2011-12

It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar! Oscar, Oscar! Who Will Win?

I feel I'm gonna get a lot wrong. Most of the craft categories are coin tosses (they're easily the most exciting races this year).

BEST PICTURE: ✅

Will be: The Artist (lock)

Should be: The Tree of Life

BEST DIRECTOR: ✅

Will be: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist (lock)

Should be: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

BEST ACTOR: ✅

Will be: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Could be: maybe George Clooney, The Descendants

Should be: Brad Pitt, Moneyball

BEST ACTRESS: ❌

Will / should be: Viola Davis, The Help

Could be: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: ✅

Will/Should be: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Could be: shocker alert: Maz von Sydow, Extremely Loud

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: ✅

Will be: Octavia Spencer, The Help (lock)

Should be: Jessica Chastain, The Help

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: ✅

Will/Should be: Midnight in Paris

Could be: The Artist

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: ✅

Will be: The Descendants

Could be: Hugo or Moneyball

Should be: The Ides of March

BEST ART DIRECTION: ✅

Will/Should be: Hugo (lock)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: ✅

Will be: Hugo

Could be: neck-in-neck with War Horse, The Artist, and The Tree of Life

Should be: The Tree of Life

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: ❌

Will be: Anonymous

Could be: neck-in-neck with Hugo, Jane Eyre, and The Artist

Should be: The Artist

BEST FILM EDITING: ❌

Will be: The Artist

Could be: Hugo or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Should be: Moneyball

BEST MAKEUP: ✅

Will/Should be: The Iron Lady

Could be: Harry Potter

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: ✅

Will be: The Artist (lock)

Should be: War Horse

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: ✅

Will/Should be: "Man or Muppet", The Muppets

Could be: neck-in-neck with "Real in Rio", Rio

BEST SOUND EDITING: ❌

Will be: War Horse

Could be: neck-in-neck with Hugo

Should be: War Horse

BEST SOUND MIXING: ❌

Will be: War Horse

Could be: neck-in-neck with Hugo

Should be: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: ❌

Will/Should be: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Could be: neck-in-neck with Hugo

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: ✅

Will be: Rango (lock)

Should be: Chico & Rita

BEST DOCUMENTARY: ❌

Will be: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Could be: (any of the nominees)

Should be: Hell and Back Again

[Did win]: Undefeated

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: ❌

Will be: In Darkness

Could be: A Separation or Monsieur Lazhar

Should be: A Separation

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: ✅

Will be: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Could be: Wildlife or La Luna

Should be: La Luna

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: ✅

Will/Should be: Saving Face

Could be: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT: ❌

Will/Should be: Tuba Atlantic

Could be: The Shore

Post-Oscars Analysis

Final score: 15/24, as I fell victim to several coin-flip craft categories.

The Artist was the big winner, taking five trophies including Best Picture, Director, and Actor. Hugo matched that tally with five craft wins, while the dreadful Iron Lady won two (gak!), and the list of one-win wonders includes The Help, Beginners, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Muppets (becoming the first Muppet movie to win an Oscar! YAY!)

Surprises were few and far between, and those that we did get were decidedly unpleasant ones if you ask me. The biggest of said unpleasant surprises was no doubt Meryl Streep's victory in Best Actress, but don't let me give you the impression that I'm vindictive. I'm as big a fan of the lady as the next man. Year after year, Streep continues to solidify her claim as the greatest actress of her generation with consistently excellent performances, unfortunately often in films less-than-worthy of her gifts. If there's any living thespian deserving of three Academy Awards, it's her...

...but why did it have to come at the expense of Viola Davis? This was clearly her year, and hers was clearly the best performance of the five. Not to pontificate too hard on the Academy's (and Hollywood's) demographic tendencies, but when is she going to have an opportunity like this again? I wonder if this might be Oscar's most severe mistake in years.

But severe mistakes seemed to be a running theme for the evening. I'm totally bugged that I didn't let myself believe the hype for Hugo in the sound and effects categories, where it trumped work from other nominees that was inarguably more accomplished. Talk about lazy voting.

To add insult to injury, the one craft category where they didn't exercise lazy voting, Best Film Editing, the outcome was even worse, opting for Baxter and Wall's haywire cutting job on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My instinct for the longest time was telling me they'd go for the flashiest editing, but nearly fifty years of precedent (not since Bullitt in 1968 has a film only won Editing, and not since Traffic has it gone to a non-ACE-winner) swayed me from my gut.

But let's try to accentuate the positive. Some of the evening's winners were truly deserving. Christopher Plummer winning was a highlight for me, even if it was expected. A Separation managed to break the trend of tepid voting in Best Foreign Language Film, making it the single best film to win an Oscar this year. And when Mark Bridges won for Costume Design over much grabbier period bait, I was genuinely thrilled. When was the last time a black-and-white film won Costume Design? Might have to look into that.

Brett Ratner's media fuax-pas back in November seriously threatened to become the major talking of the season, but the Academy's swift resolution (bringing on Brian Grazer as replacement producer and Billy Crystal as host) ensured that the whole messy affair soon became nothing more than a distant memory. The show they subsequently put on may not be the most special in Oscar history, but it was exactly what I'd have expected and wanted from that creative team, and not once did the proceedings feel like they were lingering in the shadow of the previous scandal.

Billy Crystal did what he does best, and that's fine by me. He's still the best Oscar host I've ever seen. It's all familiar shtick, from the opening montage that splices him into the nominated films to his cheesy song parody routine (which obviously inspires the title of this humble annual column of mine) and everything else, but sometimes a dose of familiar shtick really is the best remedy.