The Best Picture category isn't the only thing that bulked up.

What is it about the Academy Awards? Intellectually, it's hard to muster up that much enthusiasm about who "wore it best" (Ang Lee) or how modest Katniss will be in her acceptance speech, hopefully avoiding a First Wives' Club reference that sounded like she was hating on Meryl Streep this time. And yet ... we still feel compelled to watch. Maybe it's because secretly, deep down, we still find it fascinating that the guy who does the voice of Stewie looks like the host of a reality game show about finding true love by having a dance-off on a stripper pole.

Or maybe it's because we're just suckers, who deep down believe that Beasts of the Southern Wild might still possibly have a chance against Argo or Lincoln.

Come join us, will you, on this the most magical of evenings for producers, people who are married to movie stars, and dress designers? We'll be hosting a live chat below. Just click the big countdown button and you're all set. Got it?

Great.

This year we're making our predictions in order of the film and/or celebrity, not the award. That's because this time ... it's personal. No, seriously: between Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck being iced out of Best Director, the Weinstein Bros. not having a snowball's chance in hell of scoring a big win and the fact that we're practically giving an award to Anne Hathaway just to make her stop sing-crying, there's going to be a lot of sore losers tonight. But don't worry; we're using a time-tested formula for predicting the bitter ceremonies, including taking all of the guesses on Twitter and averaging them against Nate Silver's predictions. Then we throw those out the window and  get ourselves angry over Lincoln’s inevitable windfall of awards that should be going to that movie that had all those great New Yorker articles written about it and stars a 9-year-old who wasn't even an actress when she started the film, which is about 50 percent more method than Daniel Day-Lewis's decision to become an Italian cobbler every time he's taking a hiatus from Hollywood.

So enjoy, and don't forget to tune into our live chat on the Oscars, starting at 7 p.m.!

2013 Golden Globes, Bill Murray

If you are too busy watching the Australian cycling thing and can't understand what the hell is going on with Twitter (honestly, we don't know who you follow, but no one on our feed actually bothers naming the winners of these things), here are the latest updates for the 2013 Golden Globe Awards.

Best Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER: Argo
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Motion Picture, Drama
WINNER:

Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Les Mis

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture- Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Hugh Jackman, Les Mis

Best TV Series, Comedy or Musical
WINNER: GIRLS

Best Director
WINNER: Ben Affleck, Argo

Cecil B. DeMille's Lifetime Achievement Award/Freestyle Portion of Evening
WINNER: Jodie Foster

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Lena Dunham, Girls

Best Animated Feature Film
WINNER: Brave

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama
WINNER: Claire Danes, Homeland

Best Foreign Film
WINNER: Amour

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical
WINNER: Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Best Screenplay
WINNER: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
WINNER: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables

Best Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Ed Harris, Game Change

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Kevin Costner, Hatfields & McCoys
(RUNNER-UP: Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Julianne Moore - Game Change

Best Television Series - Drama
WINNER: Homeland

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
WINNER: Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Mini-Series
WINNER: Maggie Smith - Downton Abbey

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama
WINNER: Damien Lewis - Homeland

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
WINNER: Game Change

Best Original Song
WINNER: "Skyfall," Adele

Best Original Score - Motion Picture
WINNER: Life of Pi

Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
WINNER: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Lining Playbook (Also, best speech? Y/N?)

Lincoln leads the pack for the Oscars with 12 nominations

There are a lot firsts in the nominations for the 85th annual Academy Award nominations. They include the youngest AND oldest Best Actress nominees (Emmanuelle Riva, 85, and Quvenzhané Wallis, 9), no trace of former dream team member Ben Affleck, and the first snub for Kathryn Bigelow.

On the other hand, there is no way Anne Hathaway is NOT singing this year, so get ready for some Franco-style flashbacks. And with 12 nominations for Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis will (unsurprisingly) definitely be going home with something gold this year.

A partial list below:

BEST PICTURE

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Amour
Django Unchained
Argo

DIRECTOR

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

ACTRESS

Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

ACTOR

Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln
Denzel Washington, Flight
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Amy Adams, The Master

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Alan Arkin, Argo
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Flight
Zero Dark Thirty
Django
Amour
Moonrise Kingdom

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Amour (Austria)
No (Chile)
Rebelle (War Witch) (Netherlands)
A Royal Affair (Denmark)
Kon-Tiki (Norway)

ANIMATED FEATURE

Frankenweenie
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave

ORIGINAL SONG

"Before My Time" - Chasing Ice
"Pi's Lullabye" - Life of Pi
"Suddenly" - Les Misérables
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend" - Ted
"Skyfall" - Skyfall

Jamie Foxx and Tarantino at the Django Unchained premiere. (Credit: Barrett Jones)

Say what you will about Quentin Tarantino, but that man knows how to hold an audience. Last night at the Ziegfeld Theatre, where Andrew Saffir's Cinema Society premiered Django Unchained, Mr. Tarantino bounded on stage like a crazed carnival barker and yelled, "Who is ready to see Django? Who is ready to see Django off his CHAIN?! Who is ready to see motherfucking Django off his motherfucking CHAIN?"

As polarizing as his previous works have been, it's probably safe to say that this film, starring Jamie Foxx as the titular freed slave/white man bounty hunter Django, will be his most controversial work yet, and this is not helped by his gleeful carnival barker's act while promoting it.

But last night everyone was still all smiles during the after-party, held at The Standard Biergarten. Jamie Foxx took a turn on the dance floor with anyone who happened to be in his path, while Samuel L. Jackson (who will almost definitely be getting a Best Supporting nod for the movie) posed for photo after photo with fans. At around 1 a.m., Mr. Foxx took over the deejay booth with the writer/director.

"Hopefully in the next few months, we'll be able to say this, in this song," Mr. Foxx said into the mic. "Come on Quentin, let's go!" he added, before launching into Trinidad James's "All Gold Everything."

http://youtu.be/uR7ONiaBbXg
(Video via Barrett Jones)

After all the talent (and most of the guests) had left, we found Mr. Tarantino holding court in the VIP room of Bungalow 8. Did we need to say something to him about Django? And what was there to say? "We are not sure how to feel about the racial elements of this film?" No, it was 3 a.m., and at a certain point, even the hardest-nosed reporter feels for the guy just trying to relax and have a good time. Instead we asked him about a particular scene, a brief moment when Samuel L. Jackson's character, Stephen, demands that comfort girl Sheba (Nichole Galicia) help make a cup of coffee. It was just half a second of screen time; a subtle, hateful flick of the eyes in an otherwise non-subtle film.

"Wow, yes, we actually had to cut a line of dialogue from that scene!" Mr. Tarantino said. "It was Sheba yelling at Stephen, 'WHO DAT MAKING DAT COFFEE?'" The last line was delivered in a creepily accurate Madea-esque impression at sonic boom levels by Mr. Tarantino. Either the sound or the subject made us half-flinch away.

"They cut it, because they said it was too much," he added sadly.

"Yes, it was, um, more subtle this way," we said, holding our tongue while our tired brain tried to process a response other than, "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Because the answer is that he is Quentin Tarantino, that's who he is, and he responded with the fan-boy approval: "You must be really kinda smart to catch all that in just a look." Forget our grievances with the film, our apprehension about the blaxploitation-meets-Sergio Leone buddy comedy tone of it all, our feeling that this seemed racist on so many levels that maybe it wasn't even racist anymore but something else, we don't know: when Quentin Tarantino talks to you about movies, you have no choice but to listen.

Listen and be grateful, because for all his faults, there is no one in the world better to talk about movies with.

Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx in 'Djago Unchained'

Quentin Tarantino loves a good revenge fantasy. Besides Kill Bill, his last Academy Award-winning film, Inglorious Basterds, reimagined the death of Hitler and the Nazi regime at the hands of the Jews.

Five years later, we have Django Unchained: the highly-anticipated ode to the spaghetti western in which Southern slave Jamie Foxx and German bounty hunter  Christoph Waltz are on a mission to make Southern plantation owners suffer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rC8VJ9aeB_g#!

The tagline of this film is "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of vengeance," which pretty much tells you where the auteur's head is at. Much like Inglorious Basterds, your reaction to this film will probably have less to do with its style (which is awesome) or its performances (lets just give the Oscar to Leonardo DiCaprio for Best Supporting Actor and forget about holding the Academy Awards this year), and more with how you feel about the director's take on bloody revisionist history.

Just for an example: how do we feel about the protagonist's salvation coming from a  German bounty hunter/dentist? Anyone else having flashbacks to Marathon Man? (Though Mr. Tarantino is far too keen on film references for that to be an accident; we're sure the phrase "Is it safe???" will be uttered at a crucial juncture in the film.)

A coworker pointed out another issue for viewers: while the film is ostensibly a Western, it also has elements of a Blaxsploitation movie. This is not new territory for Tarantino, but might rankle those who feel that the director consistently appropriates black  culture in an effort to ramp up his quotability quotient.