The Artist has been the front-runner for quite some time now and there still seems to be little doubt that any of the other eight nominees is going to be able to derail it. Instead, most of the suspense will likely come from the presentation in either of lead acting categories.
And on a personal note, I'm coming off the worst year I've ever had, predicting-wise, on this blog, so I can only assume that I'm bound to score better in my confidence-ranked predictions than I did in 2011. Will I dare pick anything outside the seeming consensus favorites?
So anyway, here are my picks for all 24 categories in descending order of confidence:
1. ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
—I was going to say this was the first time I have not ranked the Animated Feature first, but I actually had the winner for this category ranked as my most confident pick just two years ago when the late Heath Ledger won. Plummer is not quite that level of lock here (Max von Sydow would make for a similar "career recognition" honoree), but he has long been the favorite and can only benefit by the absence of the Albert Brooks performance in Drive, which was about the only other role that challenged him for honors leading up to this.
2. ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Octavia Spencer, The Help
—The other assumed favorite among the actors is the other supporting role, and like Plummer, Spencer has amassed a similar bevy of critical honors. The Help is undoubtedly the biggest commercial success of any of this year's nominees and its win for the cast at the Screen Actor Guild (SAG) Awards shows that it has strong overall support. Arguments could be made for pretty much any of the other nominees, but Spencer's support should be stronger than any other nominee's.
3. MAKEUP: Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland, The Iron Lady
—I instinctively lean to Harry Potter, but have been reminded that Iron Lady exemplifies the qualities normally associated with this award.
4. WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY): Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
—I'm tempted to believe that because Woody never attends the ceremony anyway, there will be enough votes to honor somebody else that can at least bother to show up. But which film would be more deserving? The Artist is so likely to clean up elsewhere that giving a writing honor to a silent film would be overkill, and Margin Call's nomination probably is its award. There is a real argument to be made for A Separation, although only one foreign film has won a writing award in, like, the last half-century. I guess that would leave me with Bridesmaids as a possible spoiler, and considering I had flirted with the idea of that getting a Best Picture nomination, it wouldn't totally stun me. Still, Midnight proved to be more beloved than any Allen picture in quite some time, and I have to figure that there will be enough voters who view honoring Woody here gets the picture at least some kind of award—even if there won't be any acceptance speech.
5. BEST PICTURE: Thomas Langmann, The Artist
—The only real spoilers, as I see it, would be The Help or Hugo. In the end, however, The Artist has too many admirers without a controversial hitch to undo any of the momentum it has built up.
6. FILM EDITING: Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Haznavicius, The Artist
—Usually goes hand-in-hand with Best Picture, so, you know, "Duh."
7. DIRECTING: Michel Haznavicius, The Artist
—Another award in which the "old rule" was that this also had to go hand-in-hand with Best Picture, although there's been a few more exceptions in recent years. Still, as Mark Harris noted in his writing over at Grantland, the factors that some would perceive as possibly hurting Haznavucius' chances don't really factor in here. The category is called "Directing," not "Director," and just the films appear, not the director's names. So while, sure, everybody knows Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen and Terrence Malick are all nominees too, last year's honoring of Tom Hooper proved that the "old rule" is still alive and well—even when the director doesn't have anywhere near the record of career achievement of his fellow nominees.
8. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: Gore Verbinski, Rango—In a category that is being viewed as a substantial drop in quality (notice that none of the five nominees is up for Best Picture this year), Rango seems to rise above the two nominees either barely released or yet to be released as well as the Kung Fu Panda sequel and Puss in Boots.
9. WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY): Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, The Descendants
—Much like my logic in picking Midnight in the other screenplay category, I'm going with The Descendants here because it may be the safest way to honor a well-regarded film. I'm ranking it lower than Midnight, however, because there's a good chance that a couple things might effect that logic: 1) Voters use said logic to justify voting for George Clooney in the leading actor race, and 2) The same logic could just as easily apply to Moneyball. I favor The Descendants because Aaron Sorkin just won last year for writing. Also, Hugo should not be ruled out simply because it's the lone nominee here that is the work of a lone writer, a small but not meaningless consideration.
10. FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Asghar Farhadi, A Separation
—OK, so I'm biased since the Iranian film was basically the best 2011 film I've seen. The overwhelming critical praise should make it too powerful to ignore, so why I am I not ranking this pick higher? Mostly because the Polish nominee, In Darkness, is about the Holocaust. That subject can be every bit as Oscar-friendly as critical praise, if not more so.
11. ART DIRECTION: Dante Ferretti (Production Design); Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration), Hugo
—Because The Artist can't win everything, after all.
12. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life
—A category I have inexplicably struggled with and makes me badly want to pick something else based on my own track record alone. Still, this category seems to be one of the otherwise polarizing Tree of Life's strong points—even among its critics. If either Hugo or The Artist wins here, I will not be surprised so much as angry at once again guessing wrong here.
13. ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Viola Davis, The Help
—This was supposed to be "the year," way back when, that Meryl Streep finally got her named called once more after being among the annual list of nominees. Instead, it appears she will once again have to settle for being thanked by somebody else who enjoyed the honor of being nominated alongside her. As Ebert noted in picking Davis as well, honoring her here will also be viewed by some voters as atoning for not recognizing her fine work in Doubt. Two birds, one trophy.
14. COSTUME DESIGN: Sandy Powell, Hugo
—OK, I'm finally departing from consensus logic here. While The Artist might be the safer pick, I have a feeling that the actual costumes of Hugo are recognized as being more difficult to construct than those in the likely Best Picture winner. Also, unlike the hesitance to award repeat acting winners, the Academy will lavish some people in the technical honors like these, so Powell's three previous wins may actually help her chances.
15. ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Jean Dejuardin, The Artist
—I guess this is back to consensus, although it certainly feels like Clooney has his backers. And while I could indeed see how Clooney can benefit from being his film's best shot at an award while Dejuardin's film is going to gobble up more and bigger honors, some of that same logic would lead some voters to justify selecting Brad Pitt—who is still waiting for his first win, while Clooney won a few years back for Syriana. Either way, this is probably the best race of the night, but Dejuardin's SAG win sealed it for me that he's got enough support to overcome the supposed disadvantage of being in a silent film.
16. MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG): Bret McKenzie; "Man or Muppet," The Muppets
—Especially painful if I miss this one, because it's 50/50 chances.
17. MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE): Ludovic Bource, The Artist
—John Williams might have had a chance with War Horse, but he's literally hurting his own vote since he's also nominated here for The adventures of Tintin.
18. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
—You just have to believe that the filmmakers' struggles to exonerate the West Memphis Three over two decades makes Paradise impossible to resist, but I've been disappointed by this category before, haven't I? It feels like I have, and also acknowledge that there may be another gem in there I am not aware of.
19. VISUAL EFFECTS: Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann and Alex Henning, Hugo
—Rise of the Planet of the Apes has a more compelling argument here and could very well likely win out instead, but I think Hugo gets put over the top by being the only Best Picture nominee of the group.
20. SOUND EDITING: Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom, War Horse
—Because this is the sound category and how can you vote against a Spielberg film with the word "War" in it? Also consider that this category may be that film's best shot at an Oscar (somewhat sadly).
21. SOUND MIXING: Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson, War Horse
—See logic for previous award.
22. SHORT FILM (ANIMATED): William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mt. Morris Lessmore
—Annual Guess No. 1.
23. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Saving Face
—Annual Guess No. 2.
24. SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION): Terry George and Oorlagh George, The Shore
—Annual Guess No. 3.
UPDATE: Wow. Got two more right this year to go 17/24, but some big misses led to a new all-time worst score of 229. The NOTE TO SELF would be: Rank Cinematography low. Until I have a few consecutive years of getting it right, place it outside top 15. Actually got all three short awards right for first time in ... ever? I can't recall another year like that. Film Editing might have been the highest-ranked miss I've ever had since doing it this way. Overall, the show was nothing particularly memorable. I was probably happiest to see A Separation win for Best Foreign Film (I would second Roger Ebert's opinion that it was the best film of 2011), and the Meryl Streep win was probably the biggest surprise.
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