One Category at a Time: Picture

For this annual post I traditionally take a rigidly statistical approach to narrowing down the Best Picture nominees. I simply look for the contenders with the three key nominations of Director, Editing, and Screenplay, and consider them the only ones truly in the running. But in a year as off-kilter as this one, it has become apparent that my usual approach is not adequate.

One Category at a Time: Film Editing

The contest for Best Film Editing is always closely associated with Best Picture. Since editors and directors work pretty much hand in hand, the editors branch of AMPAS tends to nominate based on quality of the films as much as quality of just the editing. On top of that, the film to win Best Film Editing is often well liked enough that it almost always wins multiple categories (last year's victory for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being among the rare exceptions). And since editing can be such an invisible art at times, the winning film is usually required to have the “most” editing, rather than the “best”, to earn the Academy's attention.

MPSE winners

The Motion Picture Sound Editors dropped their superlatives last night after the WGA, and it does little to clear up the picture in the Academy's corresponding category. Traditionally, it's the Sound Effects and Foley award that most closely represents the Best Sound Editing Oscar, so that may bode well for Skyfall, which won its fourth guild award here. But War Horse won that from the guild last year and then fell short to Hugo on the big night.

I'm still feeling Life of Pi for either one or both of the Sound awards, and since Les Mis looks good in Mixing, Sound Editing looks good for Pi. It won two of the MPSE's prizes, technically making it the "big" winner of the night.

Speaking of Les Mis, it predictably won the category for Music Editing in a Musical (inarguable, if you ask me), while Wreck-It Ralph recovered from a CAS loss to Brave with a victory in the Animated category. Both films had excellent Sound Designs, so I guess it's fair that they shared these two industry honours. It's a shame neither of them managed to impress AMPAS, though.

One Category at a Time: Sound Editing

Not sure how Best Sound Editing will go this year (or any year, to be honest). While the Academy usually gives both Sound awards to the same film out of sheer ignorance and apathy, it's certainly looking like this is going to be one of those rare split years. With Les Miserables primed and ready to collect a well deserved win for Sound Mixing (not a sure thing, mind you), voters will have to exercise some critical thinking for once and decide which of five films that aren't Les Mis had the best sound editing.

One Category at a Time: Adapted Screenplay

The contest for Best Adapted Screenplay is stuffed with the four leading Best Picture contenders, which makes it rather tricky to anticipate this year. We have a difficult literary adaptation from a popular potential sweeper, a quirky screwball comedy that a lot of pundits seem to be underestimating, a verbose historical drama that glows with eloquent language, and a zingy crowd-pleaser that appears first in line to win Best Picture. Joining them is a scrappy indie whose best shot at winning anything may come in this category (not that it's a great shot).

One Category at a Time: Original Score

Best Original Score feels kinda wide open this year. Sure, you could essentially eliminate the two nominees that aren't also up for Best Picture, but of the other three, any of them could win.

Sifting through the Brits' tea leaves...

The British love their tea, wot? And the British Academy of Film and Television Arts have left all sorts of tea leaves for awards pundits to analyze from today's BAFTA Movie Awards. Even though BAFTA never matches up exactly with AMPAS, we might do well to heed their winners more closely this year, as they could bear more significance in the Oscar race than ever before.

Why is BAFTA significant? It's not so much the membership overlap between them and AMPAS (although that factor is appreciable), but a procedural change the organization made to mirror the Academy's voting practices. In the past, the entire BAFTA membership was invited to determine all the nominees, while only the specific chapters (or branches) could determine the final winners in their associated categories. This often lead to some baffling snubs (Tree of Life's Cinematography snub, anyone?) and peculiar winners (remember In Bruges winning Original Screenplay?).

One Category at a Time: Production Design

Production design is one of those fields in which the Academy almost always votes for “most” over “best”, even if it's at the expense of a film they clearly like more. The sets need to draw attention to themselves in order to take the gold here, and for my money, there's only one nominee in this group that looks like a winner, although it's far from a slam dunk:

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?

One Category at a Time: Visual Effects

One thing that last year's race for Best Visual Effects made clear was that you just can't beat a Best Picture nominee in this category, even if its effects are far inferior to another contender. But this year, the category's only Best Picture nominee just so happens to legitimately have the best effects of the year, making this one of the night's surest locks.

Life of Pi and Brave clean up at VES Awards

The Visual Effects Society came through for Life of Pi (like we knew they would), handing it four honours including the Best Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Motion Picture. The Avengers and The Hobbit were consoled with two wins and one win respectively.

In the animated categories, Brave swept the board, winning all four prizes for effects in animated films. It's a beautiful film with great effects and all, but I gotta say:

ParaNorman = robbed.

Just saying.

All the winners after the jump.

One Category at a Time: Original Song

After several years of embarrassment culminated in last year's laughable pair of Best Original Song nominees, the music branch finally got a clue and decided to abolish their asinine grading system, instead just letting the five songs with the most votes be the nominees. They also went the route of screener DVDs, allowing music branch members to evaluate clips of all eligible songs from the comfort of their own home.

The rule changes have instantly paid off with a respectable slate of tunes which we'll probably hear performed on Oscar night. That basically is what this category is for.

One Category at a Time: Sound Mixing

I feel like the sound categories are due for a split. For three years we've had double sound winners (a couple coming at the expense of superior work), adding evidence to the widely accepted notion that your average Academy member can't really tell the two disciplines of sound editing and sound mixing apart.

But every now and then Sound Mixing will go to something not nominated for Sound Editing, and this year is shaping up that way.

Busy night for industry kudos with DGA, ADG, and Annie Awards

Oh what a night. Lots of precursor announcements to parse through, the biggest of which was the Director Guild of America, awarding their top prize to Ben Affleck for his Oscar hopeful Argo. At this point it can hardly be called a surprise to see Affleck picking up more hardware, especially after last weekend's PGA and SAG victories. Indeed, it could be that his Best Director "snub" by the Academy turns out to be one of the biggest deceptions in recent Oscar history, because it's looking like Argo may have been the unbeatable frontrunner all along. Time will tell.

In the documentary category, Malik Bendjelloul continued his awards season sweep for Searching for Sugar Man, likely on way to the Oscar. I liked the movie, but is it too much to ask the film industry to spread the wealth a little bit. There were other good documentaries this year, y'know.

One Category at a Time: Cinematography

With only 24 days until the Oscars, it's time to run down the categories and make some official predictions. I'll start off with some of the categories I consider fairly settled, and among them is Best Cinematography.

My Award nominations: Sound Mixing

For the first time in a long time, I have no overlap between my Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing nominees. I guess that's testament to what a rich and diverse year it's been for sound design overall. I'm also pleased to see that three of my five are the frontrunners for the Oscar. Whoever wins it this year will have earned it.

Producers Guild preview

Tonight the first major industry guild will announce its winners: The Producers Guild of America. Not only are they the first guild out the gate in this loooong phase 2, but they're arguably the most important, or at least the most indicative, when it comes to winning Best Picture.

When the Academy made the switch to ten nominees and the preferential ballot back in 2009, the PGA was quick to shadow their decision. In all three years since, the PGA and Academy have matched up. So it follows that tonight's winner should be considered in the driver's seat for Best Picture... for the moment.

Motion Picture Sound Editors nominate

The final guild to announce its nominees is the MPSE, and leading the way with three nods apiece are Best Sound Editing Oscar nominees Argo, Life of Pi, and Skyfall, joined by The Hobbit. Django Unchained has two, while the fifth Oscar nominee, Zero Dark Thirty (whose sound design is excellent), was shut out completely. Guess they didn't see it in time?

This category is tricky for me every year, but this year in particular because the supposed Sound Mixing frontrunner, Les Mis, is not up for Sound Editing. Who takes it then? I'm thinking Life of Pi, but then wouldn't it take Sound Mixing away from Les Mis as well? Or will we see our first split in these categories since Slumdog Millionaire and The Dark Knight shared them in 2009?

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film

Argo

The Avengers

The Dark Knight Rises

Django Unchained

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Life of Pi

Prometheus

Skyfall

Disappointing that Zero Dark Thirty is not here. At any rate, the guild love for Argo suggests that it is indeed still a force to be reckoned with at the Oscars, Director nod or no Director nod. I'd say Django Unchained is the best of this lot, but I'm guessing it'll go to Life of Pi.

American Cinema Editors nominate...

ACE Eddie nominations have landed just one day following Oscar nominations. Oscar snubees Les Mis and Skyfall can take some consolation in their citations here. All five Oscar nominees for Film Editing are accounted for.

Best Editing - Drama
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

The decade long streak of an ACE winner going on to win Best Film Editing at the Oscars was broken last year when The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won (no comment) over The Descendants and The Artist. Not sure what the case will be this year. Argo and Zero Dark Thirty have showier editing, but Lincoln and Life of Pi appear to be more popular with the Academy. I'd still look to the winner of this prize to be the Oscar favourite.

BAFTA nominations

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts have revealed their nominees on the eve of the Oscars' announcement. The top nominee is Lincoln, nailing down 10 nods. Life of Pi and Les Mis follow with nine apiece.

Are there any clues to be heeded in these British tea leaves, or has the date shift rendered these nominations moot? I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

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

Best British Film
"Anna Karenina"
"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"
"Les Misérables"
"Seven Psychopaths"
"Skyfall"