2013 is way more nutballs by comparison with 12 Years a Slave and Gravity as the dueling, flip-a-coin frontrunners, while wily American Hustle hopes to messy up Oscar predictions even further-- the David O. Russell con job raked in 10 nominations (the most ever for this year-- tied with Gravity.) While a great many races appear almost neatly settled, there's still quite a few of those nagging categories that will leave us in suspense until the envelope is open...and Best Picture is one of them. Phew! Here's my feeble attempt to break down the 2013 Oscar race. I will go in the order in which the Oscars where presented at last years ceremony.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Five dudes, all of whom are in movie nominated for Best Picture, compete and four of them will in all likelihood graciously clap when Jared Leto's name is called for Dallas Buyers Club. Surprisingly, a challenger never really took shape throughout the season as Leto streamlined through the awards circuit winning nearly everything in sight. Even, if only for a second, he looked vulnerable after a bit of fuss to his Golden Globe speech spelled slight trouble, the actor and 60 Seconds From Mars front-man adjusted and never looked back. Barkhad Abdi recently won the BAFTA (a prize that Leto strangely wasn't up for) for his role in Captain Phillips and Michael Fassbender looked a threat before the race started for 12 Years a Slave and his adamant, non-campaigning fuss, but neither looks to challenge.
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
The short films used to be a sore ache in the Oscar prediction game, but after least years decision to open up voting to all Academy members added with the slight uptick in notoriety for shorts (all of them were granted brief theatrical releases this year), perhaps that's a thing of the past. This year, the frontrunner is likely Get a Horse, the bouncy old school meets new school Mickey Mouse hybrid that played in front of Frozen. It is easily the most seen of the five films and, as a novelty, would provide Mickey his first Oscar-winning vehicle ever. Feral and Mr. Hublot have fans and warm critical notices, but expect Get a Horse to triumph.
Prediction: Get a Horse
ANIMATED FEATURE
Things looked dire in this category until Frozen blew in and became a worldwide phenomenon, nearly ensuring an animated feature Oscar for the Mouse House on top of its (almost) billion dollar gross. The art housers admire The Wind Rises but this looks to be one of the easier predictions of the evening.
Prediction: Frozen
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The last few years, the Cinematography Oscar has been in a bit of rut, honoring effects-heavy behemoths like Avatar, Hugo and Life of Pi sparking a debate as to the efforts of the Director of Photography versus a film's visual effects artists. Well, with Gravity so far ahead of the pack this year, that debate will linger at least a year longer, but the silver lining is that multiple nominee, but Oscar-less Emmanuel Lubezki (the poet who shot Y Tu Mama Tambien,Children of Men, The Tree of Life, The New World, Sleepy Hollow) will garner a statue, and that's a good thing. The competition is impressive (Inside Llewyn Davis, The Grandmaster, Nebraska and Prisoners), but this is one (of potentially very many) awards in the bag for Gravity.
