OSCAR OSCAR WHO WILL WIN: The Hodgepodge - Best Director and other random nomination thoughts.

There are plenty of awards and names that will be seen on Sunday night's broadcast including the second to last award of the evening. Best Director. I am a straight shooter when it comes to this category and live by the creed 'as goes the Director's Guild Awards go I'.  Which means this is Cuaron's to lose.

Best Directing	American Hustle (David O. Russell) Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón) Nebraska (Alexander Payne) 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen) The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Fact is only 7 times in 65 opportunities has the person who won the DGA not gone on to win the Oscar. Most notably last year when Ben Affleck won for Argo, but wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. Gravity is a movie I didn't like, but it was a visual spectacle and it was like experiencing art in a way that was visually gratifying. It just wasn't a very good film. So I am torn about supporting his win. The only person who has a chance at unseating him is Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave. And frankly the only way that happens is if it gets swept up in the unlikely event that the movie runs the table. Something we will know early if Fassbender or their adapted screenplay win.

Will Win/Should Win: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

And then there's the best of the rest: animated film, documentary, score and song:

Best Animated Feature	The Croods (Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco, Kristine Belson) Despicable Me 2 (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, Chris Meledandri) Ernest & Celestine (Benjamin Renner, Didier Brunner) Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho) The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki)

Here's some interesting trivia about best animated feature, since its inception in 2002 Disney Animation has never won. (Brave is a Pixar film). Yet it is widely believed that the strength of Beauty and the Beast and Lion King spurred the momentum to include the category. The former being the first animated feature ever to be nominated for best picture. Frozen is lightening in a bottle the likes of which Disney hasn't seen since The Lion King and has a real chance to win on Sunday night. It's not the best film in the lot, that honor goes to Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises and I think he should win. But the fervor around Frozen makes it the best bet.

Will Win: Frozen
Should Win: The Wind Rises

Best Documentary Feature	The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Signe Byrge Sørensen) Cutie and the Boxer (Zachary Heinzerling, Lydia Dean Pilcher) Dirty Wars (Richard Rowley, Jeremy Scahill) The Square (Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer) 20 Feet from Stardom (Nominees to be determined

I bring this category to the forefront because it holds my favorite nomination for Sunday night and the most egregious omission Blackfish. The CNN documentary traces the unsavory and criminally cruel practices that built the brand we know as Sea World. Built around the deaths caused by the killer whale Tillikum the film painfully traces the indifference in practice and abject lies surrounding the awful breading practices at Sea World. I don't know how it was passed over and I am sorry it was, it is a film that enrages, but should not be missed.  20 Feet of Stardom is my favorite nomination and I hope it goes on to win.

Will Win: The Act of Killing
Should Win: 20 Feet from Stardom

Best Original Score	The Book Thief (John Williams) Gravity (Steven Price) Her (William Butler, Owen Pallett) Philomena (Alexandre Desplat) Saving Mr. Banks (Thomas Newman)

Here is where the yin/yang of film making really does swing into full effect. Yes John WIlliams is the perennial nominee, but this award will go to Steven Price for Gravity.

Will Win/Should Win: Gravity (Steven Price)

Best Original Song	Happy (Despicable Me 2) Let It Go (Frozen) The Moon Song (Her) Ordinary Love (Mandela: Long Walk to Freededom

So here's where the obvious bet is on the song that every parent has been listening to at nausea for the last six months. That said, I was right about Eminem, I find it hard to bet against U2.

Will/Should Win: Let it Go (Frozen)
Could Win: Ordinary Love (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)