be in the Winners' Circle at the end of February.  So let's relax now and listen to Adele has she sings her way to yet another award!

LET'S REVIEW: A Defense of Les Miz...

It's a brand new year and I thought it would be time to introduce a brand new column.  Occasionally, I will give my readers a review of a Movie, TV Series, Play or Book that is bouncing around in our Pop Culture consciousness.  And to begin, I thought I would open with the long-awaited film adaptation of the mega-hit stage musical Les Misérables, directed by The King's Speech's Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper.  The overall critical reaction to the film has been mixed.  But what I am seeing in most of the reviews, both negative and positive, is a not-so-surprising trend in the critics reviewing it.  The ones who really loved it (and there were quite a few!), were already in love with the musical from it's previous stage productions.  The ones who really loathed it (and there were quite a few!), did not like the stage musical already (which then begs the question as to why their respective publication would have them review the film version, but I digress!).  Now granting the fact that I am enamored with the stage musical already, it is not too far of a leap to believe that I was equally impressed with the film version.  I was.  But that is not to say I do not understand or disagree with some of the criticisms thrown at Hooper's adaptation.  In some of the cases, I see their points.  But in most of those cases, it comes down to typical critical nit-picking.  Is it the greatest stage-to-screen musical adaptation? No; not when films like My Fair Lady, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Fiddler On the Roof and Chicago exist.  But is it the most disappointing stage-to-screen musical adaptation? Certainly not; not when films like Annie, The Wiz, A Chorus Line, Hair and The Phantom of the Opera exist. These are truly sad when you think of the talented directors behind each of those films: John Huston, Sidney Lumet, Richard Attenborough, Milos Forman and Joel Schumacher, respectively (I know Schumacher can be quite awful, but he's also had some good films!).  So LET'S REVIEW!

First and foremost, let's go through the most crucial thing when adapting a successful stage musical to the big screen: casting.  Casting a big brassy musical like Les Miz is made even harder these days particularly because of the expectations of the audience, the "non-acceptance" of lip-syncing (sorry Marni Nixon!), the boldness of the difficult score and the lack of truly talented "A-List" actors.  All that being said, Hooper could not have found a better Jean Valjean than Hugh Jackman.  For Les Miz (any production!), the strength of it ultimately lies on the shoulders of the actor playing Valjean.  As the central role of the story (which has been adapted more times than any Shakespeare play, thanks to its several French adaptations!), the actor playing Valjean has to run a gamut of emotions from convict to respected factory owner to unexpected father to man-on-the-run to willing revolutionary.  In the musical, add singing difficult songs like "Who Am I?" and "Bring Him Home" and you have a character that is extremely difficult to cast.  But in Hugh Jackman (known to audiences as Wolverine from the X-Men films), Hooper got an actor who uses every piece of himself as both an actor and a performer (he is, after all, a Tony Award-winning musical star!).  His voice is strong, his acting is perfect and his looks (which change throughout the film, spanning 20 years!) match every time.  It is truly the performance of his career.

But Valjean is not the only character crucial to the casting process of Les Miz.  As with most musicals, the female characters become the thing that Broadway purists and fans become obsessed over.  And thanks to the likes of a cherubic singer (and YouTube sensation) named Susan Boyle, the casting of Fantine is almost equally crucial to the casting of Valjean (even though the character only appears in 30 minutes of the entire 3 hour musical!).  Fans love this character (partly because the original 1985 London production cast Broadway legend Patti LuPone as Fantine!).  But once again, Hooper cast the proper person giving the performance of her career.  Anne Hathaway, who has shown her musical chops here and there on film before, truly transformed herself to play the tragic character that is Fantine.  And her rendition of the iconic "I Dreamed a Dream" is overwhelmingly impressive, especially when  you hear she completed the scene in one take (take that Sinatra!).  She IS the front-runner in the Supporting Actress category at every Awards this season (and should obtain an Oscar nod come Thursday!).

With Jackman and Hathaway taking most of the praise (albeit deserving!), most of the critics take their "vengeance" out on some of the other actors in the principal roles.  And in Russell Crowe, unfortunately, they have rather an easy target.  Unlike Jackman and Hathaway, Academy Award-winner Crowe is not extremely well-known for his musical "talents" (he has a rock band, folks!).  He also has never had the friendliest relationship with the press (he's had incidents with papparazzi that make Sean Penn look like a Care Bear!).  And in a role like Javert, expectations are very high (and in Crowe's case, almost unfairly high!).  You see, Crowe is obviously not used to or comfortable with this style of singing (usually known as "recitative").  He uses all of his intense method-acting skills to try to cover his discomfort and sometimes it works (other times...not really!).  But then I think to myself: Who else really could have played this role in this adaptation?  You see, there are certain criteria the studio, the creatives and the audience has in the casting of Javert...and each one's criteria is very different from the other!  Every adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel has a Javert that is of equal caliber in both ability and star quality to the man playing Valjean (since most versions are French, you're just going to have to trust me!).  You  need an "A-List" actor to play opposite Hugh Jackman's "A-List" casting of Valjean.  So run through the list of "A-List" actors in your mind who could: 1) Act the role of Javert (cause let's face it, he needs to be a quality actor!) and 2) Actually sing! And not just sing, but be willing to step outside a "comfort zone" and sing this style of music.  In that last respect, Crowe stepped up.  He's not perfect, which is unfortunate, but he is not so-bad-you-want-to-forget-he-was-cast-in-the-first-place (Gerard Butler, I'm looking at you!).

The rest of the principals fit their roles well.  Eddie Redmayne, who plays the lovelorn Marius, was the biggest surprise with a sweet and lush tenor voice and an emotional quality I rarely get out of most guys who have played Marius.  In the role of Eponine, Hooper took a chance and cast the unknown Samantha Barks (who has played the role on stage in the UK).  She is not only talented but extremely beautiful (which might sometimes work against the Eponine that exists in Hugo's novel, but who cares?!?!).  As the treacherous Thenardiers, Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen are well-cast.  I mean, they would be on my list if I were casting (so if you had problems with them, that's on you!).  Broadway star Aaron Tveit gives the Tony-winning role of Enjolras a mix of pretty-boy good looks and strong musical chops.  And as Cosette, Amanda Seyfried is fine (with what she has to do!).  I always feel Cosette gets the short end of the stick in the muscial as far as material goes.  I think that is why I have rarely seen a Cosette that can match the quality of either the original London Cosette (Rebecca Caine) or the original Broadway Cosette (Judy Kuhn).  So with that said, Seyfried (whose voice is surely not as strong as Caine's or Kuhn's) is pretty good and very pretty to watch.

And now on to the criticism that is at the forefront of most of the nay-sayers out there.  In The King's Speech, Tom Hooper used close-ups and the wide-angle lenses to give us the "fishbowl" quality of a royal life.  And even there, some people didn't like it.  In Les Miz, Hooper once again uses a ton of close-ups and strange angles to give us an intimate quality that he feels balances against the epic quality of the original story (and stage production!).  But I am going to venture another theory as to why this technique works and why Victor Hugo himself would have loved it.  With all the close-ups and strange tilted angles, we the audience feel extremely like a fly on that "fourth wall" that exists in both the theatre and the movies.  The audience is shoved right into the action and is right up close to the peasants and convicts and thieves and revolutionaries and whores of Hugo's world.  And Hugo would have wanted it that way.  The point of his original novel, Les Misérables, was to shove this world of poverty right in the faces of the bourgeoisie he so loathed in many of his works.  These close angles are supposed to give intimacy and a certain level of discomfort.  Hugo would have wanted nothing less.

So to all the negative critics out there, I say this is a great musical film adaptation that should be viewed by both fans of the original and those who are not familiar with the material.  I would love to see it on Oscar's list of Best Picture nominees come this Thursday!

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS: Oscar Season Begins!

Clockwise: Sally Field and Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln; Alan Arkin and Ben Affleck in Argo; Stephen Dillane and Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty; Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables

Well readers, it's been a month since my last post and it was a very well-deserved vacation!  And now that we are heading into Winter, there is one thing that is on everyone's mind in Hollywood: The Oscars and who will be nominated this time around.  The nominations will not be announced until the morning of January 13th and it is during the month of December that those ballots will be filled out by Academy voters as to which of this year's films deserve the top prize.  Because the Oscars have moved their schedule up an entire month, all the other awards on the circuit have tried to accommodate that with the Golden Globes (the most high-profile Oscar precursor) announcing their nominees next Thursday.  So which films are the front-runners in the race to be nominated for the biggest award?  Well there are certainly a few.  And with the Academy's new rule that allows for anywhere from 5 to 10 films to be nominated for Best Picture, the race has become that much harder to predict.

However, amid all the predictions are 3 films that are definitely going to be in prominent contention come Oscar night.  When Argo was released in September, Ben Affleck received the best reviews of his career (as a director, actor and co-screenwriter).  His thrilling and suspenseful adaptation about a secret CIA mission to retrieve American Embassy workers during the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis was far and wide considered a surefire bet for Best Picture.  In addition to Argo, critics then lauded the most recent Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln.  In this stunning political biopic, two-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis has received raves for his role as the 16th President of the United States and is in definite contention for a third Best Actor statue.   But the buzziest film of 2012's Oscar season has yet to be released for audiences.  Academy Award winner Tom Hooper's adaptation of the iconic stage musical Les Misérables has been receiving Oscar buzz ever since the first trailer appeared in theaters over the summer (especially for Best Supporting Actress contender Anne Hathaway) and will not be released until Christmas Day.  So at this time, I have seen both Argo and Lincoln and can assure you that both deserve the attention they are getting.  I will soon be seeing Les Misérables (thanks to a perk, I'll get to see it a week before Christmas Day!), so I will be able to let you know if the buzz is correct in placing it alongside the other two.

But in the last few days, another film has been getting attention that most likely would have belonged to the three films mentioned above.  Kathryn Bigelow, who two years ago made history when she became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker, has made yet another topical film that has captured awards attention.  And that film is Zero Dark Thirty, Bigelow's adaptation of the operation that took down Osama Bin Laden.  Over the weekend, the New York Film Critics named Bigelow's movie the Best Picture of the year with the National Board of Review following suit just a few days later.  The National Board of Review also named Bigelow Best Director and star Jessica Chastain as the year's Best Actress.  However, my father pointed out that these wins may have more to do with the movie's subject matter than with the merits of the movie itself (even if it is a great film!).  But with these new developments, I would not be surprised to see Zero Dark Thirty (a film I have yet to see and now have more interest in seeing!) among the top contenders come Oscar time.

There are two other films that are getting mentioned (at least by the critics) when it comes to the contenders for Best Picture.  One is David O. Russell's dark relationship comedy Silver Linings Playbook which stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as two people with deep personal problems who connect with each other despite several differences.  The film is being hailed across the board and Lawrence is considered the top front-runner for Best Actress.  And Bradley Cooper shouldn't be out of the mix either having won the National Board of Review's Best Actor award (over Daniel Day-Lewis!).  The other film being mentioned is Ang Lee's sweeping Life of Pi, which garnered much praise after being viewed at the New York Film Festival.  Several critics pegged it as a surefire Best Picture contender.  And with Ang Lee's previous Oscar pedigree (winning Best Director in 2006 for Brokeback Mountain and Best Foreign Language Film in 2001 for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), it has a pretty good shot with the critics behind it.

Now I could leave these predictions at six films, but what kind of Oscar predictor would that make me?  There are several other films that are being mentioned on message boards (and by a few critics).  There's Paul Thomas Anderson's faux-Scientology drama The Master (which won at the Cannes Film Festival) and Benh Zeitlin's critically-lauded Beasts of the Southern Wild (which won at Sundance).  The Denzel Washington-led Flight and Quentin Tarantino's new film Django Unchained (which is an homage to "Spaghetti Westerns") are also audience faves (even though Django Unchained is yet-to-be-released!) Let's not forget the Foreign Film Amour, which won Europe's top Film prize and is on several critics' top 10 lists.  And among all these typical awards-fare, three franchise films (or genre pics!) are being thrown into the conversation.  Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Sam Mendes' Bond film Skyfall are all on some lists when talking about Best Picture.  All this said, it shall be a very interesting mix of movies being lauded at the Academy Awards this time around.