MarketBOB's Oscar Predictions 2012

Oscar Nominees will wait until February 26th to find out they've lost out in the academy awards voting to some lucky star everybody loves or hates. Oscar predictions are foolish but fun, as the future is impossible to predict, especially for the academy awards as they're voted by peers who usually hate everyone but themselves and hate to reward others who compete directly with them for jobs. So, given the hopeless task ahead, I am sharing my grand, well-researched list of Oscar predictions to help those who find the show tedious and need something else to help pass the time. Or perhaps you're in the office pool and need some help picking those obscure categories like best short documentary.

As MarketBOB, I review top box office movies so naturally I rarely see any movies that become Oscar nominees. Best movies, actors and all the other categories are reserved for performances and stories of artistic merit and thus, dogs at the box office. Occasionally, art and commerce marry and a hit becomes a winner come Oscar night, but that rarely happens. Looking back over the last 10 years, only the final Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King was both a box office and Oscar winner in 2003. That took two previous movies to set up the voters to finally reward Frodo and his precious ring that binds all the voters.

So, like previous years, we've got a bunch of box office clunkers to choose from for the 2012 Academy Awards. My Oscar predictions are logical and personal, having seen most of the Oscar nominees and discounted by personal tastes as much as possible and handicapped the field from the eyes of the likely voters and previous award wins (such as the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild).

Best Picture is The Artist because it is a happy, nostalgic, silent, black & white fluffy story that makes you feel good, and boy do we need some of that. Runner-up is Hugo, as it is the best-looking film of the year by far, also a nostalgic look back at movies and orphans and being tossed aside as audiences change their tastes.

Best Director usually goes together with Best Picture so give the nod to Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist. Again, Martin Scorsese is in the running for Hugo.

Best Actor is a close race between George Clooney and Jean Dujardin, but the Screen Actors Guild picked Jean so you have to respect the opinion of fellow actors.

Best Actress is also close between Viola Davis and Meryl Streep but SAG chose Viola so she has the edge to take home gold on Oscar Night.

Screenplays fall into two categories, Original and Adapted from some other medium (usually a comic book these days but sometimes a novel, not that producers read novels any more). Woody Allen has more nominations than any other person so he's the favorite for Original Screenplay and Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash are a shoo-in for academy awards for Adapted Screenplay.

Score and Song are easy this year, as The Artist is a great musical comedy so the music has to pull in the votes. There are only two songs nominated (this category is a joke most years anyway) so Man or Muppet is better than 50/50 to win - who doesn't like the Muppets?

Best Animated Feature is totally going to Rango on Oscar Night, with all that Clint Eastwood vibe carrying it along into the hearts of voters.

Best Foreign Film is a hard category to view all the films, but A Separation is the clear critical pick, so you have to take their judgment and hope the Academy Awards voters do the same.

There are still 14 more categories to pick, and I'll update them on another hub. Good luck on Oscar Night