My Award nominations: Picture

*(In hopes of catching one or two more foreign films imminently, I am holding off on that category for just a few more days, but I won't wait any longer to declare my fav five of the year.)

And so we finally reach the big daddy of them all. I've already waxed philosophical at length on how 'connected' I felt to the best films of the year, but the time has come to be a little less general and a little more specific. Without further ado, I present my five candidates for Best Picture of 2013 (plus my five runner-ups, so for all intents and purposes consider this my Top Ten article):

One Category at a Time: Film Editing

As I mentioned about a week ago in my ACE Eddies recap, this is one of those categories on which the jury is out. The BAFTAs failed to clarify the issue, and traditional logic tells us that we should predict one of the ACE winners to take the Oscar as well (only three times in the last 23 years did the Oscar go to a film that did not win the Eddie), but it would be foolish to ignore the potential sweep that could make an Oscar winner out of an Eddie loser.

BAFTA winners do little to clarify Oscar race

With the Winter Olympics pushing the Oscar voting window back a couple of weeks, all eyes this were on the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs) to indicate any late-breaking momentum for this contender or that during this crucial final phase of the season. However, it seems that the Brits are about as indecisive as American awards groups have been this year, as they too ended up splitting their decision between the leading runners in the race.

In eerily similar fashion to the way the Golden Globes went down, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave managed to claim the Best Film prize at the BAFTAs, but only after it had been nearly shut out all night long. Losing categories in which it is believed to be the Oscar favourite (Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay) must have been cause for excruciating nervousness, but then it reared its head at the last minute with a victory for lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (in the absence of Oscar frontrunner Matthew McConaughey) and ultimately Best Picture.

But Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity led the total trophy haul with six, including Best British Film. Ironically, many would argue that the actual Best Film winner 12 Years a Slave is more British than the Mexican director's U.S.-financed space adventure. Keeping its own Oscar fires stoked with three wins was David O. Russell's American Hustle.

Check out the winners below for more commentary on individual categories, and how the winners here might affect the Oscar outcome.

ACE Eddie winners

One of the craft categories I'm having the hardest time predicting this year is Best Film Editing. I may keep going back and forth on the issue right up until the eve of the Oscars (and possibly well into the show)! But last night's American Cinema Editors (ACE Eddie) Awards lent some clarity into what the experts themselves think, and the news is not at all surprising.

Christopher Rouse took home top honours in Best Edited Feature (Drama) for Captain Phillips, and may well take the Oscar as well on March 2nd. Even though the film is apparently not the strongest Best Picture contender, having missed out on Best Director and Actor nominations, sometimes the Academy does vote for the film with the most obvious editing. Remember The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Black Hawk Down, The Matrix, and The Bourne Ultimatum (which brought Rouse his first Oscar) managed to win without Best Picture nominations even. Still, one gets the feeling that a Gravity sweep could tilt this category in Alfonso Cuaron's favour.

One Category at a Time: Director

The Best Picture race is a dead heat this year, which is such a rare occurrence in this age of the preferential ballot (which famously failed to determine the PGA's preference), that for the first time in the years I've been following the Oscars, we have to consider the Best Director race apart and separate from the Best Picture race. Now I hear you exclaim, "But, Awards Prognosticator!... We had to do that last year when Argo won Best Picture and Ang Lee won Best Director!" This is true. But last year was an odd exception wherein the DGA vote came so late, that it was unable to influence the Academy's directors branch into even nominating the Best Picture winner for Best Director. This year, however, there is little doubt that whichever film wins Best Picture will be one of the contenders for Best Director as well, but we still have to analyze that contest separately from Best Picture due to the closeness of the race. We can't afford the luxury of simply assuming that whatever wins the top prize naturally wins for its director too. It may well be the case at the end of the day, but we can't assume that as we have in years past. This time, there's more nuance than that.

Firstly, the frontrunner...

My Award nominations: Director

So many good films this year that I could fill this category entirely with directors of films that aren't even in my top five! But of course, since I always have a hard time divorcing a film from its direction, there is always significant overlap. But I won't tell you just yet which of these five Best Directors will go on to have their films shortlisted for my top award!

Cuaron wins DGA; Momentum now in Gravity's favour

To the surprise of no one, Alfonso Cuaron took last night's top honour from the Directors Guild of America for his magnum space opus Gravity. After last weekend's stunning tie at the PGA Awards, this validates Gravity's position as the true frontrunner in the race for Best Picture, but am I being too hasty?

Many pundits are still predicting a split between Best Picture and Best Director, whereby Steve McQueen's revered 12 Years a Slave wins the former by virtue of its prestige clout and historical importance, but Cuaron wins the latter by virtue of the technical proficiency and degree of difficulty of his film.

My Award nominations: Editing

Had to make some heartbreaking decisions to whittle this category down to five. Lots of terrific Editing work this year, and in different ways too. Here are the five I ultimately settled on (although I could just as easily substitute any of my "just missed" picks at any time):

Golden Globes live blog

The Golden Globes are starting in about 15 minutes, and I'll be updating with my commentary on developments as they happen.

7:50 Got my port poured and ready to go. Let's end these inane red carpet interviews and get the show rolling.

8:00 And we're off!

Guild noms keep rolling with American Cinema Editors

The ACE has joined the fray with their nominations for the Eddies. As expected, all four Best Picture frontrunners are represented.

The four feature film categories (plus commentary) after the cut:

Review - Gravity

220 miles above the earth and with little chance of coming back down. That's not only the basic premise, but also the way one feels after having just watched Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron's long gestating follow-up to 2006's Children of Men. After literal years of hype and ecstatic festival buzz, the question for me was whether Cuaron's magnum opus could possibly meet my out-of-this-world expectations. The answer is a resounding YES. Gravity is a triumph; A groundbreaking invention of pure cinema that captivates from its awe-inspiring start to its potent final images.

The opening title card ominously warns that life in space is impossible, before cutting to the still serenity of Earth, glowing blue against the infinite blackness. A white dot creeps into view, slowly growing in the frame until we can recognize it as the space shuttle Explorer. Veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney doing his best George Clooney impersonation) and rookie Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) are making repairs to the Hubble telescope. Matt makes jokes and regales mission control with amusing anecdotes while he putters around on his mobile thruster pack. Ryan is nervously tethered to her work, trying hard to keep her breakfast down on this routine mission. But of course, nothing about space travel is routine. With little warning, a field of satellite debris tears through the shuttle and leaves the space walkers stranded. From here, Gravity takes off on a dazzling roller coaster ride that rarely lets up, as Ryan must learn to defeat her traumas (past and present) and muster up the courage to make it back home.

Early Oscar predictions - Part 1

Spring is in the air. As the warmer weather thaws me out of post-Oscar hibernation, it's time to start looking ahead to next winter in search of potential awards projects that just might tickle the Academy's fancy. I was going to hold of on this ludicrous practice until after the Cannes Film Festival wrapped up, but it's not like that would make my crystal ball any less foggy, so may as well get it over with.

Last year's early predictions turned out to be a typically imprecise 44/96, but believe it or not, that's actually the best I've ever done! Can I improve?

This is the first of five early predictions pieces I'll be posting this month. I'm starting out this week with Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress. Next Monday I'll finish off the major categories.

One Category at a Time: Best Picture (part 1)

With the 2012 Oscar season now a happily distant memory, it's time to look ahead to what films might find themselves in Oscar's company eleven months from now. While it's always next to impossible to pinpoint the unassuming charmers (like The Artist) that can be molded into awards juggernauts from this far out, deciding which high-profile studio projects might tickle the Academy's fancy is easy enough, if not necessarily accurate. Here are the first five of ten such Oscar lures which I'm sure many pundits will be watching with close interest throughout the year:

The last time Joe Wright made a lavish period epic (2007's Atonement), it wound up with seven nominations including Best Picture despite a chilly critical reception. Anna Karenina ticks many of the Academy's boxes on paper, and presents an opportunity for broad support from the guilds. Sight unseen, it's as safe a bet as any.