With the Academy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here’s my predictions for the non-acting awards.  I likely have seen very few of these movies, so I will mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth.

Best Original Screenplay

Amour, Michael Hanake

Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino

Flight, John Gatins

Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola

Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Boal

I haven’t seen any of these films.  Personally, I would like to see Quentin Tarantino win, but I don’t see that as a possibility given the n-word backlash he saw after the movie came out.  Zero Dark Thirty has the upper hand, I think.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Argo, Chris Terrio

Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin,

Life of Pi, David Magee

Lincoln, Tony Kushner

Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell

Silver Linings Playbook and Argo are the two films here that I really want to see, with Lincoln coming in a distant third.  I’m not sure if SLP will do as well in the “big” categories as people are expecting, but I think it will pick up some hardware here.

Best Animated Feature

Brave

Frankenweenie

ParaNorman

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Wreck-It Ralph

Again, I haven’t seen any of these and I’m likely not going to.  That said, Wreck-It Ralph looks to be the most fun out of these entries.  Not to imply at all the Academy puts any consideration to fun.

Best Cinematography

Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey

Django Unchained, Robert Richardson

Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda

Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski

Skyfall, Roger Deakins

My feeling is that this comes down to either Django Unchained or Skyfall, and I think James Bond loses this battle.

Best Costume Design

Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran

Les Misérables, Paco Delgado

Lincoln, Joanna Johnston

Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka

Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood

I’ve actually seen 2 of these films.   My thought is that it will come down to Lincoln or Les Misérables, and who doesn’t like a musical?

Best Documentary Feature

5 Broken Cameras

The Gatekeepers

How to Survive a Plague

The Invisible War

Searching for Sugar Man

I’ve never even heard of any of these, so this is a total shot in the dark.

Best Documentary Short Subject

Inocente

Kings Point

Mondays at Racine

Open Heart

Redemption

Again, this is a total guess for a category that I know nothing about.

Achievement in Film Editing

Argo, William Goldenberg

Life of Pi, Tim Squyres

Lincoln, Michael Kahn

Silver Linings Playbook, Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers

Zero Dark Thirty, Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Not having seen any of these films, I can’t say for certain, but I would think the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Bin Laden would provide plenty of opportunity for film editing tricks.

Best Foreign Language Film

Amour, Austria

Kon-Tiki, Norway

No, Chile

A Royal Affair, Denmark

War Witch, Canada

No clue about any of these.

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Hitchcock, Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane

Les Misérables, Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell

I think The Hobbit rides the coattails of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and brings home the Oscar.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)

Anna Karenina, Dario Marianell

Argo, Alexandre Desplat

Life of Pi, Mychael Danna

Lincoln, John Williams

Skyfall, Thomas Newman

I admit, I’m going for the name here since I haven’t seen any of these films.  But if his history is any indication, this is a strong choice.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)

Before My Time from Chasing Ice, Music and Lyric by J. Ralph

Everybody Needs A Best Friend from Ted, Music by Walter Murphy; Lyric by Seth MacFarlane

Pi’s Lullaby from Life of Pi, Music by Mychael Danna; Lyric by Bombay Jayashri

Skyfall from Skyfall, Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth

Suddenly from Les Misérables, Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Adele should bring home the gold for her theme from the latest James Bond flick.

Achievement in Production Design

Anna Karenina, Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Production Design: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright

Les Misérables, Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson

Life of Pi, Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock

Lincoln, Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

My money is on Les Misérables, which just so happens to be the one nominated film that I’ve seen.

Best Animated Short Film

Adam and Dog, Minkyu Lee

Fresh Guacamole, PES

Head Over Heels, Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly

Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”, David Silverman

Paperman, John Kahrs

Best Live Action Short Film

Asad, Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura

Buzkashi Boys, Sam French and Ariel Nasr

Curfew, Shawn Christensen

Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw), Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele

Henry, Yan England

These picks are based on nothing but pure alchemy.

Achievement in Sound Editing

Argo, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn

Django Unchained, Wylie Stateman

Life of Pi, Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton

Skyfall, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers

Zero Dark Thirty, Paul N.J. Ottosson

Another shot for James Bond to bring home an Oscar.

Achievement in Sound Mixing

Argo, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia

Les Misérables, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes

Life of Pi, Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin

Lincoln, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins

Skyfall, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson

My guess is that this is another trophy for Les Misérables.  Putting a stage show on film, where all of the actors sang live, likely took some mixing acumen.

Achievement in Visual Effects

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White

Life of Pi, Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott

Marvel’s The Avengers, Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick

Prometheus, Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill

Snow White and the Huntsman, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson

The last category is the first where I’ve seen the majority of the films.  This may be my inner fanboy speaking, but I have to think that The Avengers takes this one.