Sunday night is the biggest movie industry event of the year — The Oscars — and we would be remiss if we didn’t offer our hopes, beliefs and criticisms on the major categories of the yearly Hollywood spectacular. Below, our picks for the top awards of the night.
Best Supporting Actress
Who will win: Anne Hathaway.
Who should win: Anne Hathaway. She underwent such intense physical deprivation for this intimate and powerful role that she refused to tell people exactly what she did simply because it was so unhealthy. Her character Fantine is defiled and humiliated, and then offers up one of the most stirring scenes in cinema, singing “I Dreamed a Dream,” leaving nary a dry eye.
Best Supporting Actor
Who will win: Tommy Lee Jones.
Who should win: Christoph Waltz. This is a toss-up, as both men captivate in their respective movies while playing roles we are accustomed to seeing from them. Waltz is an eloquent, polite and menacing German, while Jones is a smart, cranky old man. I lean towards Waltz, since you’ll get both a great speech from him and a great scowl from Jones.
Best Actress
Who will win: Jessica Chastain.
Who should win: Jennifer Lawrence. In another two-person race, both women give very different, yet equally compelling, performances. Chastain is subtle and layered, developing her character across 10 years on screen. Lawrence is versatile and charming, eliciting tears and laughter, often in the same moment. Oscar politics encroach however, and since Zero Dark Thirty needs to win something (see ahead), and Lawrence will surely be back, Chastain gets the nod.
Best Actor
Who will win: Daniel Day Lewis.
Who should win: Daniel Day Lewis. He spent a year preparing for the role of Abraham Lincoln, reading over 100 books on the revered president. Plus, he’s probably the best living actor, so, yeah, this is sort of a no-brainer.
Best Director
Who will win: David O. Russell.
Who should win: Kathryn Bigelow. A winner in 2008 with The Hurt Locker, Bigelow takes all the suspense and drama that Argo offers and heightens it, telling a story that is more recent, more well- known and more important (making her job harder). But she isn’t even nominated, so Russell gets it for a great film that avoids so many pitfalls and is ultimately inspiring.
Best Picture
Movie that will win: Argo.
Movie that should win: Zero Dark Thirty. It’s a story that would fail under any other director and writer (just see Seal Team Six — actually, don’t). Mark Boal and Bigelow took years meticulously crafting a film that was completely redone after (spoiler alert) bin Laden was killed. Fraught with tension and urgency, the last half hour (nearly the same amount of time as the actual raid) is some of the most riveting cinema in years.
The Oscars, Feb. 24, 8:30 p.m. on CTV
