In case you haven’t noticed from all the TV commercials, full-page ads, talk show appearances, news articles and blog posts, the annual Oscar game is in full swing. Academy Awards voters have until February 4 to cast their ballots, basing their decisions on any number of factors, namely all of the aforementioned campaigning plus any word-of-mouth buzzing through Hollywood.
We aren’t fully privy to insider knowledge, but we do have access to the one thing that, in a perfect world, really should matter the most: the movies themselves. And so, with the purpose of centering the Oscar conversation back to where it really belongs, we present “Who Should Win,” a video series co-presented by the Press Play video blog at Indiewire.
For the benefit of your Oscar pool ballot, inside each video you’ll also find our predictions for who is expected to win. But the web is cluttered with so many of these prognostications that we lose sight of could be the most fulfilling aspect of this exercise: discussing the merits of each of these nominated artists. Let the debate begin.
Who Should Win: Best Lead Actor
[iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/dZbzgA2xGIk” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Who Should Win: Best Supporting Actor
[iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/MMzZ93_9tbw” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Who Should Win: Best Lead Actress
[iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/A7CiVAEo8Jc” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Who Should Win: Best Supporting Actress
[iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/51QnngecNX0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Who Should Win: Best Picture and Best Director
[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/59024366″ width=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen]
[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/59908268″ width=”500″ height=”281″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen]
Kevin B. Lee is Editor in Chief of IndieWire’s PressPlay Video Blog, Video Essayist for Fandor’s Keyframe, and a contributor to Roger Ebert.com. Follow him on Twitter.
