Finally Best Picture!!

      I know you may be thinking, how can a film that has won Best Picture for the Golden Globe for Drama, the Producer's Guild Award, the BAFTAs, the SAG award's top honor, the DGA top honor, and the Critic's Choice Award can possibly LOSE at the Oscars?  Well, the answer is, it can't.  There has been a lot of speculation over the last few days to whether or not Argo will take the top prize tomorrow or not, as the lack of Best director nomination may actually hurt it's chances.  It is baffling, the Oscars have awarded several Actors turned Directors (Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson have all won Best Director).  On top of that, there has been much speculation about how authentic the film really is.  Just yesterday the the real-life Canadian Ambassador (portrayed in the film by Victor Garber) had complained that the film downplayed Canada's role in the actual events.  

       So this is just a few things that are floating around, giving people reason to believe that Argo may NOT win Best Picture.  A film hasn't won Oscar's top award without having been nominated for Best Director since Driving Miss Daisy in 1989, and before then was Grand Hotel in 1931.  It really DOESN'T happen.  Well, rarely.  But the truth is, modern Oscar voters love the little guy.  They won't want to give it to a film like Lincoln, no that's too obvious.  When the nominations expanded to ten, then ten max, rather than making room for big budget blockbusters like viewers had thought, the extra slots were filled in with smaller films.  This year, rather than Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises, we have Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour.  

        Not to say Argo is a small picture, but in regards to the award season, it's very neutral.  It's tomato meter is near perfect, yet it's not on EVERY critics top ten lists.  Most viewers feel the same, the film is good, but not necessarily the greatest.  But would anyone complain if it wins Best Picture?  I mean I wouldn't, I punched Amour in the ballot and that has no chance of winning.  Amour is too small of a film to actually win.  Argo is a film that people know, they see, they like.  That is an extreme generalization of todays movie going audiences, but Argo is the safest pick, not being too obvious, while still being seen, for the Oscar to gain more viewers.  Safe is always the way everyone wants to go today, every investor in today's economy, as well as EVERY studio and distribution company.  While people dream of having a time like 20th-Century Fox did with Life of Pi (which also doesn't discredit it's decent chances of a surprising Best Picture win), studios will still shell out an endless array of comic book-based films, films based off of 1990s TV shows, or other epic blockbusters, to avoid taking an epic economic hit. 

        Argo is not just what people think of as the best film of the year, but rather it defines the modern Oscars.  Something good, not fantastic, but something that everyone will like (unlike Zero Dark Thirty).  It's not too small (like Beasts  and Amour) and it's not too obvious (Lincoln). The only other film that really fits this is Life of Pi, which hasn't won every other major award so far.  When filling in your predictions ballot, go with the facts, and hopefully you'll end up with more than a DVD of That's My Boy.

Winner: Argo

My Pick: Amour