Thursday, November 29, 2012

85th Oscar Best Picture Updates (2012-2013 Awards Season) (11/29/12)

I’m back! And I suppose it is time that I started giving some attention to predictions again. I admit that the title of this blog “Never Too Early Movie Predictions” has been a bit misleading for the past eight months, as I’ve found myself much more interested in The Academy Members Project that I started back in April (I’ll be giving you a status update on that tomorrow). But with the announcement of the Gotham Awards and the Independent Spirit Award Nominations this week, I figured now was as good a time as any to start bringing truth back into this blog’s advertising. Just keep in mind that it will take me some time to get through all the categories that I’ve missed.

As in the past, I am going to include my previous rankings in parenthesis to show how wrong I got things before. In this case, it has been eleven months since I updated these, so there are a lot of changes. Still, several of today’s top competitors were on the radar a year ago, which probably says more about the Academy’s consistent tastes than my own predicting capabilities.

All listings are in order, with 8 being the number of films I currently think will make the 5% cut off. Enjoy!



1. Argo (Predicted Winner) (previous rank 18)
2. Lincoln (previous rank 1)
3. Les Miserables (previous rank 7)
4. Silver Linings Playbook (previous rank 16)
5. Life Of Pi (previous rank 6)
6. Beasts Of The Southern Wild (New)
7. Zero Dark Thirty (previous rank 36)
8. The Master (previous rank 2)

Then:
9. The Impossible (New)
10. Amour (New)



Alternates:
11. Moonrise Kingdom (previous rank 28)
12. Flight (previous rank 44)
13. Anna Karenina (previous rank 12)
14. Django Unchained (previous rank 5)
15. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (previous rank 4)
16. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (New)
17. Hitchcock (New)
18. Cloud Atlas (previous rank 10)
19. Middle Of Nowhere (New)
20. Promised Land (New)
21. The Dark Knight Rises (previous rank 3)
22. Quartet (New)
23. The Sessions (New)
24. Skyfall (New)
25. Rust And Bone (New)

26. End Of Watch (New)
27. The Intouchables (New)
28. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (New)
29. Not Fade Away (New)
30. Looper (New)
31. Arbitrage (New)
32. Bernie (New)
33. On The Road (previous rank 26)
34. Killing Them Softly (previously ranked 22)
35. Hope Springs (previous rank 30)
36. Keep The Lights On (New)
37. The Avengers (New)
38. The Loneliest Planet (New)
39. Trouble With The Curve (New)
40. Lawless (previous rank 25)
41. No (New)
42. Take This Waltz (previously listed in 84th Oscar race, rank 44)
43. Brave (previous rank 8)
44. The Paperboy (previous rank 31)
45. Cosmopolis (previous rank 19)
46. Prometheus (previous rank 27)
47. Hyde Park On Hudson (previous rank 13)
48. Holy Motors (New)
49. Song For Marion (New)
50. Your Sister’s Sister (New)


As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!   
See Best Picture predictions for other years HERE.
See predictions for other categories at the 85th Oscars HERE.
Switch to another year: 85th,  86th,  87th,  88th,  89th  
.

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks man! I'll try to keep up a bit more going forward!

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  2. Dang, that's alot of "News"

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, it's my own fault or not updating them for 11 months. Most are independent films that should have shown up as they opened at Sundance or Cannes. Hopefully when I get my act together to update them more often they can sneak in a little at a time instead of all at once!

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  3. Welcome back sir. It's allways good to learn about your predictions. You are most likely right about Argo being the winner, but I'm going to go with Les Miserables.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Vern. I'm really excited about Les Mis, but can't tell whether that's just because I'm such a big fan of the music. It could easily jump to number one once I've seen it.

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  4. It's great to have you back! Looking forward to the rest of the updates.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Bon! I'm trying to get back in the swing of things for awards season.

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  5. Glad to see you're back, would love to hear which of these movies you've actually seen so far.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Kent.

      So far what I've seen from this list are Argo, Lincoln, Life Of Pi, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Flight, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Cloud Atlas, The Dark Knight Rises, The Sessions, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Looper, Hope Springs, Keep The Lights On, The Avengers, Prometheus.

      I'll likely try to see either Silver Linings Playbook or Skyfall this weekend, depending on what genre my friend is feeling like.

      I'm not sure if I'll try to do reviews of any of these, or just focus on catching up with predictions at this stage.

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  6. With Zero Dark Thirty sweeping this week's NYFCC, I think its chances have improved quite a bit. Well from now on the rankings are going to fluctuate quiet rapidly anyway.
    I'm really excited that you're back!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks my friend!

      Yeah, I think that the NYFCC award probably puts Zero Dark Thirty into the safe category for a nomination under the 5% rule, barring awful box office reaction. I think its three biggest challenge for the win is that there is another "serious historical" film out there in Lincoln which could steal it away; that it might be too "hard" against audience favorites like Les Mis, SLP and Pi; and that Argo seems to have elements of all three (funny and historical and even related to terrorism) that could potentially make it more of a concensus builder. But you are right that at this point the fluctuations will go up and down almost daily as new critics and precursors make their announcements.

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