Final 2012 Oscar Predictions and Your Turn to Vote

If you read my recap of the Costume Designers Guild results from last night you know I was toiling with these predictions up to the last second and you’ll also realize, once you get down to my Best Costume Design predictions, that a 90% chance doesn’t equal 100%. That said, with only four days to go I offer up what I believe are my final 2012 Oscar predictions.

At some point you have to put the pen down and just walk away and that’s what I am attempting to do at this point before I make any rash, knee-jerk decisions based on a hunch. If you’ve been reading throughout the awards season you already know how competitive I am and how much I really want to get as many of these right as possible. For me the Oscars have become more of a guessing game than a determiner of quality.

So without any further delay, here are my predictions with polls next to each category for you to place your votes as well.

The Oscars will take place this Sunday, February 26 and we will be here live-blogging the event as well as providing breaking news alerts with the winners. It should be fun and I hope you’ll join us… Now let’s get to the predictions…

COMMENTS: I can’t come up with a good reason not to predict The Artist for Best Picture. It’s the clear front-runner at this point and no matter how you look at the race it’s the one to beat.

Sure, you could look at The Help and its win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and assume the actors branch (the largest branch in the Academy) will vote for it. You could look at The Descendants, a film that might target the 94% white, 77% male, 62 year-olds in the Academy, not to mention it recently won Best Editing from the American Cinema Editors (ACE) and won with the Writers Guild. However, The Artist also won with the ACE and it wasn’t eligible for the WGA award, so those sort of go out the window when looking at this category.

Looking at it clearly, I think we all know the smart choice.

COMMENTS: This one isn’t as simple as Best Picture. Dujardin is certainly the front-runner and this is an instance where his win at the Screen Actors Guild certainly plays a part. However, I would be less surprised to see Clooney sneak in for the win here than I would for The Descendants to win for Best Picture.

COMMENTS: The most talked about race all season is certainly the Best Actress race. Meryl Streep vs. Viola Davis and they’ve been trading blows all season with Streep winning at the Globes, Davis winning at the Screen Actors Guild, Streep winning at the BAFTAs and Davis winning at the Critics Choice Awards. It all comes down to your gut instinct and for me the SAG win puts Davis over the top.

COMMENTS: This, for me, is a no-brainer. Christopher Plummer has swept the precursor circuit and all he has to do now is write his Oscar acceptance speech. Of all the topline categories this has to be the most obvious.

COMMENTS: Right behind Best Supporting Actor for most obvious winner is Best Supporting Actress. This is going to Octavia Spencer, I hope she has her speech prepared.

COMMENTS: Even though it was, for the most part, expected, Hazanavicius’s win at the Directors Guild this year came as something of a surprise, but it also meant he is the obvious choice for Best Director at the Oscars and just one more reason to pick The Artist for Best Picture.

COMMENTS: Until only a few days ago I had Moneyball in first followed by The Descendants, but wins with the WGA and the USC Scripters Award changed all that. I still wouldn’t be surprised to see Moneyball or even Hugo take this award, but I don’t think it’s likely The Descendants will lose this one.

COMMENTS: I have had Midnight in Paris at the top the entire way and while some may tell you The Artist is going to take it I just don’t see the Academy passing up a chance to give Woody Allen the Oscar. The bigger question is whether he’ll show up to accept… my bet on that would be “No”.