Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Im Oscar Predictions, au Oscar Predictions, to Oscar Predictions! I'm your host, Half of Neil Patrick Harris' Face and these are my predictions for the "major" awards at this weekend's 87th Academy Awards.
I know there has been a lot of controversy this year over some (read: a lot of) the Academy's choices and snubs this year. The result is an overall weak year (read: reeeeeeeeal white) of nominees, where, despite there being a lot of very good movies, there simply aren't many nominees that stand out. Typically this would make for an exciting Oscars where anyone can win. Unfortunately, this year seems to be a depressing mix of weak nominees and most categories seemingly already sewn up.
But in any case, I'm going to go over them. (Because you can't tell this half a face what to do!) If nothing else I will try to give some thoughts on who should have won, whether it be another nominee or someone/a film that wasn't nominated at all. (Also, if I slur along the way, please remember I'm only half a face and refrain from making fun of me. You jerk.)
BEST PICTURE
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| Ellar Coltrane demonstrating his AMAZING method acting. |
Clint Eastwood & Company for American Sniper
Alejandro & Company for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater & Cathleen Sutherland for Boyhood
Wes Anderson & Company for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nora Grossman & Company for The Imitation Game
Christian Colson & Company for Selma
Tim Bevan & Company for The Theory of Everything
Jason Blum & Company for Whiplash
It's crazy how the earliest presumed frontrunner for the Best Picture Academy Award has AGAIN had its hopes completely destroyed by political opponents who have little to no connection to the world of film - the first being Zero Dark Thirty in 2012, a complex and fascinating work dramatizing the manhunt for Osama bin Laden which was totally derailed and never recovered from the lambasting it received at the hands of people like senator John McCain. And now it's Ava DuVernay's historical drama about Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches.
Selma, once considered and expected to be not only the front runner for the Academy Award for Best Picture, is now only nominated for two awards (Best Picture and Best Original Song) and finds itself embarrassingly far outside of the Best Picture conversation. To put it bluntly, it's been a disaster for them. Besides the late release and very little screeners sent out to critics, the creators were obviously blindsided by the vicious accusations of historical inaccuracy (particularly involving the film's portrayal of president Lyndon Johnson and his involvement in the civil rights movement). It doesn't matter that many of these allegations were overblown, done out of self-interest, and even complete lies. All that matters is what happened. The attacks on Selma basically blackballed the movie.
And that's a problem. Films like Selma and Zero Dark Thirty cannot be destroyed for their historical inaccuracy and punished ruthlessly while other historical films (like The Imitation Game and American Sniper this year, and Argo which won Best Picture in 2012 and had a final act that, while awesome, was 100% fabrication) are given a pass. If engrossing, intricate pieces of art with historical subjects continue to be treated in hateful, dismissive, and punitive ways, then clearly we are going to cause there to be fewer and fewer engrossing, intricate pieces of art with historical subjects. I hate slippery slope arguments, but the precedent that is being set does not bode well for future historical films.
So, that was a roundabout way of saying that Selma isn't winning Best Picture this year. And neither is American Sniper or The Grand Budapest Hotel or The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything or Whiplash. No, this year is all about the two bad B's - Alejandro G. Inarritu's Birdman and Richard Linklater's Boyhood. It's an interesting race. Both films are the exact opposite of what the Academy typically awards Best Picture. Both are smaller films, both are made more for the art house crowd than mainstream audiences, both have lofty ambitions and neither of them ultimately quite reach the bar they respectively set for themselves. While it's easy to see either of them losing to a film like Selma if what happened to it hadn't happened, either one could believably lose the other.
So, which is it? The other award shows can't seem to make up their mind. No one, even the other major award shows, can seem to make up their minds. And, to be honest, until today I've been just as unsure. But I think I've finally decided. For the past two years in a row - after the baffling decision to not nominate Ben Affleck for Best Director for Argo - the Best Director and Best Picture awards have gone to different movies. First it was Ang Lee for Life of Pi and Argo, then it was Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity and 12 Years a Slave. I believe this year will be more of the same. Clearly, or for my money, Inarritu's work on Birdman is superior to what Linklater does with Boyhood. As such, I believe Best Picture will go to the 12 year wonder, Richard Linklater's Boyhood. But, how awesome would it be if The Grand Budapest Hotel won? This half a face can dream, right?
Who Will Win: Richard Linklater & Cathleen Sutherland for Boyhood
Who Should Win: Wes Anderson & Company for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Clint Eastwood & Company for American Sniper, Nora Grossman & Company for The Imitation Game, Tim Bevan & Company for The Theory of Everything
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Paul Thomas Anderson & Company for Inherent Vice, Dan Gilroy & Company for Nightcrawler, Jim Jarmusch & Company for Only Lovers Left Alive, Jonathan Glazer & Company for Under the Skin
Alejandro G. Inarritu for Birdman or (TUVI)
Richard Linklater for Boyhood
Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game
If this were a horse race, three of the horses would have been shot by the starter gun before even making it out of the gate. This category is either Inarritu's and Linklater's to win. It's hard to say who has the advantage in the voters' eyes (it's minuscule if it even exists), but if I had to place a bet on it I would go with Inarritu in part because of all the recent wins for Birdman. As for the movies themselves, a solid case can be made for either one - for the enthusiasm Inarritu brings to Birdman and the utter dedication and madness it to took to get the film to look like one shot, or for Linklater's patience and humanity, the changes, declines and ultimate growth you see in his direction throughout the 12 years it took to film Boyhood. But perhaps they'll split the vote and Wes Anderson will sweep in from the starting gate and take it! ZOMBIE HORSE! ZOMBIE HORSE!
Who Will Win: Alejandro G. Inarritu for Birdman or (The Parenthetical Nightmare)
Who Should Win: Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher and Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler, Ava DuVernay for Selma, Jonathan Glazer for Under the Skin, Damien Chazelle for Whiplash
BEST ACTOR
Steve Carrell in Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton in Birdman or (Look Ma, No Parenthetical!)
Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything
The Best Actor category is usually one of the most competitive of the night. But this year, what's more competitive is the catalogue of actors who WEREN'T nominated for this award. Just off the top of my head you have Ralph Fiennes for The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler, Tom Hardy for Locke, Joaquin Phoenix for Inherent Vice, and David Oyelowo for Selma. If those were the five nominees instead of the five who were actually nominated, I would shed exactly zero tears about who was "snubbed."
But we don't live in a perfect world and this is what we've got. And just like the Best Director Category, this is another two person race. If there are two things the Academy love more than anything else it's stories about the process of making movies/theatre and stories about people overcoming immense disabilities (and occasionally films about the Holocaust). This year is no different. And while Michael Keaton is superb for what he's supposed to be in Birdman, it's going to be nearly impossible to beat Eddie Redmayne this year. And that's a real shame. While I can applaud Redmayne on his transformation, The Theory of Everything just isn't a good movie. And sadly, Redmayne ends up playing the character's ALS more than the character himself. It's possible that there's another split in the voting or the Academy's love of Bradley Cooper outweighs all and he wins, but this year it looks like the category with the most potential will be won by one of the weakest links.
Who Will Win: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything
Who Should Win: Michael Keaton for Birdman or (I'm Batman! No... Wait...)
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Basically everyone who was nominated.
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Ralph Fiennes for The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler, Tom Hardy for Locke, Joaquin Phoenix for Inherent Vice, David Oyelowo for Selma
BEST ACTRESS
Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore for Still Alice
Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon for Wild
This is going to end up being a lifetime achievement award rather than a deserved Best Actress award. But it's hard to feel too bad about it. Without a doubt, Julianne Moore is one of the finest actresses of the last 20 years. And she's been nominated for four Oscars in the past and has zero wins. I just wish Still Alice wasn't such a slight movie. Despite being well put together, the film just lacks the complexity of other films that tackle similar subjects (e.g. Away From Her and Amore).
But that's how it goes. Wild and Gone Girl just haven't gotten the award season pushes they would have needed to net Witherspoon or Pike a win despite their performances, Felicity Jones would have fare better in the Supporting Actress category, and even though Marion Cotillard was AMAZING in Two Days, One Night and deserves the win, she is a past winner and the film was seen be close to no people in the U.S. While it's a shame this is what its coming down to, at least Moore's performance in Still Alice is solid and her career as a whole is exemplary. For an upset you could go with Pike or Witherspoon (or Cotillard for the MASSIVE upset), but this is Moore's category.
Who Will Win: Julianne Moore for Still Alice
Who Should Win: Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Scarlett Johansson for Under the Skin, Jenny Slate for Obvious Child, Agata Trzebuchowska for Ida
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Duvall for The Judge
Ethan Hawke for Boyhood
Edward Norton for Birdman or (Ignorance: The Other White Virtue)
Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher
Just Keep "J.K." Simmons for Whiplash
Just like with Julianne Moore, it's hard to be mad at the thought of Just Keep taking home the award for Best Supporting Actor. He's powerful, beautifully adept at both comedy and drama, and he's brutally, despicably magnificent in Whiplash. He's also easily the better choice over Hawke, Ruffalo who many people seem to think is one of the strongest elements of Foxcatcher but who felt to me like just a device meant to pull the audience's heartstrings, and Duvall who should be embarrassed to be nominated for such a hokey piece of shit that The Judge is. The problem is that Simmons just isn't better than Edward Norton in Birdman.
Those of you who know me may no that I'm not the biggest Edward Norton fan. But he is easily the best part of Birdman. His first scene where he takes Keaton's character's play away from it and transforms it into something totally different, something real, is one of those occasional moments in film where you're reminded at just how much power an actor can have and the astounding heights they can attain through a complete understanding and manipulation of their craft. And for a while it seemed like Norton might give Simmons a run for his money. But, as the other various award shows have come and gone and as Simmons (just) keeps taking home award after award, it has become nearly 100% certain that he will be taking home gold this weekend. And, honestly, I'm okay with that.
Who Will Win: J.K. Simmons for Whiplash
Who Should Win: Edward Norton for Birdman or (Colons are for Sissies)
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Robert Duvall for The Judge, Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Riz Ahmed for Nightcrawler, Josh Brolin for Inherent Vice, Tom Hiddleston for Only Lovers Left Alive
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
Laura Dern for Wild
Keira Knightly for The Imitation Game
Emma Stone for Birdman or (Honey, I Shrunk the Parenthetical)
Meryl Streep for Into the Woods
This is a stone cold lock in my opinion. I know that a few people say that Emma Stone has a chance to sneak in and take it, but I don't buy it. This is Patricia Arquette's award and it has been from the very beginning. The only real hurdle she really ever faced was almost being put into the Best Actress category which she would have undoubtedly lost to Julianne Moore. However, after she made it into Best Supporting Actress it has been smooth sailing. And rightfully so. No one is more important to Boyhood's success than her. In reality, it isn't even Ellar Coltrane's character's story. It's Arquette's. And the way she portrays her characters immense struggles being a single mother is not only breathtaking, it is the essential core of the film.
The only real, sad takeaway here is the fact that perhaps the three of the strongest, actually supporting performances of the year were looked over entirely. Carrie Coon's performance as the sister in Gone Girl and Agata Kulesza's performance as the aunt in Ida are two of the most heartbreaking and emotionally perfect this year in any category, and Tilda Swinton's turn as Mason in Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer is a brilliant mix of hilarity and menace, while also being an amazing transformation physically and vocally. But with Gone Girl's award season run completely collapsing in on itself, Ida being one of those brilliant foreign films that no one in the U.S. saw, and Snowpiercer just being one of those movies, these three genuine and striking performances will continue to go unnoticed.
Who Will Win: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
Who Should Win: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Keira Knightly for The Imitation Game, Meryl Streep for Into the Woods
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Carrie Coon for Gone Girl, Agata Kulesza for Ida, Tilda Swinton for Snowpiercer
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
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| Not Pictured: Hugo Guinness. Unless he happens to be a Transformer. |
Alejandro G. Inarritu & Friends for Birdman or (You'll Never Guess What the "G." is For)
Richard Linklater for Boyhood
E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman for Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler
Besides Best Picture, the writing categories are always the hardest to pick. And while Birdman and Boyhood are sparring to see who takes home the big prize, I think there is a genuine three-way race for Best Original Screenplay. Forget ol' Zombie Horse this time! Wes Anderson is racing right beside the two heavyweight stallions on his penny-farthing and I think he ends up taking it (perhaps with a little nitrous oxide tucked away in his antique accordion backpack). This is Wes Anderson's category. Usually if he's even nominated for an Academy Award it's for writing. And since it's wholly unlikely that he wins for Best Director and CERTAIN that he won't win Best Picture, I think it's more than appropriate to award Best Original Screenplay to one of the best films of 2014 that continues to get better and better with time and viewings and one of the most twisty and unique to boot.
While it's possible that Birdman or Boyhood could swoop in and steal this one away - alternatively, I guess we could see the Academy giving the award to Foxcatcher for the same reasons I gave for giving it to Grand Budapest, though they'd be doing so wrongly - I believe the smart money is on Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness. And even though it would never happen in a million years, seeing Dan Gilroy win for his underrated and caustically amazing Nightcrawler would make my entire night.
Who Will Win: Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Who Should Win: Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel OR Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman for Foxcatcher
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Pawel Pawlikowski for Ida, Mike Leigh for Mr. Turner, Jim Jarmusch for Only Lover Left Alive
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jason Hall for American Sniper
Graham Moore for The Imitation Game
Paul Thomas Anderson for Inherent Vice
Anthony McCarten for The Theory of Everything
Damien Chazelle for Whiplash
This is the hardest major category to call period. Besides Paul Thomas Anderson (whose Inherent Vice is as anti Oscar bait as it comes), any of the other four nominees could take this. For a while, it seems as though The Imitation Game had this in the bag. But after it's loss to The Theory of Everything at the BAFTAs, it appears to be on the decline while films like The Theory of Everything and American Sniper continue to be on the rise.
SWERVE! Forget all those other screenplays! Damien Chazelle's adaptation of his own short film, Whiplash, is going to sneak in and take this award home. American Sniper and The Imitation Game both have been part to controversies about their historical accuracy (though not enough to take them out of major award contention), Inherent Vice is Inherent Vice, and The Theory of Everything, despite its win at the BAFTAs, is still the second fiddle British biopic behind The Imitation Game (really the third fiddle behind the brilliant and criminally ignored Mr. Turner). I believe this leaves things wide open for the small but sizzling Whiplash to take home gold.
Who Will Win: Damien Chazelle for Whiplash
Who Should Win: Paul Thomas Anderson for Inherent Vice
Who Was Nominated and Shouldn't Have Been: Jason Hall for American Sniper, Graham Moore for The Imitation Game, Anthony McCarten for The Theory of Everything
Who Should Have Been Nominated Instead: Gillian Flynn for Gone Girl, Gillian Robespierre for Obvious Child, Jonathan Glazer for Under the Skin
SMALLER CATEGORIES
Best Animated Feature:
Who Will Win: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Who Should Win: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Who Could Win: Song of the Sea
Who Should Have Been Nominated: THE LEGO MOVIE, HELLO?!?!
Best Foreign Language Film:
Who Will Win: Wild Tales
Who Should Win: Ida
Who Could Win: Ida or Leviathan
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Force Majeure, Mommy
Best Documentary Feature:
Who Will Win: Citizenfour
Who Should Win: Citizenfour
Who Could Win: Virunga
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Life Itself
Best Cinematography:
Who Will Win: Birdman or (Parenthetical 2: Electric Boogaloo)
Who Should Win: Ida or Mr. Turner
Who Could Win: Unbroken
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Nightcrawler, Only Lovers Left Alive, Selma, Under the Skin
Best Film Editing:
Who Will Win: Boyhood
Who Should Win: Whiplash
Who Could Win: American Sniper or Whiplash
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Nightcrawler, Under the Skin
Best Original Score:
Who Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Who Should Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Who Could Win: The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Birdman, The Double, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Under the Skin
Best Original Song:
Who Will Win: "Glory"
Who Should Win: "Glory"
Who Could Win: "Everything is Awesome" or "I'm Not Gonna Miss You"
Who Should Have Been Nominated: "Hal," "Yellow Flicker Beat"
