It is Oscar Night, and I am a little sad and sheepish that we don't have television in our Utah rental.  So, I'll have to find a livestream somewhere or catch up tomorrow with clips.  But, I'm still interested in the outcomes. 

Best Picture -- I've seen 4 out of the 9 nominees, which is about par for the course.  I don't like violent movies, so that left out Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained.  I would have liked to have seen Les Miserables, but just haven't gotten a chance yet.  But, I did see Argo (review here); Lincoln; Silver Linings Playbook; and Life of Pi.  I have to say that Pi is not on my list of favorites of 2013.  I was pretty impressed by the special effects (I believed that there was a real tiger in the movie, if not in the boat), but there's only so much boy in his boat one can watch.  Some things do make better books than movies.  I really liked the other three.  It seems to be a race between Argo and Lincoln.  I would hate to bet against Abraham Lincoln.

Best Female Actor -- I haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty, so I can't speak to the Jessica Chastain nomination.  I liked her in The Help.  I thought Jennifer Lawrence was good in Silver LInings Playbook, but she seems to say bizarre things unscripted (see, e.g., Golden Globes speech and Ellen appearance, which I saw while convalescing and went "what?").  I will admit that I did not go see Impossible because I couldn't deal with the thought of watching a movie about a family of five split apart by tsunami while on vacation.  I'm a wimp.  So, Naomi Watts was probably brilliant, but I missed it.

Best Male Actor -- I really liked Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook.  But it sure seems like Daniel Day-Lewis became Abraham Lincoln.  And betting against someone playing Lincoln seems as foolhardy as betting against someone playing Queen Elizabeth (I or II).  

Best Animated Feature -- Here, of course, I am in my element.  But, we did not see either Frankenweenie or Paranorman because the previews scared the youngest one out of his wits.  Now, I have to wait with him outside the theater until the previews are over, just in case a scary preview will precede our chosen film.  So, I think it comes down between Brave (review here) and Wreck-it Ralph.  We loved them both.  I think I'll follow Jack Black's advice, from the speech he gave as a presenter at an awards show a few years ago: "Each year I do one Dreamworks project, then I take all the money to the Oscars and bet it on Pixar."  Brave is Disney/Pixar; Wreck-it Ralph is just Disney (although John Lasseter executive produced it). 

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