Best of 2013, part 5: My Dream Oscar Ballot

Alright, here's the end of the list madness. This post is basically just a way of summing everything up and putting it into one neat little package. So I'll just list the nominees in alphabetical order, sans commentary, with the winners in bold. For added hours of fun, I'll put an asterisk next to the nominees which overlap with the Oscar nominations. Funny story: I think the Oscar noms were a pretty good crowd this year, and yet I don't think there's ever been so little overlap between their choices and mine as this year. Funny how these things shake out.

Best of 2013, part 4: craft categories

Commence with the weeping and lamentation, for today marks the last big list-dump before I go crawl back into my cave and blog-hibernate for another year. It's a tough blow, I'm sure, but we'll get through it together. Today, we're going to spend a little time showing some love for all the elements that go into making a movie great but never make anyone famous: the craft categories, aka where the cool kids are at.

Before we get going, here's handy guide to the categories, in case you want to know what I'm talking about:

Art Direction: Production design: creating, designing, and building the world in which the movie takes place. Generally associated with set-building, but also stretches to conceptual aspects
Costume Design: ...The design of the costumes.
Visual Effects: Special Effects. CGI, models, etc.
Makeup: ...makeup.
Film Editing: Editing the movie: cutting in some places, lengthening in others. Generally responsible for the rhythm of a film, as well as keeping continuity and making sense of the plot.
Cinematography: In layman's terms, how pretty the movie is. Screen composition, lighting, camera techniques, etc.
Original Score: Music composed for the film itself.
Sound Mixing: Blending the four film sound elements (dialogue, sound effects, ambient noise, music) to create a coherent overall mix.
Sound Effects Editing: creating the sound elements and sound effects heard in the film.
Original Song: Songs written specifically for the film.

Moving right along, then...

Best of 2013, part 3: Acting

Once more into the breach, dear friends (hey there, Henry V! I was wondering when you'd show up). It's a funny thing, acting--it's the most visible and easily praised aspect of movies by average-joe viewers like us, and yet I find it more difficult to say something compelling about acting than just about anything else. Want me to talk about sound editing? I'll do it and I'll like it. Get me to talk about movie stars and crying scenes and such though, and suddenly I clam up like a big clammy clam. So we're gonna try anyway and see what happens, but I apologize if my use of adverbs gets a little...irresponsible. That happens sometimes.
Note--I'll try to include youtube clips of the performances where I can, but no guarantees.

Check it out after the jump!

Best of 2013, part 2: Directing/Screenplays

Welcome back! Mind you, I say 'welcome back' knowing full well that yesterday's post probably left most of you in a deep, deep coma, so this 'welcome back' is mostly hypothetical. But welcome back anyway, dear viewers who have yet to succumb to the acute brain trauma caused by reading these things. As a bit of an olive branch and/or act of mercy, today's post will be much shorter. We'll keep it to three categories--directing and screenplays. Commence with the rejoicing after the jump!

Best of 2013, Part 1: Top 20, Zen Awards

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Oscar Nominations: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid Dallas Buyers Club

Luckily, nobody comes here for the accuracy of my predictions (hopefully), because this year I dropped the ball quite a bit. That's a whole lot more fun, though--if I predicted everything correctly, that would mean that there was never a contest, which is no fun. So let's get to it! Some good picks, more boring ones, you know, the usual.

Alright kids, here's how it works. Tomorrow morning at about 6:00 AM mountain time, the Academy is going to do it's level best to make everyone who predicts these things look foolish. And let's be honest--they're pretty darn good at it. So by tomorrow we can all laugh at what we thought might happen, and analyze what did happen until we're blue in the face. But that's tomorrow. Today, I'm delivering my final predictions--there's no going back now. I'll just present every category in order of likelihood sans commentary, allowing myself one alternate. Surprisingly, I made very few changes from my original predictions. The only significant ones were changing Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) to first alternate in supporting actress over Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station), and moving American Hustle into my top 5 for production design, which meant kicking Saving Mr. Banks out.

Note: I know it seems a bit silly spending all of this time and effort talking about what might get nominated for awards when I haven't actually posted anything about what I'd like to get nominated for awards, but, as usual, my annual 'best of' lists will be coming in mid-February. Given the release dates of prestige-y movies and catching up on things I've missed, it just wouldn't be possible for me to post a decent year-end list in early January. Here's a taste, though: if I could guarantee one nomination, it would be Inside Llewyn Davis for best picture (or best actor), and if could prevent any nomination, it would be Dallas Buyers Club in original screenplay (or best picture) (good lord I hate that movie) (seriously).

See them all after the jump...