Predicting the 85th Academy Awards (EVERY CATEGORY) [UPDATED]

The biggest movie awards show with Seth Macfarlane hosting is only a week away!  Yay. I had fun doing this last year, so I'm going to predict EVERY category that the Academy gives out those little statuettes for.  And again I'm not saying who I want to win, but who I think will win.  Alright, deep breath, here we go! (Once the show is over, I'll highlight the winners in gold.)

A Good Day to Die Hard Review: John McClane channels 007, fails miserably

Dir. John Moore
97 Minutes
Rated R

Once you get to the fifth film in a franchise, either it is part of a pre-determined saga (like Harry Potter or Star Wars), or it is simply an attempt by studios to milk a brand name for all its worth.  Sometimes films can rise above the producer's intentions and create something different and artful, but most of the time it's a hastily put together complete piece of shit.  A Good Day to Die Hard falls in the latter category.  This doesn't even feel like a movie.  It feels like the amalgamation of every action movie convention vomited on screen with no real reason behind it.

Side Effects Review: Soderbergh's "final" theatrical film is a dark and twisty look at the world of prescription drugs

Dir. Steven Soderbergh
106 Minutes
Rated  R

Steven Soderbergh is not retiring.  The movie blogosphere went aflame with unwarranted disappointment after Soderbergh stated that Side Effects would be his final theatrical outing as director, which may be true (though I doubt it), but his words were misconstrued; he was simply expressing that he wanted to try other things, like a television mini-series or maybe something along the lines of Netflix's House of Cards.  In my mind I'm game for anything he does, no matter what the format, so stop crying about this being the final film.  But all that nonsense aside, Side Effects, if it were to be his last film, would be worthy of that title.  In many ways an homage to Hitchcock, the film brought back Scott Z. Burns, who teamed with Soderbergh on Contagion a couple years ago (which landed in my top ten of 2011) and The Informant before that.

Warm Bodies Review: A spin on the "zombie comedy" that doesn't quite work despite an original premise

Dir. Jonathan Levine
97 Minutes
Rated PG-13

Warm Bodies is an adaptation of Isaac Marion's novel of the same name, a romantic zombie comedy directed by Jonathan Levine (director of 50/50, one of my favorite movies of 2011).  The story follows a zombie named "R" (Nicholas Hoult) who shuffles around all day, only able to express himself through grunts and moans to his zombie friend "M" (Rob Corddry).  We hear his thoughts via voiceover narration, which lets us into his somber, lost life (it's a pretty obvious parable for adolescence).  When setting upon a group of humans, he inexplicably saves one because he falls in love at first sight with her.  What follows is a Beauty and the Beast style romance that forms between the two, which can be sweet thanks to the two leads, but the film too often retreats into convention and lacks the "oomph" other entries into this sub-subgenre have offered.