Oscars 2012 (Episode II: Attack of the Academy Awards)

This is actually the serious post about the Oscars, following the last shambles! We're not making predictions, this is just a post about which films we want to win. We usually end up backing the films that don't end up winning the award, so we're not much good there, but such is life. The ones in red are the ones we want to win, and the ones in blue are the ones we think will win.

Best Picture:

The Artist

The Descendants

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

The Tree of Life was a pretentious load of garbage, and we haven't heard brilliant things about War Horse or Extremely.. (although the latter does look interesting). The Descendants was a really nice film, despite being generally quite scathing of George Clooney's performances. We think The Artist may win, if the BAFTAs and the worldwide crush the entire population of film critics seems to have on it, but we're supporting Hugo for this one. It was a beautifully made film, a lovely story and had a fantastic cast - even the kids were good! We didn't see it in 3D, and can't imagine it actually being that good in 3D as a lot of the beautiful set design would have been lost (that's our main problem with 3D films). Obviously we're always going to cheer on any Woody Allen film too, but Hugo was just lovely.

Best Director:

The Artist - Michel Hazanavicius

The Descendants - Alexander Payne

Hugo - Martin Scorsese

Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen

The Tree of Life - Terrence Malick

 

We didn't rate the Tree of Life, but it's the kind of thing that critics might enjoy. The Artist might get this too, just because it's the 'in thing' at the moment. The Descendants wasn't particularly unusual or stunning, so maybe it shouldn't win this particular award. As you may have guessed, we love Woody Allen, so any directing award for him is a good thing. Especially when you consider how hard he must work, and how much he does for his films, he usually writes, directs and produces them. However, he doesn't actually care about winning any Oscars, so we think Scorsese should get it for Hugo, just because it's such a lovely picture! 

Actor in a Leading Role

Demian Bichir - A Better Life

George Clooney - The Descendants

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Surely it's got to be Clooney?! It'll probably go to Jean Dujardin (again, The Artist seems to be flavour of the month, so it really wouldn't surprise me). George Clooney was very good in The Descendants. Perhaps Gary Oldman should win an Oscar, but we don't think he will this year, and let's face it, everyone knows he's a top actor, maybe that's why we want Clooney to win.

Shamefully, we haven't seen any of the films that feature any of the actors nominated for Actress in a Leading Role, so we'll gloss over that with a Star Wars-esque scene sweep.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Berenice Bejo - The Artist

Jessica Chastain - The Help

Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids

Janet McTear - Albert Nobbs

Octavia Spencer - The Help

Shailene Woodley was robbed of a nomination for The Descendants and that's all we have to say about that. Probably one of the actors from The Help will win it as the Academy seem to like films about white people helping solve racism (see Sandra Bullock's performance in The Blind Side). It would be nice to see a comedy win an acting award, because that so rarely happens, so we're going to back Melissa McCarthy!

Music (Original Score)

The Adventures of Tintin - John Williams

The Artist - Ludovic Bource

Hugo - Howard Shore

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Alberto Iglesias

War Horse - John Williams

Kudos to John Williams for getting nominated twice! He's pretty much the most famous/successful/commercially viable film composer ever, so it's not like he needs the award. If he doesn't win, people aren't going to say "hey, there's that guy who almost won the Oscar once. Don't think we want him doing our movie." Also if you're making a movie that looks like it needs a John Williams soundtrack/are Steven Spielberg making any movie at all, chances are, you can afford to get John Williams to write the soundtrack. The music must carry The Artist, what with it being silent and all, but from what we've seen of it , it seemed like all music that's played in any 1920s movie ever or in any movie since that's depicting the 1920s. The music for Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, wasn't noticeable. If a film's soundtrack didn't stand out for us, chances are it wasn't very impressive, but that's just because we're massive soundtrack geeks!
This leaves Howard Shore. I guess he's a bit like John Willams really - he's been pretty successful since Lord of the Rings (he won three Oscars for two of the three films - two for the third one), and he's one of those people who if you're making some sort of epic film, you probably want him to write the music for it. However, he's done a lot of soundtrack work that wasn't epic orchestral work, plus he's the only composer to work with Tim Burton who wasn't Danny Elfman, so maybe it's time for him to win another Oscar?! Here's to guessing he might be nominated for one or both of The Hobbit films coming out this year and next year, so maybe he can wait. But we want it to be him! As far as the actual award goes, it's pretty open - John Williams is a favourite of everyone, so he's a safe choice, but they may feel they have to give Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy something.

It would be nice to see Harry Potter win the awards it's been nominated for - particularly Best Visual Effects, as it seems to have done a lot for visual effects in films, just because of what was required from J. K. Rowling's writings!