Oscar Postmortem Pt. 1: Overview

Well, the 85th Annual Academy Awards came and went, putting a cap on what has been one of the most unusual awards seasons in recent memory. To no one's surprise, Ben Affleck's Argo was crowned the Best Picture of 2012, also taking expected prizes for Chris Terrio's screenplay and William Goldenberg's editing.

One Category at a Time: Director

For an Oscar year as weird as this one to ultimately yield another no-brainer Best Picture winner (from where we stand, at least) is a bit disappointing. Thankfully, all the uncertainty and unpredictability that was once thought to cloud the Best Picture race has instead been concentrated into the competition for Best Director, which is up for grabs in Ben Affleck's conspicuous absence.

In recent years with a Best Picture/Best Director split, Best Director has often gone to the presumed runner-up for Best Picture as a sort of consolation prize. To cite the examples, it certainly seems like Brokeback Mountain, The Pianist, and Traffic all came about as close to winning Best Picture as you can get without actually winning. But it begs the question: Which movie is in the runner-up position? Will that even matter?

Directors Guild nominees

The DGA has confirmed what most prognosticators have been assuming are the top five films in the hunt for Best Picture; the directors of Argo, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty were all nominated by the huge guild who often serve as a Best Picture bellwether. Mind you, that may not be the case this year since this precursor comes after the Academy's voting deadline, but it still serves as a good indication of what the industry at-large thinks.

Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow, and Steven Speilberg were all presumed safe bets for DGA nods. The only suspense (minor, at that) came in anticipating whom of Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, Quentin Tarantino, or David O. Russell would take the other two. So Les Mis fans can breathe a sigh of relief [phew!!!], as Hooper's nomination shores up the musical's hopes of actually winning Best Picture, but this doesn't necessarily mean he'll be nominated by AMPAS' directors branch, which is much smaller than the DGA. I may as well predict a five-for-five match up, but to see either Lee or Hooper replaced by any of Russell, Tarantino, the Andersons (Wes and P.T.), or even Michael Haneke would not surprise me.

DGA nominees
Ben Affleck for Argo
Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty
Tom Hooper for Les Miserables
Ang Lee for Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

Review - Life of Pi

Shipwreck survivor Pi Patel has a harrowing story which an interviewer has been told “will make him believe in God”. Ang Lee's bold translation of the Yann Martel bestseller Life of Pi may not quite be able to do that, although it certainly gets you to thinking about such things as religious philosophy. For some, the film could inspire epiphanies about one's own beliefs. For others, not so much. If nothing else, at least it'll make you believe the craftspeople of this high-seas odyssey are gods for creating such divine imagery.

Pi (short for Piscine) is moving from India with his family and the zoo animals they own, intent on selling the creatures and starting a new life in Canada. When a deafening storm sinks the ship and everybody else on board, Pi is left stranded on a lifeboat with no company besides a lame zebra, an excitable orangutan, a hungry hyena, and a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The bulk of the film presents Pi's fight for survival; a test not only of his physical and mental ingenuity, but of his faith as well.

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.