The Oscars (and other awards)

Some thoughts on some of the categories:

Best Picture

American Sniper (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Boyhood (IFC Films)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Company)
Selma (Paramount Pictures)
The Theory of Everything (Focus Features)
Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)

Boyhood winning this would be unprecedented given Birdman’s near sweep of the precursors so I’m not predicting against Birdman. That having been said, this still seems kind of fishy to me. Birdman just doesn’t feel like an Oscar movie to me, Boyhood doesn’t either but it at least seems more uplifting and emotional. I also feel like a bizarre upset from one of the other nominees isn’t completely out of the question. The preferential ballot is still a relatively new thing and I think it is going to provide a shocker sooner or later.

Directing

Alejandro G. Iñárritu - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater - Boyhood
Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game

A split towards Linklater isn’t impossible, but as a rule I never predict splits.

Actor in a Leading Role

Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper – American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

I think Redmayne has this tied up.  If anything I'd say Keaton is done for to the point where I think Bradley Cooper is probably in second place and I wouldn't be completely shocked if he Adrian Brodys his way in because of vote splitting.

Actress in a Leading Role

Marion Cotillard – Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore - Still Alice
Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon - Wild

Moore, pretty clearly.  For a while I thought this category was ripe for an upset given the average age of winners in this category, but none of the other nominees really stepped up duing the campaign so Moore should be safe.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Robert Duvall - The Judge
Ethan Hawke - Boyhood
Edward Norton - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash

Simmons, easily

Actress in a Supporting Role

Patricia Arquette - Boyhood
Laura Dern - Wild
Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game
Emma Stone – Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Meryl Streep - Into the Woods

Arquette, easily

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

American Sniper, Written by Jason Hall
The Imitation Game, Written by Graham Moore
Inherent Vice, Written by Paul Thomas Anderson
The Theory of Everything, Written by Anthony McCarten
Whiplash, Written by Damien Chazelle

The question here is “how far has The Imitation Game fallen?” It’s tempting to think that the academy came to its senses and abandoned the movie, but that probably wishful thinking. This is a Best Director and Best Editing nominee we’re talking about here. If that doesn’t win it will probably go to Whiplash which has much better dialog to boot, but it’s often easy to over-think this stuff, 90% of the time it just goes to whatever movie the voters happen to like the most.  That said, I have heard stories about Whiplash getting increasingly respected as voters caught up with it on screeners and I'm increasingly nervous about this choice.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolas Giacobone, Armando Bo
Boyhood, Written by Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, Written by Dan Futterman and E. Max Frye
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Written by Wes Anderson
Nightcrawler, Written by Dan Gilroy

If Birdman really is as strong as it looks it’s going to win this. BP winners only lose in the screenplay categories when they are conspicuously not very talkative and Birdman is very talkative.

Foreign Language Film

Ida (Music Box Films), Poland, Pawel Pawlikowski
Leviathan (Sony Pictures Classics), Russia, Andrey Zvyagintsev
Tangerines, Estonia, Zaza Urushadze
Timbuktu (Cohen Media Group), Mauritania, Abderrahmane Sissako
Wild Tales (Sony Pictures Classics), Argentina, Damián Szifrón

There’s a growing contingent of pundits who think Wild Tales will come out of nowhere and upset but I suspect that a number of the voters (who no longer have to show up to special screenings) aren’t going to see all the nominees. Ida is the most buzzed about of these movies so it’s going to win. The fact that it’s indirectly about the Holocaust can’t hurt.

Animated Feature Film

Big Hero 6 (Walt Disney Pictures)
The Boxtrolls (Focus Features)
How to Train a Dragon 2 (DreamWorks Animation)
Song of the Sea (GKIDS)
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (GKIDS)

The two Gkids movies are only going to be vote siphons and I don’t think The Boxtrolls is going to have a whole lot of support behind it. So this is going to be a Dreamworks vs. Disney fight. Dragon has the sequel thing working against it and Big Hero 6 is the more recent film. However, I’m reminded of the race a couple of years ago when Wreck it Ralph seemed like a winner but eventually lost to the less beloved but more respectably medieval Brave.

Production Design

The Grand Budapest Hotel - Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game - Production Design: Maria Djurkovic; Set Decoration: Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar - Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
Into the Woods - Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Mr. Turner - Production Design: Suzie Davies; Set Decoration: Charlotte Watts

Budapest, no question.

Cinematography

Emmanuel Lubezki - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Robert Yeoman - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski - Ida
Dick Pope - Mr. Turner
Roger Deakins - Unbroken

Birdman could have been more vulnerable than some people think, but there isn’t really a viable alternative I can see.

Costume Design

Milena Canonero - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Mark Bridges - Inherent Vice
Colleen Atwood - Into the Woods
Anna B. Sheppard and Jane Clive - Maleficent
Jacqueline Durran - Mr. Turner

Budapest, no question

Film Editing

Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach - American Sniper
Sandra Adair - Boyhood
Barney Pilling - The Grand Budapest Hotel
William Goldenberg - The Imitation Game
Tom Cross - Whiplash

This is a super close race between Boyhood and Whiplash with American Sniper as a potential dark horse. If Boyhood hadn’t been shot over twelve years I don’t think it would have a chance, but it was. Also, Whiplash is kind of an unconventional winner in and of itself, these usually go to big productions with battle sequences (which would seem to favor Sniper). I’m going out on a limb and saying Boyhood.

Documentary (Feature)

Citizenfour (RADiUS-TWC)
Finding Vivian Maier (Sundance Selects)
Last Days in Vietnam (American Experience)
The Salt of the Earth (Sony Pictures Classics)
Virunga (Netflix)

Citizenfour is heavily favored here and I will be predicting it as well simply because of all the buzz, but I think it’s closer than some people think. Snowden is a controversial figure and I do think this category is ripe for a scandalous upset and Virunga may be the one to do it.

Makeup and Hairstyling

Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard – Foxcatcher
Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White - Guardians of the Galaxy

There aren’t really that many reliable patterns in this category so it usually comes down to the dynamics of a given year. I’m pretty sure the nose prosthetic in Foxcatcher will be a turnoff to many voters so I don’t think that has a chance. It’s between Budapest and Galaxy and I feel like the makeup in Galaxy will be a bit more apparent to many of the voters. I could be really wrong about that though.

Music (Original Score)

Alexandre Desplat - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat - The Imitation Game
Hans Zimmer - Interstellar
Gary Yershon - Mr. Turner
Jóhann Jóhannsson - The Theory of Everything

Consensus is that this is a race between Budapest and Theory. Theory is probably the more easily awardable of the scores here, but I think Budapest will pull it off if voters just go Budapest crazy as they’re voting.

Music (Original Song)

“Everything Is Awesome” from The LEGO Movie
Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson
“Glory” from Selma
Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
“Grateful” from Beyond the Lights
Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me
Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
“Lost Stars” from Begin Again
Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

Popular consensus is that Glory wins this, but I’m not so confident. I have a hunch that some people might want to vote against Selma as something of a backlash to the backlash against the Academy this year, and also because some voters may want to throw The Lego Movie a bone to make up for the snub in Animated film. The one thing that’s bringing me back to Glory is that the Glen Campbell song is also going to get some support and Lost Stars also apparently has some support so I guess the anti-Selma vote is going to be too divided amongst other alternatives.

Sound Mixing

John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin - American Sniper
Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten - Interstellar
Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee - Unbroken
Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley - Whiplash

When music movies make it into this category they do tend to win, especially when they’re not up against giant BP nominated effects movies.

Sound Editing

Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman - American Sniper
Martín Hernández and Aaron Glascock - Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Brent Burge and Jason Canovas – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Richard King - Interstellar
Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro - Unbroken

I’m reasonably confident that they’ll default to American Sniper here, the only other one I could see taking it is Intersteallar if they decide that that’s their default “tech nominee.”

Visual Effects

Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould - Guardians of the Galaxy
Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher - Interstellar
Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer - X-Men: Days of Future Past

I don’t think the Academy gives a single fuck about the Apes series so this is a head to head match between Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy. Interstellar is the more prestigious of the nominees and they may well default to that. Alternatively, they may want to give an award the Guardians given that it’s the most popular film of the year and they may just be charmed by it. Then again that didn’t help The Avengers, so I guess I’ll go with Interstellar.

Documentary (Short Subject)

Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry
Joanna – Aneta Kopacz
Our Curse - Tomasz Sliwinski and Maciej Slesicki
The Reaper (La Parka) – Gabriel Serra Arguello
White Earth – J. Christian Jensen

Almost everyone is predicting it will be either Joanna or Crisis Hotline with the latter pretty heavily favored. Having not seen either I'm going to trust the pundits and go with the later, but part of me thinks the former sounds better and I'll be kicking myself if it goes the other way.

Short Film (Animated)

The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacobs and Christopher Hees
The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi
Feast – Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
A Single Life – Joris Oprins

Most pundits are predicting Feast, but I’ve had a lot of luck by voting against the Disney/Pixar shorts over the years so I’m going to go against the grain. I’ve heard strong arguments for Me and My Moulton and The Bigger Picture, but The Dam Keeper looked like the most interestingly animated of the nominees from the fifty second trailer I saw so I’m going to go ahead and guess that one.

Short Film (Live Action)

Aya – Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis
Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney
Butter Lamp (La Lampe Au Beurre De Yak) – Hu Wei and Julien Féret
Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger
The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby and James Lucas

A lot of the pundits seems to be saying that they like “The Butter Lamp” the most out of these but they don’t think it has a chance. It’s been my experience that it’s usually a mistake to predict cynically in this category, but just the same I’m going to follow their lead and predict “The Phone Call” instead, which is about PSTD and has some name actors like Sally Hawkins in it.

That was a really good opening. Loved the Gone Girl reference.

Wow, Adam Levine sure didn't do his own song justice. Not the best representation of Lost Stars.

The actual version -- both of them -- from the film is great.

That makeup win already killed my prediction percentage... it's going to be a long night...

I kinda knew that would happen... but GOTG's make-up was just too good.

Preach it, Drac.

I loved how the music cut off as soon as he said "late wife."

I think they broke the code: mention something depressing in your acceptance speech and the music will stop.

Yep. I bet that woman never even HAD a kid.

So far the song category consists of: falsetto nightmare, boring country crap sung by a dude wearing a cowboy hat with a tuxedo, and novelty song that's supposed to be evil in the movie its from.

That's why there was hype. He was supposed to show up, disease and all, and attempt to perform the song.