7 Things The Academy Awards Got Correct

Award season is almost over. The Academy Awards, the last of them, airs this Sunday, and then the Award season is finally ov-ah! You've probably read a lot of articles about previous Oscar snubs, and things the Oscars got wrong. Hell, we here at The Cover 3 love that sort of thing! But this is not one of those articles. As much as bitching about the Academy is what we deep down love about the Oscars, this article is dedicated to the things that the Oscars have done right.

7) Argo Defeats Lincoln For Best Picture in 2013

While I personally did not think Argo was the best film of 2012, I did think it was the 3rd best. I personally ranked my 2 four stars films- Looper and Wreck-It Ralph- ahead of it. I did however, have Argo as my top 3.5 star film of the year, and clearly ahead of Lincoln- a film I didn't even rank. The race last year came down to Lincoln vs. Argo, and at the beginning of the award season, it looked like Lincoln was going to sweep the Oscars. However, once the award show actually came and went, Lincoln only walked home with 2 Oscars. It lost Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay to Argo, and Best Director to Ang Lee and Life of Pi. And that's the way it should have been.

I suspect Lincoln will be on many lists to come about how it got screwed, and the better film lost right along with Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, and Brokeback Mountain. I saw Facebook statuses after the Oscars last year saying as such. Well, I'm here to set the record straight. The best film nominated won that night.

Can Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto Both Win An Academy Award This Year?

The Academy Award nominations were recently announced, and both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were nominated for their work in Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey for Best Actor and Leto for Best Supporting Actor. Both won the Golden Globes for their respected races, and both are probably the favorites to win the Oscars come March 2. However, I wanted to see how often it is for two males to win the Oscar from the same movie.

Since the Best Supporting Actor award was created in 1937 for the 9th Academy Awards, two male actors from the same movie winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor has happened only four times, and only once since 1960. Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald first did it in 1945 for Going My Way, and Fredric March and Harold Russell did it two years later for their work in The Best Years of Our Lives. The next time this phenomenon occurred was in 1960 when Charlton Heston and Hugh Griffith both won for Ben Hur. The next and last time this happened was 44 years later when Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won for their work in Mystic River.

The fact that an acting duo from the same film won only a decade ago bodes well for McConaughey and Leto, but the fact that it's only happened about as many times as a film won Best Movie without having its director even nominated isn't something to be thrilled about. Yet Argo won Best Picture last year, so maybe we're in a new era of Hollywood...

But the fact that this occurrence happens so infrequently isn't necessarily a bad sign for McConaughey and Leto. It could just be that the deserved winner from each category just so happens to star in different movie. It's very possible that the person who deserves to win does win, and it's irrelevant if they star in the same movie or different ones. So I went and looked back at recent history at the possible and realistic chances where an actor and his co-star should have both won, but did not.

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2014 Academy Award Nominations

1) My absolute favorite movie of 2013 was This Is The End. But there was no way in hell it was going to get any Oscar nominations. My second favorite movie of the year was The Wolf of Wall Street. It earned many nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Hill), and Best Adapted Screenplay. While Wolf was getting some Oscar buzz, many predicted it was going to be the last man standing in many categories (like the 2 acting ones and Best Director). I can confidently say I was not one of those people.

2) Tough day for Tom Hanks. He seemed like a lock to get a Best Actor nomination for Captain Phillips and had a decent shot of Best Supporting Actor for his work in Saving Mr. Banks. Not only does Hanks not get any Oscar nominations this year, neither did Saving Mr. Banks (OK, technically they got one for Best Score, but really, that doesn't count). Serves Disney right for Disney-fying a story where they screw an author out of her original work.

I know many people are going to claim that Tom Hanks is a true snub for Captain Phillips but a) let's be honest, Hanks was good, but not great in the movie, b) does Tom Hanks really need any more Oscar nods?, and c) between Christian Bale's performance in American Hustle and Hanks's performance, I choose Bale every day of the week.

Predictions for the 2014 Academy Award Nominations

BEST PICTURE
- 12 Years A Slave
- American Hustle
- Captain Phillips
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Gravity
- Her
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Nebraska
- Saving Mr. Banks
- The Wolf of Wall Street

SUPER, DUPER LOCKS: 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle, & Gravity

LOCKS: Captain Phillips, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, & The Wolf of Wall Street

STRONG EDUCATED GUESSES: Saving Mr. Banks, Dallas Buyers Club

I think Saving Ms. Banks gets a nomination just because a large portion of the Academy are old fuddy-duddies who love to reminisce about the "Good Ol' Times" of Hollywood, and Saving Mr. Banks fits right into their wheelhouse. As for Dallas Buyers Club, even though it did not get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, it did get a PGA and SAG nomination for Best Film- and those factions mean a helluva lot more than the Hollywood Foreign Press of the Golden Globes. It has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and the likely Best Actor win for Matthew McConaughey doesn't hurt either.

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Inside Llewyn Davis

On one hand, Inside Llweyn Davis earned a Golden Globe nomination and was one of AFI's top ten best films of the year. On the other, neither the SAG (not that surprising) nor the PGA (super surprising) awarded it with a nomination. However, I think it gets nominated just because it's a Coen Brother's flick. Three out of their past four films (True Grit, A Serious Man, & No Country For Old Men) have all gotten nominated, and I think the super boring and dull Inside Llewyn Davis does the same.

DARK HORSE: Philomena

2013 NFL Wrap Up Special and Post Season Predictions

PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS

NFC

WILD CARD ROUND

(5) San Francisco 49ers def. (4) Green Bay Packers
(3) Philadelphia Eagles def. (6) New Orleans Saints

DIVISIONAL ROUND

(1) Seattle Seahawks def. (5) San Francisco 49ers
(2) Carolina Panthers def. (3) Philadelphia Eagles

CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND

(1) Seattle Seahawks def. (2) Carolina Panthers

AFC

WILD CARD ROUND

(3) Cincinnati Bengals def. (6) San Diego Chargers
(5) Kansas City Chiefs def. (4) Indianapolis Colts

DIVISIONAL ROUND

(3) Cincinnati Bengals def. (2) New England Patriots
(1) Denver Broncos def. (5) Kansas City Chiefs

CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND

(3) Cincinnati Bengals def. (1) Denver Broncos

SUPER BOWL

Cincinnati Bengals def. Seattle Seahawks

Why did I stupidly choose the Cincinnati Bengals to win it all? Click here to find out why!

Top 10 Films Of 2013

In October 2010, I was sitting in a movie theater with my then girlfriend (now wife) watching David Fincher's newest movie. It was called The Social Network. After the movie ended and after I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I turned to her and said, "Holy Shit, that was great. I don't know which movie was better, this or Inception!" Inception had come out a few months earlier, and was just groundbreaking and breath taking. In my mind, at that time, I couldn't decide which awesome movie was more awesome.

2010 had two Holy Shit movies. A "Holy Shit movie" is a movie that is just so damn good that the only words that come out of your mouth after you see it are "holy shit." Obviously those movies were The Social Network and Inception. The reason I bring this up, is because we haven't had a Holy Shit movie in over 3 years since The Social Network. 2011 had "Drive", which is really the only movie that could even be considered a Holy Shit movie since 2010. However, Drive was really good, and maybe even great, but it wasn't Holy Shit good. Need further proof? Cracked recently named Drive the most overrated movie to come out in recent years, my old site Game of Inches didn't even consider it for its list of the 25 Best Films of the Past 25 Years (it was eligible), and it only received 1 (minor) Oscar nomination (Best Sound Editing) at the 2012 Academy Awards. Now you can make very easy arguments against all 3 of those instances; however, the problem is that Holy Shit movies don't even get that kind of bad publicity. You haven't heard a single complaint about Inception or The Social Network for the past 3 years. They're both still almost universally revered.