People Who Will Get Played Off Before Their Speech Ends

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?

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The Year In Movies – Part 1

For many reasons, 2012 was an off year in movie watching for me, which may not necessarily be a bad thing.  I managed to watch only 62 movies last year, my first year under 100 since 2005 and after having averaged just over 131 movies over the past 5 years.  Many things contributed to this, chiefly my attempts to do more exercise and read more books and the insane amount of TV I’ve been watching.

Here’s a look back at the first 50 movies I did manage to watch last year and what recollection I have of them, if any.  The films are listed in the order I saw them.

Hatchet II (2010)
I remember thinking this was better than the first Hatchet film, but that isn’t exactly saying anything.

The Hangover Part II (2011)

Nowhere near as funny as the original, but still a worthwhile effort.

Changeling (2008)
Angelina Jolie’s search for her missing child.

Drive Angry (2011)
Nicolas Cage has some bills to pay, and schlock like this is how he plans on paying them.

Moneyball (2011)
One of the most controversial books in the world of baseball hits the silver screen, chronicling the new approach taken by the cash-strapped Oakland A’s to field a successful team.

’92 Skybox Alonzo Mourning Rookie Card (2011)
A short about a screw-up who sells his brother’s Alonzo Mourning rookie card.

Tanner Hall (2009)
A pre-Dragon Tattoo Rooney Mara stars in this school girl drama.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
A disappointing sci-fi romp through the old west.

The Rock-afire Explosion (2008)
A documentary looking at the house band of the former Showbiz Pizza.

The Hunger Games (2012)
My first trip to the movie theater this year was for this adaptation of one of the best books I had read the year before.

In Time (2011)
Justin Timberlake continues to impress as an actor.

The Avengers (2012)
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