Oscars 2012Well the climax of the awards season arrives on Sunday night giving me a chance to look back at the past 12 months of cinema.  My verdict is a “meh” overall as there was just not enough good quality.  There will still be winners though so let’s see who I think will win and deserves the awards from the main categories.

Best Supporting Actor
I’ll be honest but I’ve not seen any of these films but Christopher Plummer (Beginners) looks a clear favourite according to the odds so I’ll defer to them and go for Chris.

Best Supporting Actress
Two from The Help which was a good film and the performance of Octavia Spencer was excellent throughout so I’ll agree again with the bookies here.

Best Actor
This is no-brainer here and it absolutely 100% has to be Jean Dujardin for The Artist.  Any other result is a joke in my opinion as this guy simply was outstanding.

Best Actress
This I think may be closest of the main categories as Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) has been cleaning up across the awards so far but Viola Davis (The Help) was actually very good and I could actually see Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) getting a lot of nostalgic Hollywood votes.  Personally I’m surprised not to see Tilda Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin) here as she was superp and deserves a nomination for that role.  I’ll stick my neck out though and pick Streep to continue her domination of the award season.

Best Director
This is another tricky category but one I can see as a straight fight between Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) and Martin Scorsese (Hugo) with Hazanavicius just knicking it in my opinion.

Best Film
First of all – NINE NOMINEES!!!  What the hell’s that about!?  I think it’s the film companies pressuring The Academy for a larger list so that they can sell more tickets and DVDs with “Nominated for Best Film 2012″ taglines.  Completely pointless having so many.  The big award simply has to go to The Artist again here as simply miles better, more original, more engaging and entertaining than the others.

Odds
Oscars 2012 Odds
As you can see the paltry odds for the picks I’ve given further drive home how rubbish cinema was the last 12 months.  Hopefully cinema will pick up and give us more real quality but I suspect more of the same drab action, explosion, chase films or another comic book remake.  Personally I think The Emmys awards are better as TV is simply miles better across the board with series after series of excellent stuff coming out of Hollywood and the UK.