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Final Oscar Predictions (UPDATED WITH THE WINNERS!)

What a unusually wide open awards season this year, a very great year in film in my opinion.

(NOTE: Personal preferences refer to films/performances that weren’t nominated this year, winners in bold)

BEST PICTURE

Will win: Argo

Should win: Zero Dark Thirty

Personal preference: Moonrise Kingdom

BEST ACTOR

Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Should win: Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Personal preference: John Hawkes, The Sessions

BEST ACTRESS

Will win: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Should win: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Could win: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Should win: Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master

Could win: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Should win: Sally Field, Lincoln

BEST DIRECTOR

Will win: Ang Lee, Life of Pi

Should win: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Could win: David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Personal preference: Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: Zero Dark Thirty

Should win: Moonrise Kingdom

Could win: Django Unchained

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will win: Argo

Should win: Lincoln

Could win: Silver Linings Playbook

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Will win: Frankenweenie

Should win: ParaNorman

Could win: Brave

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Will/should win: Amour, Austria

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Will/should win: Searching for Sugar Man

Could win: How To Survive a Plague

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Will/should win: Mychael Danna, Life of Pi

Could win: Alexandre Desplat, Argo

Personal preference: Jonny Greenwood, The Master

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Will/should win: “Skyfall”, Skyfall

Could win: “Suddenly”, Les Miserables

Personal preference: “Big Machine”, Safety Not Guaranteed

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Will win: Life of Pi

Should win: Skyfall

Could win: Anna Karenina

Personal preference: The Master

BEST EDITING

Will win: Argo

Should win: Zero Dark Thirty

Personal preference: Skyfall

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Will/should win: Anna Karenina

Could win: Les Miserables

Personal preference: Moonrise Kingdom

NONE, ACTUAL WINNER - Lincoln

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Will/should win: Anna Karenina

Could win: Les Miserables

Personal preference: Moonrise Kingdom

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

Will/should win: Les Miserables

Could win: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Personal preference: Cloud Atlas

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Will win: Life of Pi

Should win: Marvel’s The Avengers

Could win: Prometheus

BEST SOUND MIXING

Will win: Les Miserables

Should win: Skyfall

Could win: Life of Pi

BEST SOUND EDITING

Will win: Skyfall (TIE)

Should win: Zero Dark Thirty (TIE)

Could win: Life of Pi

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

Will win: Henry

Should win: Curfew

Could win: Death of a Shadow

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Will/should win: Paperman

Could win: The Longest Daycare

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM

Will/should win: Mondays at Racine

Could win: Inocente

DAY TWO SUNDANCE RECAP: TWO FEMINIST FILMS

My Student Film Pass safely arrived and earlier to boot at the ResortQuest office but before that, I caught the documentary Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer at the Temple Theater (Temple Har Shalom for the rest of the year). It’s a really fascinating and empowering look at the female punk band that took on Vladimir Putin and the Orthodox Church’s grip on post-Soviet Russia.

After I got my film pass back, I went to brunch where I got to meet the programmers and other students from other schools who were there for the festival. I even handed out a few business cards I made especially for this trip for networking purposes.

After brunch, I went to the Pass and Package Office at Main Street to redeem my catalog voucher and receive my complimentary ticket for a 3pm Eccles Theater screening that day. The film I saw at the Eccles was In A World…, a story of a struggling vocal coach who suddenly finds herself thrust into competition with her father, a famous voiceover announcer. In A World… was the feature directorial debut of actress Lake Bell, who had a short film screened at the festival a couple of years ago. You can tell how much her time spent as a regular (and occasional director of some episodes) on the Adult Swim show Childrens Hospital pays off not just because of the presence of her co-stars Ken Marino and Rob Corddry in the film, but also with the natural ease in the way the quirky humor is conveyed in the film thanks to its unique premise and a wonderful supporting cast that also includes Fred Malamed, Michaela Watkins, Nick Offerman, and Tig Notaro.  It works both as a satire on the entertainment industry as well as a female empowerment film in the vein of Working Girl. Bell shows confidence in carrying out her  personal vision of the film and heralds a welcome new voice in female comedy.

I was originally planning to see a midnight screening but I was undecided between Ass Backwards and Hell Baby, and their mixed reception didn’t help clear my decision. Still, the films I saw that day were pretty good and coincidentally revolves around women trying to overcome insurmountable odds placed upon them by a patriarchal society only with different styles and approaches. One is more radical in nature, while the other (in the words of the director herself during the Q&A) is that of a “gentle feminism”.

MY FIRST DAY RECAP AT SUNDANCE

I almost didn’t make it to Park City this week. Yesterday, just as I had arrived at the Long Beach airport for my flight, I got a call from my mom who told me that I had left my film school pass at the place that I was staying in Pasadena. Thank goodness for rush overnight delivery from FedEx!

After a half-hour drive from the airport, we went to the ResortQuest office to temporarily leave our luggage as we have arrived before the check-in time. To pass the time, some of us went to buy groceries to stack up in our group condos and prepare for a potluck dinner that night that never came to be. My group made a long walk to the box office at Main Street to get their passes and check for any screenings that night with any available tickets left. Afterwards, we walked all the way to the supermarket to buy groceries and then finally headed to our condo unit.

The weather was perfectly fine despite the temperatures being in the 30s, it was mostly sunny and partly cloudy. Compared to last week apparently when the temperature was in the negative.

We had pasta for dinner, discussed films we plan to watch and figuring out the shuttle schedules. We headed to Main Street where we met up with the rest of our classmates and headed to Prospector Square where they were all headed to watch Virtually Heroes. I was the only exception, I went to see Magic Magic at the Library Center Theater instead.

As the first film I saw at Sundance, it didn’t disappoint. Magic Magic is one of the most intense, weirdest, and craziest films I have ever seen. It is a strange and surreal mix of Haneke, Polanski, and Solondz, going through all sort of unpredictable directions and sudden shifts in tone. Michael Cera plays his most weirdest, creepiest, and annoying yet (in the Q&A, he mentioned studying Crispin Glover’s performance in River’s Edge for inspiration). But the real star of the film is Juno Temple, playing a vulnerable and fragile young woman on the constant verge of a nervous and emotional breakdown.

There was this woman who was seated behind who got close to my shoulders and said in a low whispery tone in the weirdest way possible if I will be wearing my hat for the rest of the screening. Due to the awkwardness, I politely asked her if she was inebriated before letting me know that this was how she always talks and she apologized for the slight discomfort she gave me. It only dawned on me towards the end of the screening that I may have been seated right behind Gaby Hoffmann, who starred in the other Michael Cera/Sebastian Silva film playing in the festival Crystal Fairy, and who may have been possibly been stoned during the whole thing.

The two Chilean ladies close to me also offered to give their tickets to the next morning’s screening of the Pussy Riot documentary to me since they couldn’t attend which I accepted. But the biggest surprise of all was meeting on the way out for the second time Quark Henares who was also there in Park City for Marie Jamora’s Ang Nawawala (What Was Missing) that was screening at the adjacent Slamdance Film Festival of which I missed out watching. I even asked him about the status of the Rakenrol DVD (tentatively March or April I believe he said), before heading back to my cab back to the condo.

Day 2 update coming soon!