The Oscars 2013: The Good, the Bad, the Overlooked and the Undeserving

Not much is certain about this year's Oscars, but I have one prediction for tomorrow night's award ceremony in which I am absolutely confident:  It's going to be a wild ride.

Let's start with this year's host:

Seth MacFarlane, the wildly talented creator of "Family Guy," is bright, funny, and sings like a dream.  All good for an Oscar host, right?  But MacFarlane's humor is notoriously raunchy and mean-spirited. (See "Family Guy"'s gratuitously nasty swipes at this year's underdog darling, Ben Affleck here and here.  Or this legendary insult to Best Supporting Actress nominee Helen Hunt.) It remains to be seen whether he reins it in or goes all Ricky Gervais on us.  I, for one, will be watching him in nervous anticipation of cringe-inducing missteps - as I suspect Affleck, Hunt and countless others will be..

Then there are the awards themselves.  As a fascinated Oscar observer since the age of 11(the year Patton won Best Picture in case you're wondering), I can't recall a year in which the races for most major awards have been so volatile and unpredictable,with favorites in the major categories changing almost weekly and backlash upon backlash affecting the odds.  The only really safe bet at this point is that Daniel Day Lewis will take home his third Best Actor trophy for his legendary portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. 

So it is with great trepidation that I play the annual parlor game of second-guessing the Academy:

Best Supporting Actress

Will - and should - win:  Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables

Talk about backlash!  Hathaway is the odds-on favorite in this category, having scooped up an armload of major awards already for her electrifying portrayal of Fantine, the factory-worker-turned-prostitute who gets beaten up and spit out by life.  There's been lots of spiteful chatter in the blogosphere and elsewhere of late about Hathaway's overeager geekiness and awkward acceptance speeches - but so-the-fuck-what?  Anyone who saw Les Miserables knows she killed in that role, and if all her preparation (extreme weight loss, extensive research, eschewing her contacts lenses to give the character a limiting myopia) helped her give that emotionally devastating performance, then let her talk about it!! No one beats up on Robert DeNiro  or Daniel Day Lewis for that kind of stuff - but then, they aren't young women.  

Overlooked:  No One!

Seems almost impossible, but this year, I can't think of a single actress who was unfairly overlooked in this category.  For once, the Oscars got it right.

Best Supporting Actor:  

Will win:  I have no idea!!!

This category is seriously up for grabs.  At this point, I think the only nominee we can rule out completely is Alan Arkin for Argo.  Any of the other four actors - Robert DeNiro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christoph Waltz or Tommy Lee Jones  - could conceivably get that winner's call to the podium, and I'm not going to commit to a prediction until I fill out my Oscar party ballot at 6:00 tomorrow night.

Should win:  Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook

Every actor in this category is great, and every one of them gave a stellar performance (as far as I know anyway- I actually have yet to see Django Unchained, but I've never seen Waltz be anything less than mesmerizing onscreen).  Jones was my early choice, but - having now see Lincoln twice - I realize that I never forget I'm watching Tommy Lee Jones give that part the ole-crotchety-Tommy-Lee-Jones spin. And seeing Silver Linings Playbook for the second time, just this afternoon, I realized that DeNiro is giving his best performance in years as the tough, tender, obsessive-compulsive father and rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan. There's not a single moment when he's onscreen that doesn't resonate with emotional authenticity, yet it's a light, subtle performance, carefully calibrated and utterly brilliant.

Overlooked:  Tom Holland in The Impossible

Naomi Watts is getting all the award buzz for The Impossible, but for the life of me, I can't understand why. The real stand-out performance in that film - the one that holds the whole story together - is young Tom Holland's.  Technically it's a leading role, but had Holland been nominated, it likely would have been in the supporting category since he's a kid, Quvenzhane Wallis' Best Actress nod notwithstanding.

Best Actress

Will  - and Should -Win:  Jennifer Lawrence in The Silver Linings Playbook

After some early buzz for Jennifer Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, Lawrence has emerged as the likely winner in this category, while Emanuelle Riva is the critical darling/dark horse of the race.  I respect the hell out of Riva's brave, heartbreaking no-vanity performance in Amour, but Lawrence's is the performance I want to watch over and over again.  She's a rarity among today's overexposed It girls - a fearless, ferocious young actress who never hits a false note, and as the young widow whose tough love redeems a troubled Bradley Cooper, she is is the brightest light in a uniformly terrific ensemble cast.

Overlooked:  Rachel Weisz in The Deep Blue Sea

Where is the Oscar love for Weisz's luminous performance?  She scooped up a New York Critic's Circle award and a Golden Globe nomination, but Oscar overlooked her and it is a crime.

Best Actor

Will - and Should - Win: Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln

The only major category that is absolutely locked down and dead certain is Best Actor - and a record third  win - for the phenomenon that is Daniel Day Lewis.  In a perfect world, Joaquin Phoenix would have received more attention for his brilliant turn in The Master.  But Day Lewis gave a legendary performance while playing a legend, and he'll rightfully take home the trophy.

Overlooked: Jack Black in Bernie.....

... and John Hawkes in The Sessions

Speaking of events taking place in a perfect world, another would be the absence of Hugh Jackman from this list of nominees.  Instead, we'd see one of these talented gentlemen in the running. Black's sweet, guileless Texas funeral director-and unwitting murderer - was about as far from his usual comic wild-man persona as it was possible to get, but he fully inhabited that role with in any way commenting on or condescending to it.  Hawkes was sensitive and funny as the quadriplegic looking for intimacy.  If his co-star, Helen Hunt, deserves her nomination (and she does), Hawkes deserves one equally.

Best Director

Will Win:  Ang Lee for Life of Pi

Poor Steven Spielberg.  He was the strong early favorite in this category, but somehow over the weeks since the nominations were announced, Lincoln has acquired a tarnished (and unfair) reputation as a tedious history lesson and the mighty Spielberg lost his Oscar momentum. (Meanwhile, every other awards-giving body in Hollywood has bestowed sour grapes accolades on Oscar-snubbed Argo director Ben Affleck.)  Ang Lee has emerged as the new front-runner, and that's not a bad thing.  He made a moving and exciting film from a novel that was considered unfilmable, using unknown actors and stunningly lifelike CGI animals.

Should Win:  David O. Russell for The Silver Linings Playbook

All due respect to Spielberg and the undeniable achievement of Lincoln, as well as to Michael Haneke's unsparing and grimly unsentimental Amour. But (of the directors actually nominated) my heart belongs to Russell. It's no accident that Silver Linings Playbook has nominees in every acting category. Russell knows how to bring humor, emotional truth, and a sense of place and history into stories of troubled families.  His films holds up beautifully to repeat viewings.

Overlooked:  P. T. Anderson for The Master

I betcha thought I'd say Ben Affleck, didn't you? Nope, I'm disappointed in Affleck's snub but he's riding a crest of goodwill and I predict he'll be back. I'm not as enamored of Zero Dark Thirty as many are, so the omission of Kathryn Bigelow is even less troubling to me.  But Anderson deserves to be on this shortlist. The Master was, of course, complicated and enigmatic and not everyone's cup of tea, but it was also, undeniably, a staggering artistic achievement, and that was Anderson's doing, first and foremost.

Best Picture 

Will Win: Argo

Yes, this will be Ben Affleck's consolation prize.  No it really isn't the best film of the year, but its probable win doesn't offend me in the least.  Argo was a hell of an entertaining ride, suspenseful and very well acted, the kind of movie we go to the movies for.

Should Win:  Lincoln

So it's a history lesson? So what?  It's also a superbly acted, richly atmospheric and staggeringly intelligent political thriller.  It's top-tier Spielberg with the look and feel of a Great American Movie, and if the Academy had only seen fit to nominate Ben Affleck, we'd probably see it take the Oscar.  Alas, in a year of crazy Oscar politicking and backlashes that feel more like whiplash, Lincoln has been unfairly shuttled to the side.

Overlooked:  The Master.

What more can I say?