If there is one safe Oscar prediction this year it is that Ben Affleck will not win the Best Director award. That’s because he wasn’t nominated, despite winning many other best directing awards for his work on Argo. Chances are Steven Spielberg will win for Lincoln and it will be well deserved.

Daniel Day-Lewis seems to have a lock on the Best Actor Oscar for Lincoln; an amazing performance. Anne Hathaway also has a lock on Best Supporting Actress for Les Miserables.

Things are dicer for Best Actress. My bet is Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty. However, Jennifer Lawrence is getting a lot of buzz for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook. For Best Supporting Actor I’ll go with Tommy Lee Jones’s wonderful performance in Lincoln, although Christoph Waltz is a very serious contender for Django Unchained.

For the big kahuna, the Best Picture Oscar, this reviewer thinks Lincoln should get the honour. Another very worthy contender is Life of Pi, but Argo will probably win it. It makes Americans and Hollywood feel good about themselves and it is kind of an old fashioned and well-made movie.

In the writing categories Tony Kushner should get it for Lincoln for best adaptation and probably Quentin Tarentino will get it for best original screenplay for Django Unchained, something of a consolation prize for not winning any of the other major awards. For best foreign language movie the Oscar will go to Amour.

Predicting the Oscars is never easy. Last year I got seven out of eight predictions right, but I suspect I won’t do as well this year.

New on Video

Argo arrived in the stores yesterday.

Alf Cryderman is a Red Deer freelance writer and old movie buff.