With The Oscars now less than a month away, studios and filmmakers are making the final rounds during awards season hoping to gain momentum for the biggest night in Hollywood. You can't visit a film news site without a banner on the left, right, on top, or all three, of a film being advertised. But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way! This is what the Oscars are all about and in a year as good as 2012 was for film, this Oscar ceremony is shaping up to be one of the more thrilling and surprising in recent memory. Last year, everyone knew The Artist would take home Best Picture, and arguably every other major category it was nominated for, and it did. But this year, it is a legitimate crap shoot. Argo (and Ben Affleck) are 3 for 3 so far this awards season, with their first one coming at the Critic's Choice Movie Awards, mere hours after Ben Affleck was snubbed in the Best Director category at the Academy Awards. Even without a nomination for Best Director, Argo can still pull off an upset as it is loved within Hollywood, further proven with its win at Saturday night's PGA Awards, which has correctly predicted 16 of the last 22 Best Picture winners and the last 5 in a row. This makes Argo the
tentative front-runner even though there have only been 3 films since the ceremony was first introduced in 1929 (Wings, Grand Hotel, Driving Miss Daisy) to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination, but it faces some stiff competition with Lincoln, the controversial Zero Dark Thirty, touching foreign film Amour, and dark-horse Silver Linings Playbook. So even though the Best Picture Race is as tight as ever, there are still a few categories that are all but locked up.
5. Adele (Skyfall) - Best Original Song
This is a no-brainer. She is England's biggest export right now, singing the title song from England's seminal film franchise, on the night that said film franchise is being honored for reaching its 50-year anniversary. Not to mention that Adele was just tabbed to perform the song at the ceremony, so this is about as sure a thing as you can get. The only real competition for Skyfall is Everybody Needs A Best Friend from Ted. Seth McFarlane is hosting this year's ceremony and Ted was one of the biggest films of the year, but ultimately, I think it will fall in the wake of the meteor that is Adele.