BEST PICTURE
How Did I Do?: 8/9
BEST CALL: Beasts of the Southern Wild
WORST CALL: Not selecting Amour
NOTES: A pretty good list from me if I do say so myself and I'm also going to pay myself on the back for saying 9 films would get selected. If I had to extend my list to 10 I would have selected Amour as the 10th but I am shocked The Master didn't get a nomination and a foreign language film did.
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What I Got Right: Argo, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life Of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty
What I Should Have Done: Selected Amour instead of The Master
BEST DIRECTOR
How Did I Do?: 2/5
BEST CALL: Ang Lee (Life Of Pi)
WORST CALL: Every one of my other selections
NOTES: What a complete at utter joke these five nominees are. Ben Affleck (Argo) and Katheryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) absolutely needed to be there. I'm actually fine with no Tarantino and I really enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook so I'm not super upset to see David O. Russell there but still, he probably shouldn't be nominated considering how super deep 2012 is.
I think Affleck needs to be there because Argo was incredible (and because Affleck did the best directing out of everyone in 2012) and based on what I've heard about Zero Dark Thirty so does Bigelow. Despite my opinion on Lincoln of course Spielberg was going to get nominated and Life Of Pi was too brilliant to leave Ang Lee off of the list. That's four (Affleck, Bigelow, Lee, Spielberg) selections right there with maybe Michael Haneke (Amour), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts), or Tarantino fighting for the fifth. That would have been both fair and just. (Although personally having Beasts get no nominations is probably fair and just. Have you seen it? It's boring as all hell).
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What I Got Right: Ang Lee (Life Of Pi), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
What I Should Have Done: Selected Michael Haneke (Amour), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts Of The Southern Wild), and David O. Russell over Ben Affleck (Argo), Katheryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), and Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
BEST ACTOR
How Did I Do?: 4/5
BEST CALL: Saying BOTH Bradley Cooper (SLP) and Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) would get nominated since it seemed like these two were fighting against each other for the "fifth spot"
WORST CALL: Saying Denzel Washington (Flight) would not get a nomination
NOTES: There were six obvious contenders for only five slots. Daniel Day-Lewis was a mortal lock and I just knew that both Bradley Cooper and Joaquin Phoenix would get a nomination because they were both incredible. That left Hugh Jackman (Les Mis), John Hawkes (The Sessions), and Washington fighting for two spots. It turns out that Hawkes was the odd man out and not Washington. In my defense though, I DID SAY that I was guaranteed to be wrong about Denzel missing out.
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What I Got Right: Bradley Cooper (SLP), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Hugh Jackman (Les Mis), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
What I Should Have Done: Selected Denzel Washington (Flight) over John Hawkes (The Sessions)
BEST ACTRESS
How Did I Do?: 4/5
BEST CALL: Qu'venzhane Wallis (Beasts Of The Southern Wild)
WORST CALL: Not going through one of my last second edit of deleting Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone) and adding Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
NOTES: I am so proud of myself for this one. The only locks were Jennifer Lawrence (SLP) and Jessica Chastain (ZDT) so the fact that I got four out of five correct in what I said was the category I felt the weakest about feels pretty good to me.
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What I Got Right: Jessica Chastain (ZDT), Jennifer Lawrence (SLP), Qu'venzhane Wallis (Beasts), Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
What I Should Have Done: Selected Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) over Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
How Did I Do?: 4/5
BEST CALL: The four that I predicted would get a nomination and did get a nomination took no big leaps of faith on my part so no real "best call" here
WORST CALL: Claiming that all five of my selections would be 100% correct and "stone cold locks"
NOTES: God does the Academy hate Leo. I know he has three nominations and two are for Best Lead Actor but listen to the list of films Leonardo DiCaprio has been in in which he DID NOT receive a nomination: Django Unchained, Inception, The Departed, Titanic, Catch Me If You Can, and Gangs of New York. I bet DiCaprio wished The Great Gatsby was a 2012 film not, huh? Although with the Academy's hatred of him, it might not matter and he'll probably get snubbed again at next year's Oscars.
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What I Got Right: Alan Arkin (Argo), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Robert De Niro (SLP), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
What I Should Have Done: Selected Christoph Waltz (Django) over Leonardo DiCaprio (Django)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
How Did I Do?: 4/5
BEST CALL: Amy Adams (The Master). She was no lock to getting a nomination considering her SAG snub, but I also really didn't go out on this one either.
WORST CALL: Thinking
Jacki Weaver only had a 10% chance of getting nominated.
NOTES: Even though Weaver neither received a SAG nomination nor a Golden Globe nomination and even though Nicole Kidman received both, Weaver earned the "last spot" over Kidman.
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What I Got Right: Adam Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Mis), Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
What I Should Have Done: Selected Jacki Weaver (SLP) over Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
How Did I Do?: 4/5
BEST CALL: Michael Haneke (Amour)
WORST CALL: Thinking the Academy actually liked, or at least respected, The Master
NOTES: Out of the four selections I got correct, only two (Moonrise Kingdom and Zero Dark Thirty) earned WGA nominations. However, Quentin Tarantino (Django) is not in the WGA so of course he was not going to receive a nomination (although weirdly that hasn't stopped the WGA from nominating him in the past) and Haneke wasn't eligible because the "A" in "WGA" stands for "America" and Haneke is not from America. Even though John Gatnis did earn a WGA nominations, I really did not think that it would translate over into an Oscar nod. However, it did. It's a shame the same didn't hold true for Rian Johnson (Looper).
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What I Got Right: Amour (Michael Haneke), Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino), Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola), Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal)
What I Should Have Done: Selected Flight (John Gatnis) over The Master (P.T. Anderson)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
How Did I Do?: 5/5
BEST CALL: Picking all five nominations perfectly
WORST CALL: NONE MOTHA FUCKAS!
NOTES: The only other contender for this category was Stephen Chbosky for The Perks Of Being A Wallflower because it earned a WGA nomination. However, because Benh Zeitlin is not in the WGA (in fact, no one associated with Beasts Of The Southern Wild is in ANY guild) he wasn't going to be nominated for a WGA. However, I knew Zeitlin would earn Chbosky's place come Oscar time.
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What I Got Right: Argo (Chris Terrio), Beasts Of The Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin), Life Of Pi (David Magee), Lincoln (Tony Kushner), Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell
What I Should Have Done: N/A
Music has always been prominent in Quentin Tarantino's films- Pulp Fiction in particular. From Dick Dale's Miserlou in the opening credits to John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing to Chuck Berry's You Never Can Tell to Urge Overkill's version of Neil Diamond's Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon, you can't think of Pulp Fiction without thinking about the music QT used in the film. Think about Tarantino's other films and you'll reminded of what a genius he is when it comes to blending music and movies. Rick Ross's 100 Black Coffins in Django Unchained, David Bowe's Cat People (Putting Out The Fire) in Inglorious Basterds, Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang and The 5, 6, 7, 8's Woo Hoo in Kill Bill Vol. 1, and that great opening credit scene in Reservoir Dogs where there's the slo mo of the gang walking away from the restaurant while Little Green Bag by George Baker Selection fills your ears. However, the most iconic musical moment in a Quentin Tarantino film comes from the aforementioned Reservoir Dogs when Michael Madsen is about to chop off the police officer's ear while he's dancing to Steelers Wheel's Stuck In The Middle With You. All of these incredible and indelible moments were made because of the use of pre-existing music. The fact that these songs (sans 100 Black Coffins) were made before Tarantino even wrote the script to his films is irrelevant to impact it had on the film itself and its influence within pop culture.
