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2013 Academy Awards Prognostications

LOS ANGELES — I am fortunate to live at the epicenter of film, and for the second consecutive year, will be attending the Academy Awards Red Carpet gala. I added the “gala” part because last year, as I witnessed first hand, it’s really something spectacular. Watching at home on E! all those years with my mom as Ryan Seacrest did his thing, you could never really get a feel of how extravagant being on the Red Carpet really is. I capitalize it because of all the events worldwide, this is the one. This is the Super Bowl of cinema. And I’ll be there. With Rob Gronkowski.

That’s right. Hollywood is about to get Gronk’d.

Scratch that. I wrote the above paragraph a couple days ago. That’s when we had Rob Gronkowski as a correspondent for The Eisen Podcast. Now we don’t. Seems like he had “other” “plans” come up which resulted in him canceling all appearances in the immediate future. Including the Oscars Red Carpet. Oh well. His loss.

Sometimes, though, Hail Mary’s are caught and ours came in the form of Ed Reed, the future Ravens Hall of Famer and Super Bowl champion. He’ll be joining me Sunday in front of the Dolby Theater for what should be an epic afternoon hobnobbing with the biggest names in Hollywood. Last year, we had Hines Ward, the Steelers great. This year, a Raven.

As always, I try and see all the big movies up for the major awards and end up with around a 50% success rate. That was also the case this time around. (Note to self: get on a screeners list next year.) So here’s my expert opinion on who’ll be Sunday’s big winners.

Best Picture: “Argo” — Thought this was extremely well done from top to bottom, and even though I knew the end result, I were still on the edge of my seat the entire time. Just gripping cinema. It’s a damn shame Ben Affleck got snubbed in directing.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis — Honestly, the only performance in this film that I saw was Bradley Cooper’s, and while it would be great to see him win, DDL is the best actor alive right now. He could play in the Dumb and Dumber sequel and make it an Oscar-winning performance.

Best Actress: Jessica Chastain — My favorite part of “Zero Dark Thirty” is when they’ve found the compound and everyone in the CIA is the boardroom and Gandolfini walks in and asks who’s the girl sitting in the back, and Chastain sits up and says, “I’m the motherfuc*er who found this place.” I may have did a little fist pump in the theater at that point. She was spectacular.

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz — I would watch any movie where this guy plays a snarky, semi-bourgeois, wise ass with a bone to pick who then leaves a slew of bodies in his wake. Yeah, sign me up for more of that and less of that Elephants movie BS he did.

Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field — While Anne Hathaway has won every award show in this category this year, I’m refusing to give her any recognition here. Why? Well think about it like this: Field played Mary Todd Lincoln!! Her husband, oh you know, Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves and then got shot watching a play. As if she wasn’t suffering enough watching the damn play, her husband gets iced by some nutjob! Throw the woman a bone.

Best Director: Ben Affleck — What? Ben Affleck isn’t nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director of the movie that’s going to win Best Picture? Whaddya mean? That can’t be right. Go back and check again. He’s really not? Are people aware of this? Oh, they are? Screw it. He still did the best job.

Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal — I’m gonna go out on a limb and say “Zero Dark Thirty” gets it here, the reason being, at least for me, is that “Django Unchained” was far too long and went in a few different directions, which I know is what Quentin Tarantino does, but still. That movie should’ve ended a few times before it did. And ZDT had that “Argo” feel to it where you knew how it was going to end and it was still tense and thrilling and awesome. Oh, and Boal already has a statue at this house for “Hurt Locker,” which means he knows how to write modern war flicks.

Best Adapted Screenplay: David O. Russell — Loved “Silver Linings Playbook” from beginning to end. If it wasn’t for “Argo” it’d be the best film of the year. It pulled on your heart strings, made you laugh, make you wanna give your parents a big hug and take up balllroom dancing all at the same time.

Best Animated Film: Wreck-It Ralph — Admittedly, I didn’t see any of the films nominated here but I remember really wanting to see this and hearing it was awesome. Plus, it’s about video games. And once upon a time, I liked them.

Best Foreign Language Film: Amour — Reason leads me to believe if a film is good enough to be nominated for Best Picture, which is everything, then it’s probably going to win its sub-category. Right?

Best Cinematography: Skyfall — This iwas a pretty badass movie and the cinematography had a lot to do with it.

Best Editing: William Goldenberg — So this is a pick based on math, since Goldenberg is nominated twice for “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” I mean, 40% chance, that’s pretty freakin’ good.

Best Production Design: Les Miserables — This is one of those categories that always seems to go to a film based in the 19th century, since those are the hardest to replicate. “Project X” ain’t getting nominated for this, that’s for sure.

Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina — Is it possible for no one to win this category? So we have two films about Snow White, two more where everything is dank and ashy and literally miserable and the last where people play dress up. Guess I’m going with that one.

Best Makeup: The Hobbit — Do you know how hard it is to make regular people look like midgets? Do you?!

Best Original Score: John Williams — This guy seems to win everything … (checking his IMDB) … yup, he’s won 5 Oscars. Again, math wins here.

Best Original Song: Walter Murphy/Seth MacFarlane — Keep in mind, past winners in this category include Eminem and the Three-Six Mafia, so why can’t the freakin’ host of the show win for a song he wrote for an talking, crude, sex and drug-crazed teddy bear? By the way, a song from “Les Miserables” is nominated; isn’t this a remake of a film AND a play? How can you have something original in there?!

Best Sound Mixing: Skyfall — This was my favorite film on the list of nominees. That’s all the reasoning I need.

Best Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty — Now here’s what I want to know, how does a film get nominated for Sound Editing but not Sound Mixing? Either way, in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow’s film “Hurt Locker” took both these categories and you’d have to go back to 2009 when the same film didn’t sweep.

Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi– My roommate works in visual effects on some pretty big films, so I figured I’d just ask him and he said, “I haven’t seen ‘Life of Pi’ but it’s getting a lot of buzz to win… the other real contender is ‘The Avengers’.” Works for me.

Best Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man — This film makes life worth living. Check it out if you haven’t.

Best Documentary Short: Open Heart — I once went to Jane Seymour’s house and in the gift bag was one of her open heart collection tie pins.

Best Animated Short Film: Paperman — Dude just wanted to meet a girl.

Best Live Action Short Film: Curfew — Because who doesn’t enjoy their afternoons ruined by children?