Happy Oscar Nomination Day! aka The 2012 MS Maven Oscar Predix Extravaganza

Folks, it's that time of year when the skies look like Central Ohio and it's cold as shit outside. Why, you ask? Because The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have moved up their Oscar nominations by two weeks! The awards season now resembles a Chinese fire drill. And I thought all the shifting around was bad in college football!

Alas, Happy Oscar Nomination Day! This is The Maven's High Holy Day (next to Selection Sunday for March Madness, the Ohio State/Michigan game and the Clemson/South Carolina game). Not much of a preamble here, except to say I hope Amour, The Beasts of the Southern Wild, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty reap a lot of nominations. And I think the wild cards this year are Emmanuelle Riva in Amour, Quvenzhane Wallis in Beasts, Judi Dench in Skyfall, and Michael Haneke for Director for Amour. And who the hell knows how many films will be up for Best Picture. The Academy needs to go back to five films instead of trying to please everyone...

Enough. I didn't predict every catagory because it's almost, well, too much to deal with. Here are the predix. Alternates are below the short line. And complaints are welcome...

Best Picture
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
Life of Pi
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained

Best Director
Steven Spielberg
Kathryn Bigelow
Ben Affleck
Michael Haneke
David O. Russell
---
Quentin Tarantino
Ang Lee
Tom Hooper

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis
Denzel Washington
Bradley Cooper
Hugh Jackman
John Hawkes
---
Joaquin Phoenix
Jean Louis Trintignant
Jack Black

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain
Jennifer Lawrence
Naomi Watts
Emmanuelle Riva
Quvenzhane Wallis
---
Helen Mirren
Marion Cotilliard
Rachel Weisz

Best Supporting Actor
Tommy Lee Jones
Alan Arkin
Leonardo DiCaprio
Christoph Waltz
Javier Bardem
---
Robert DeNiro
Dwight Henry
Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway
Sally Field
Amy Adams
Judi Dench
Helen Hunt
---
Maggie Smith
Nicole Kidman
Jacki Weaver

Best Original Screenplay
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Amour
Moonrise Kingdom
The Master
---
Flight
Looper

Best Adapted Screenplay
Lincoln
Argo
Silver Linings Playbook
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
---
The Perks of Being A Wallflower
 Les Miserables

Best Cinematography
Lincoln
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
---
The Master
Argo
Django Unchained

Best Editing
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
Les Miserables
---
Skyfall
The Dark Knight Rises
Cloud Atlas

Best Production Design
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Anna Karenina
Life of Pi
The Hobbit
---
The Master
Django Unchained
Moonrise Kingdom

Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Snow White and the Hunstman
Cloud Atlas
---
Django Unchained
The Hobbit
The Master

------
Nomination Totals
Lincoln                            11
Zero Dark Thirty               9
Les  Miserables                9
Silver Linings Playbook    6
Skyfall                              6
Argo                                 5
Life of Pi                          5
Django Unchained          5

Note: Totals won't necessarily fall in line w/ my predix

The 8:37am announcement comes pretty early when The Maven has been sleeping in for the past month. Seasons Screenings and let the games begin...