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9. Beasts of the southern Wild (Dan Janvey, Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald, Producers)

The least formidable of all nine nominated films, is up for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress. A personal victory for Benh (the h is silent) Zeitlin. This is the REAL little movie that could. The Academy is unfortunately too timid to go all the way for a cinematic achievement that celebrates ars povera and only but crosses the line of poverty porn. In a parallel universe Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest best actress winner ever. Frankly I just don’t see any wins here, but BOTSW is miraculous enough for even coming a long way to the best of this year’s crop.

8. Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and Megan Ellison, Producers)

Boal / Bigelow’s second descent into bloody US foreign affairs madness after Oscar winning The Hurtlocker peaked all too early just to be demolished by a synchronized attack by liberal press and some irritated US senators. Five nominations including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing. Hand on my heart; it’s the best edited film of the year which trumps Argo in the weirdest of ways, leaving it without any wins besides Best Picture! I’ll come back to it below. Bigelow’s shun works entirely against entertaining any thought of wining. Boal’s screenplay is the root of ZDT misfortune, so let’s just leave this in peace for being what it really is: The critical darling of 2013.

7. Django Unchained (Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone, Producers)

Quentin Tarantino has entered the pantheon of iconic film mavericks, yet this hasn’t prevented the Membership to deny him the desirable Best Director accolade. Ask Harvey for opting not to print the screeners on time for the voters/critics. Five nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography and Best Sound Editing. Big potential for Screenplay (he won in 1994 for Pulp Fiction) and Supporting Actor (second win prospect for Christoph Waltz after Inglourious Basterds in 2009). Forget about Best Picture -too controversial a theme (Slavery grindhouse -spaghetti western)

6. Les Miserables (Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward and Cameron Mackintosh, Producers)

Despite the grandiosity of 8 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress Tom Hooper’s (The King’s Speech) bombastic tonsils’ porn doesn’t stand a real chance but for easily conquering Best Supporting Actress for Ann Hathaway’s show stealing musical number (“I dreamed a dream). Sound Mixing, Original Song and Make-up & hairstyling are also worthy possibilities. It’s virtually impossible to win Best Picture when director, screenplay and editing are shut out. Les Miserables is potentially the most polarizing among these year’s nominees, which sneaked in thanks to the preferential ballot system.

5. Amour (Margaret Menegoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka and Michael Katz, Producers)

The Academy declared itself totally enamored with Haneke’s leftfield take on elderly love, to the great lengths of granting him 5 first rate nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Foreign Language Film. I need to confess right now that I have this weird hunch about Amour winning big on Oscars and I don’t mean just Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film; Amour reminds me of The Pianist’s last moment Oscar upset, so I’ll just leave it here. You have been warned.

4. Argo (Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Producers)

This is my legacy for Oscars2013: I am jumping out of Argo s wagon for winning BP- not that I ever was actually aboard. Seven nominations for: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing. Apart from Editing where it comes a close second for the win behind ZDT, I don’t see where Argo could prevail regarding the nods per category. Hence, to whoever (and those are the majority) have called it a done deal in favor of Argo I have to say this: Wings (1927), Grand Hotel (1931) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989); the only films in history that won without a Best Director nod. See Miss Daisy which is the closest inter-temporal template for drawing the necessary comparisons: It had three acting nods, won Best Actress (Jessica Tandy) it also won Best Screenplay. Argo might have won SAG Ensemble, but Alan Arkin remains the sole acting nod with remote chances to win. As for the Screenplay, even if Terrio defeats Russell, there’s no overcoming Tony Kushner’s hurdle, which for me is the surest bet for Lincoln, DDL notwithstanding. So, what the heck are you guys talking about? Media hype in the sense, “this candidate MUST win”, is one notion that the Academy has always showed contempt for, vey justifiably so.

3. Life of Pi (Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark, Producers)

The 11 Academy Award nominations show nothing but adoration for the tiny maestro, the ingenious visual poet Ang Lee. He filmed the unfilmable Life of Pi which surpassed the $500M mark worldwide in terms of b.o. which is utterly revealing as hard evidence of public acceptance. Here’s the movie that will sweep the Tekkies, regardless of an ultimate Best Picture win. Its lack of acting accolades is a huge disadvantage but remember 1987 big winner The Last Emperor who scored 9 without any acting nominations. To repeat history though, Life of Pi needs to win Adapted Screenplay. Should that moment occur, then you’ll know you are in for a huge Oscar upset by a film that you only hear great things about across the board.

2. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers)

This is the one film that has earned universal Academy respect but no passionate Guilds love. I am giving you facts: 12 Nominations, in all core categories excluding Best Actress; the 15th film in history with 12 noms. 9/14 have won Best picture. It’s the 8th Best Picture nomination for Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy alike. Spielberg won only once (Schidler’s List) –NEVER has Kennedy (…). Spielberg is the co-holder of the 0/11 wins record for The Color Purple (1985) with Kathleen Kennedy. No actor has ever won for starring in a Spielberg- directed film. Is DDL going to break the curse? Is Tony Kushner going to give Lincoln the appropriate boost to march for Oscar glory? I don’t feel the love for BP, unless the Argo tide will push the Membership into the hands of the most serious contender and only then, yes, Lincoln could teach spoiled brat Ben Affleck a history lesson or two.

1. Silver Linings Playbook (Donna Gigliotti, Bruce Cohen and Jonathan Gordon, Producers)

The TIFF audience award winner is the tried-tested-approved recipe by the unstoppable TWC machine which score back to back hugely unlikely BP wins with The King’s Speech (2011) and The Artist (2012). Silver Linings is the ONLY contender with 8/8 nominations in all core Oscar categories, including 4 acting ones. Last time this happened was in 1981 with Reds (12 noms in total, with also an impressive 8/8 in the core categories) which won Directing but lost BP to Chariots of Fire (which had 7, like Argo  BUT also including a Best Director nod). Harvey Weinstein murdered The Master and buried Django Unchained to push forward Silver Linings entirely undistracted in terms of inside competition. He doesn’t control the SAG crowd and evidently he lost the so much needed Best Enseble SAG Award but he works the Academy Membership like nobody. Quit notably, his producers have won for Shakespeare in Love (Remember, Mr. Spielberg?) and American Beauty, plus you can read…The Reader among their heavy credentials. Did I just write The Reader? I think I’ll rest my case right here.

This is it. In two weeks we’ll have a new Best Picture Winner. It’s been a fascinating but also an excruciating race to remember. May the Best Picture pull this off! Follow me on Twitter: @TakisGaris. I and my main man ZerVo (@moviesltd) will keep you good company with live Oscar coverage. I yet have to hear from my partner regarding an exclusive Oscartastic podcast, with our final predictions, so…surprise me GZ!

gaRis