One Category at a Time: Supporting Actress

The Supporting Actress slate doesn't seem has chock full of legit contenders as it has in years past. Not that any of these five performances are undeserving of some Oscar love, but four of them really don't hold a candle to the fifth, making this one of the night's slam dunk categories.

My Award nominations: Adapted Screenplay

To be honest, there weren't as many formidable contenders for these spots as in other categories. The five you see here went pretty much unchallenged in my opinion, although The Avengers came awfully close, so here's a quick shout out to Joss Whedon and Zak Penn. Now, my actual nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay:

My Awards nominations: Actor

Guess I'd better get started on these. I was going to leave them for after the Oscars, but it sorta just dawned on me how much time we have to kill until then. I still have a handful of films to see, so I'll start out with some of the categories that I've already pretty much set in stone, such as today's category: Best Actor.

Gotta say, this was by far the toughest one for me to narrow down this year. There are at least ten or eleven absolutely terrific performances that would be welcome here, and the quality of this year's leading men is well represented by the Oscar lineup as well. But tough decisions have to be made, so the five that I chose are:

My Award nominations: Actress

My picks for Best Actress of the year:

Review - The Sessions

Afflicted with polio from a young age, Berkeley scholar and poet/journalist Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes) spent most of his life in an iron lung, which entombed him like a big metal coffin for the barely living. As he feels the weight of his own mortality weighing down on him, not unlike the pressurized air in the iron lung, he yearns to finally know carnal pleasure. But finding a willing partner has proven a challenge. Even his writterly way with words and decent character unable to overshadow his bodily disorder. With few alternatives, he hires sex therapist Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt) – an educated professional who'll make you understand that she's no prostitute – to help Mark reconnect with his bodily sensations and at long last put a notch on his proverbial bedpost.

And so Ben Lewin's The Sessions takes us on Mark's mission to discover the joy of sex, or rather, as it turns out, the joy of the journey that is love. Despite Cheryl's insistence that the relationship between her and Mark must remain strictly a professional one, Mark inevitably develops feelings for his therapist. Even though she can't reciprocate, we can tell that she wishes she could, as the sex surrogacy sessions they embark upon together become liberating for both of them. He finds release from the confines of his own crippled person, and she finds escape from her not entirely satisfying home life.

One Category at a Time: Best Picture (part 2)

Completing last day's 2013 Oscar predictions kick-off, here are the remaining five films I can conceive being in the hunt for next year's Best Picture prize:

Much like the ultimately ill-fated War Horse was twelve months ago, the defacto “frontrunner” on most pundits' lists at this early stage is Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which will star Daniel Day Lewis as the tall-hatted Civil War president. Based on cast, crew, and concept alone, it seems like a pretty solid contender for the nomination. Even if it tanks, the Speilberg faithful in the Academy can revive it.