Oscars 2012 Update: Art Directors Guild Awards & Annie Awards

Two guilds announced their awards last night. I was too drunk busy to write them up.

The first was the Annie Awards, which are pretty meaningless, but whatever. Wreck-It Ralph won five of them, so that’s still your favorite to take Best Animated Feature. Of course nobody is surprised if Brave wins, but I feel like Wreck-It Ralph has a lot of support.

The other was the Art Directors Guild Awards. Those I’ll remind you of, since the Best Production Design Oscar (remember, it’s not Best Art Direction anymore) is still up for grabs.

For starters — the Best Production Design nominees are:

Anna Karenina

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Les Misérables

Life of Pi

Lincoln

And now for the Art Directors Guild nominees:

The Art Directors had three categories…

Production Design for a Period Film

Anna Karenina

Argo

Django Unchained

Lincoln

Three of your five nominees. And Anna Karenina won. No surprise there, that was always your favorite to win.

Production Design for a Fantasy Film

Cloud Atlaas

Life of Pi

Prometheus

The Dark Knight Rises

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Your category is always mostly period, somewhat fantasy. 3-2 or 4-1 is always the split. Life of Pi won this, which isn’t that surprising.

Production Design in a Contemporary Film

Flight

Skyfall

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Impossible

Zero Dark Thirty

Naturally Skyfall won, and naturally it doesn’t matter, since none of these were nominated. But still.

So really what this tells us is that Anna Karenina is your presumed favorite for the Oscars. Life of Pi could take it, and Lincoln could steal votes. Les Mis is also kind of in it, and I’d be shocked if The Hobbit wins. It’s kind of open, since it is Production Design and these do have some surprises.

Still — you gotta like Anna Karenina at this point. They have a really good track record. Over the past — it’s dodgy — even fifteen years, the’ve done real well. ADG started giving out awards in 1996 — the categories have changed, though. 1996-1999, it was a single category. They got three of four correct. The one they missed – they picked What Dreams May Come (like they should have) and Shakespeare in Love won the Oscar because films like that win categories like this. Then, from 2000-2005, they just gave out one for Period OR Fantasy Film, which led to them getting three of six right. They missed 2000 — they gave it to Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the Oscar. They missed 2002 — they gave it to Two Towers and Chicago won the Oscar. They missed 2004 — they gave it to Lemony Snicket and The Aviator won the Oscar. Then, since 2006, they had the three categories like they have now, and in most of the years, one of their winners won the Oscar. 2006, Pan’s Labyrinth won their Fantasy category and won the Oscar. There Will Be Blood won their Period category in 2007 and won the Oscar. 2008 – Benjamin Button won Period and won the Oscar. 2009 — Avatar. ‘Nuff said. 2010, they missed. They gave it to Inception and Alice in Wonderland won the Oscar. Tim Burton films usually upset like that. And then last year – Hugo. So they have a good track record. Which leads one to believe that this one is gonna be either Life of Pi or Anna Karenina. Which, at this point — who votes for anything else? Lincoln makes sense as an upset, especially if it makes a play for the technicals and stuff. Les Mis doesn’t have a lot of steam, and I don’t know if it upsets those other two. And I’ve already thrown out The Hobbit. So really, these were always gonna be our two contenders. Though I guess Lincoln is still right there.

http://bplusmovieblog.com