My prediction record: 20/24 – a very pleasing number for a very hard year.
The Oscars are here! I’ll be updating this post throughout the ceremony with the winners and my brief thoughts as they come along.
Is it really already that time of year? Golly Moses. Well then, let’s dive into the fray and make some predictions for what’s going to walk away with shiny statues at the show this weekend. And if I have it right, just about everything this year is going to actually involve deserving winners in virtually all categories, and grouse though we might about turning film into a horse race, who can complain about that?
Best Picture
American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
WON: Birdman
Will Win: Birdman
Spoiler: Boyhood
My Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Lazily accusing this of being an easy Oscarbait choice because it’s about actors, or whatever, misses the reality that when this project was first announced, it sounded nothing at all like the kind of thing that comes within miles of an Oscar. It is a weird, brave little piece of craziness, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that the Academy should be paying more attention to, not less. Is Boyhood better? Yes. And Grand Budapest is, in my unhumble opinion, better than either. But this is a choice that will reflect well on the Oscars in years to come, and screw the backlash.
As a fun thought experiment, you can come up with a realistic excuse for everyone of these except for The Theory of Everything and, increasingly, Selma to end up winning. But as a matter of pragmatics, Birdman has swept the three guild awards for which it is eligible, and that’s a lot to look past just because Boyhood “feels” right. And the fact that the race is between two such monumentally non-Oscarbait movies as those (and three, if we throw on The Grand Budapest Hotel) is a beautiful thing. It’s not a lock, but I think it’s considerably stronger than some pundits have been trying to argue.
Best Director
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
WON: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Will Win: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Spoiler: Richard Linklater
My Pick: Wes Anderson
The “gimmick”, if we want to diminish it that way, took a huge amount of planning and creativity to carry off. And the fact that was recognised is not something we should feel bad about. So as I said earlier in the night about a different category that shows up later in this article, fuck the haters.
The romantic logic of saying that Linklater can sneak in even if Boyhood loses Best Picture isn’t lost on me. But predicting a split in normal circumstances – as these, ultimately, are – seems foolish. Besides if Linklater couldn’t manage to win the DGA, I can’t really see the argument whereby he wins here.
Best Actor
Steve Carrell, 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
WON: Eddie Redmayne
Will Win: Eddie Redmayne
Spoiler: Michael Keaton
My Pick: Bradley Cooper
The room I was in was not okay with Keaton losing out. For me, it was Cooper, but surely Keaton would have been the sweetest of all possible outcomes. But Redmayne gave good crying.
Keaton still feels more right – old veteran, apparently a really nice guy that lots of people have worked with, his movie is absolutely in the best overall position out of the five represented here – but the momentum is clearly working with Redmayne. Or even Cooper, but I think the crusty old left-leaning edifice of Hollywood Class that makes up the Academy probably tolerates more than loves American Sniper. Anyway, it doesn’t make much sense to me, but Redmayne is clear the smarter play, in the only acting race that’s up for grabs at all.
Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
WON: Julianne Moore
Will Win: Julianne Moore
Spoiler: None. This is the most locked-up category of the night
My Pick: Marion Cotillard
It was the kind of movie that exists solely to win this award, which is annoying for lots of reasons. But Julianne Moore has an Oscar. And she’s only the second woman to win a Lead Actress Oscar in her 50s, ever. Those are both good things to have accomplished. Godspeed.
For real. This is a lock. Let’s move along.
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
WON: J.K. Simmons
Will Win: J.K. Simmons
Spoiler: Edward Norton
My Pick: Ethan Hawke
Quelle surprise. But I don’t have it in me to be sad that Simmons is an Oscar winner now, even if it’s not the performance I’d have wanted him to win for, nor is my favorite of the five. But hell, he’s been around forever, and he’s always great.
Plus, that was a really terrific acceptance speech.
Having only recently seen The Judge at last, I am baffled and sad by Duvall’s presence. But that’s not important. What is important is that Simmons has basically swept everything that an actor could win, all year long.
Best Supporting Actress
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
WON: Patricia Arquette
Will Win: Patricia Arquette
Spoiler: Emma Stone
My Pick: Patricia Arquette
Got to love a good political activist finale to a speech. Pretty much straight through since July, this has been one of my favorite performances of the year, so for her to end up with an Oscar is a) uncharacteristic for me, b) gratifying
Ever so slightly softer than Actress and Supporting Actor, but it would be an enormous shock, given Arquette’s momentum at this point, for anyone else to win. The sheer iconic nature of the “I thought there’d be more” moment is enough all by itself.
Best Adapted Screenplay
American Sniper, by Jason Hall
The Imitation Game, by Graham Moore
Inherent Vice, by Paul Thomas Anderson
The Theory of Everything, by Anthony McCarten
Whiplash, by Damien Chazelle
WON: The Imitation Game
Will Win: The Imitation Game
Spoiler: Whiplash
My Pick: American Sniper
The last of the eight Best Picture nominees to win an Oscar. And surely the least deserving.
And now we start to get into the trickier ones. Really, any of these but Inherent Vice could in theory win, though Theory of Everything would be shocking, and American Sniper would be the beneficiary of a sweep by that film through all six of its nominations. The Imitation Game vs Whiplash, though, that’s tough. The former is much classier, and there’s literally nowhere else it has as good a chance of winning. The latter, by most accounts, is more passionately loved. But is it passionately loved by 21% of the Academy, at least? I feel like the overall number of nods tips this, ever so slightly, to The Imitation Game.
Best Original Screenplay
Boyhood, by Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, by E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman
The Grand Budapest Hotel, by Wes Anderson
Nightcrawler, by Dan Gilroy
WON: Birdman
Will Win: Birdman
Spoiler: The Grand Budapest Hotel
My Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Re-watched it not that long ago; I think the comedy lands, the POV is steady and true, and the insights, though a little first-worldy, are honest. So fuck you, haters, basically.
“Tricky” nothing, this is an outright clusterfuck. It could readily go anywhere between Birdman, Boyhood, and Grand Budapest, almost certainly in the spirit of a consolation price for not winning Best Picture if Boyhood takes it, because even some of the people who adore it concede some rough patches in the story (whereas nobody who adores Birdman seems to have much to criticise in its writing). Assuming – just to make it easier on myself – that it’s between Birdman and Grand Budapest, and assuming as well that I have everything else right, it basically comes down to this: which film ends up with three wins, and which ends up with four wins? I know that’s not the strategic thinking employed by the average Academy voter, but I’m uncomfortably going to suppose that the film which wins Best Picture wins the most overall Oscars, and Birdman probably needs to win here for that to be true (or Best Actor). It’s weak logic, but in a hard category, I need to go with something. I feel more uncertain here than anywhere else.
Best Cinematography
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Emmanuel Lubezki)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Robert D. Yeoman)
Ida (Łukasz Żal & Ryszard Lenczweski)
Mr. Turner (Dick Pope)
Unbroken (Roger Deakins)
WON: Birdman
Will Win: Birdman
Spoiler: The Grand Budapest Hotel
My Pick: Mr. Turner
It is real hard to feel sorry that Lubezki has two Oscars, after all those unfair misses. Am I sad Pope lost? I am very sad. But that was absolutely never, ever going to happen.
Okay, this one’s easy again. Birdman is an amazing spectacle, and it’s also really easy to point out how it was lit. After years of drought, Lubezki becomes the fourth man to win back-to-back cinematography Oscars, and only the second since they dropped down to just one distinct cinematography category.
Best Editing
American Sniper (Joel Cox, Gary Roach)
Boyhood (Sandra Adair)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Barney Pilling)
The Imitation Game (William Goldenberg)
Whiplash (Tom Cross)
WON: Whiplash
Will Win: Whiplash
Spoiler: Boyhood
My Pick: Boyhood
I’m so glad I changed my prediction at the absolute last minute before I published! I am not, maybe, glad that Boyhood lost. But it is known that Whiplash was widely loved, and it’s not like The Imitation Game won.
Almost as hard as Best Original Screenplay, except we’ve got just two to consider, not three (American Sniper might possibly be able to muscle its way in, but that would be surprising). Whiplash is showy as all hell, Boyhood is difficult, and Boyhood would appear to be in the stronger overall position. But I think showy counts for a bit more. Now, if Boyhood were the Best Picture frontrunner, that would be quite different…
Best Production Design
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock)
The Imitation Game (Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald)
Interstellar (Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis, Paul Healy)
Into the Woods (Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock)
Mr. Turner (Suzie Davies, Charlotte Watts)
WON: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Spoiler: Interstellar
My Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel
First ever Production Design win for a Wes Anderson film! And richly deserved.
Only two of these films are also Best Picture nominees; only one of them is the overall nomination co-leader, with sets that tell the story even more than the script does, and a director who has become synonymous with “look at my amazing production design!” over the years. Probably the most locked category outside of acting.
Best Costume Design
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Milena Canonero)
Inherent Vice (Mark Bridges)
Into the Woods (Colleen Atwood)
Maleficent (Anna B. Shepherd)
Mr. Turner (Jacqueline Durran)
WON: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Spoiler: Into the Woods
My Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Having just awarded the same film in the same category in my own year-end extravaganza, I’m of course pleased. Sure, Canonero is kind of a fixture, but she totally deserved it this time.
Much the same logic as in Best Production Design, except that now Grand Budapest is the only Best Picture nominee. Also, this is exactly the kind of thing that Colleen Atwood always wins for, which possibly makes it a slightly harder call. But I don’t think that it’s worth lingering over for very long – Canonero’s designs were instantly-iconic, and the film obviously has broad support.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy
WON: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Spoiler: Guardians of the Galaxy
My Pick: Foxcatcher
This was a strong category this year. Terrifically worthy win – I rewatched the film just recently, and it’s astonishing how good and imaginative even the subtle stuff is.
There are good arguments for all three – Foxcatcher is the most subtle, Grand Budapest ages Tilda Swinton perfectly, and old age is their favorite effect in this category. And anyone who absolutely loves Guardians and wants it to win anything probably has an easier time pushing it to a win here. But on the assumption that Grand Budapest is going to be a design juggernaut, I’m going to stick with it one more time.
Best Score
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Alexandre Desplat)
The Imitation Game (Alexandre Desplat)
Interstellar (Hans Zimmer)
Mr. Turner (Gary Yershon)
The Theory of Everything (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
WON: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Will Win: The Theory of Everything
Spoiler: The Grand Budapest Hotel
My Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Over the moon. Over the fucking moon. Desplat finally wins, and he finally wins for the best score he’s ever been nominated for.
Desplat will, I imagine, eventually win. And the overt, even obvious thematic ties of his Grand Budapest score and its catch playfulness would theoretically make this a good place for him to do so. But of these five, Theory of Everything has, by far, the most openly “pretty” music, and it is the one where the score most blatantly tells you what to feel. Not the easiest victory, but I have to think it’s pretty solid.
Best Song
From Begin Again: “Lost Stars”
From Beyond the Lights: “Grateful”
From Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me: “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”
From The Lego Movie: “Everything Is Awesome”
From Selma: “Glory”
WON: “Glory”
Will Win: “Glory”
Spoiler: “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”
My Pick: “Lost Stars”
Political considerations undoubtedly drove it, and I won’t lie: I don’t much like “Glory”. But Selma gets to be an Academy Award winner. It needed that more than The Lego Movie, for certain.
The naked, tearjerking sentiment of Glen Campbell’s “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” – the title refers to how he won’t be the one suffering as he descends into Alzheimer’s – would make it a clear-cut winner in almost any year. Except for a year where two of the other nominees are the sole opportunity to reward a famously snubbed movie (well, not “sole”, for Selma, but practically). “Everything Is Awesome” is too ironic and internet-friendly for the Academy, I am certain. But how about that Selma song, anyway? I think it comes down to this: there are going to be voters who want to give Selma an Oscar, any Oscar, and they’ll vote for it reflexively. There are also going to be voters who are pissed off by the rather accusatory tone in the media that cropped up around Selma about how old and racist and white and male the Academy is, and fuck you, racist Academy. And they will avoid voting for it on principle. Predicting this, I think, basically comes down to trying to guess which of those groups is larger.
Best Sound Mixing
American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Interstellar
Unbroken
Whiplash
WON: Whiplash
Will Win: American Sniper
Spoiler: Whiplash
My Pick: American Sniper
The sound mixing is some of the very best stuff going on in Whiplash so it’s hard to find fault with it winning. Though Sniper is the only one of these I actually think belonged in a “top five” conversation.
The harder of the two sound categories. Music-related films do well here; usually just slightly better than war films. But the Best Picture nominee to have outgrossed the other seven Best Picture nominees combined has to win something, and I think this is an extremely easy place to mark it down without having to think about its implications. I also don’t love predicting a split in the sound categories.
Best Sound Editing
American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Unbroken
WON: American Sniper
Will Win: American Sniper
Spoiler: Interstellar
My Pick: American Sniper
No surprise at all, but pleasing.
The much, much easier of the sound categories. I mean, what else would it be? The Battle of the Five Armies, a film that sort of just farted itself into theaters and has no other nominations? Birdman, a film with virtually no sound that announces itself in any kind of obvious way? Interstellar, with its famously contentious IMAX sound (more a mixing issue than an editing one, but that’s an arcane thing to know)? Unbroken, the war movie that they liked a hell of a lot less? No, don’t bother overthinking it. This one is cake.
Best Visual Effects
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past
WON: Interstellar
Will Win: Interstellar
Spoiler: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
My Pick: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Is it shocking that Apes lost? It is not. Is it appropriate? It is definitely not.
Honestly, the fact that Interstellar has more than twice as many nominations as any other nominee here (Apes, X-Men, and Captain America show up nowhere else) is the best I’ve got for picking it. That, and if they couldn’t be arsed to give it Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there’s no obvious reason to do it here. Guardians did make an awful lot of money, but none of these were exactly a flop.
Best Animated Feature
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
WON: Big Hero 6
Will Win: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Spoiler: Big Hero 6
My Pick: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
This one, honestly, caught me totally by surprise. I thought this was one of the more locked-up categories. Now, there was a split between the two films I sort of didn’t care about, and the three I really liked, so between Dragon and BH6, I don’t know that I care one way or the other. Kaguya exists, and that’s the most important part.
There simply didn’t seem to be any campaigning by anybody but DreamWorks, who would have won it anyway. After Frozen, Big Hero 6 doesn’t seem “special” enough, and though The Boxtrolls certainly does, it feels weirdly like Laika doesn’t want it very badly. And the two imports are just glad to be here. Ages ago, I predicted that Dragon would be the default pick if nobody else fought for it; and here we are.
Best Foreign Language Film
Ida (Poland)
Leviathan (Russia)
Tangerines (Estonia)
Timbuktu (Mauritania)
Wild Tales (Argentina)
WON: Ida
Will Win: Ida
Spoiler: Wild Tales
My Pick: I haven’t seen all of the nominees, but Wild Tales and Tangerines would have to be real barnburners for me to like them more than Timbuktu
FUCK YEAH, you talk over the play-off music! Best acceptance speech ever. And right, very glad that a great film won, even if that great film wasn’t Timbuktu.
Ida was the rarest of the rare, a foreign language film to become some kind of modest hit in the States. That’s not infallible logic – Amélie and Pan’s Labyrinth both lost – but I’m going to let it guide me in this case. There’s a classy old-school Euroart craftsmanship that feels right about it winning this award.
Best Documentary
Citizenfour
Finding Vivian Maier
Last Days in Vietnam
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga
Won: Citizenfour
Will Win: Citizenfour
Spoiler: Virunga
My Pick: I haven’t seen all of the nominees
I haven’t seen nearly enough of these to have any kind of opinion on what’s going on. It is, in fact, the only winner in a feature category I haven’t seen.
By and large, the Academy eschews political documentaries, but I’m at a total loss to guess what would take the place of the hot talking point movie about Edward Snowden. Particularly since so many people seem morally offended by Finding Vivian Maier, which otherwise fits the mold of the typical winner better than anything else here.
Best Documentary Short Subject
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper
White Earth
WON: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Will Win: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Spoiler: Joanna
My Pick: I haven’t seen any of the nominees
Still haven’t seen any of these, so, yeah.
By all accounts, Our Curse is so indescribably sad that it’s barely possible to watch it. That doesn’t feel right at all. Which leaves us with a film about suicide among American war vets, a film about a dying mother, a film about a slaughterhouse, and a film about the impact of oil drilling. The latter two sound a bit less Serious and Important, and I feel like, in the wake of American Sniper, the effect of PTSD among veterans is a more visible issue to tackle. But, not having seen any of these, it feels like it would be pretty easy to swap my “will win” and “spoiler”, just based on how they’ve affected other people I’ve listened to.
Best Animated Short Subject
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life
WON: Feast
Will Win: The Dam Keeper
Spoiler: Feast
My Pick: The Bigger Picture
I will allow myself to be sad that the “Tim’s least favorite” rule hasn’t come back into play. But also gratified, because I’m not that cynical.
Working backwards: A Single Life is too short and trivial, Me and My Moulton is too light and unserious, The Bigger Picture is too artsy in its application of technique. Which leaves us with two American films, both extremely painterly in aesthetic. The Dam Keeper makes you feel the scale of its ambitions much more, and last year taught me the danger of assuming that Disney has any kind of leg up in this category – and Get a Horse! had a lot more in its corner than Feast does. So I happily report that we’re reverting to the old habit I had of predicting my least-favorite to win this category.
Best Live-Action Short Subject
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh
The Phone Call
WON: The Phone Call
Will Win: The Phone Call
Spoiler: Aya
My Pick: The Phone Call
It would, I admit, have been cooler for Butter Lamp to win, but I’m happy that my favorite got in. Go eat those donuts, Mr. Director.
My only success predicting this category ever came from following the “it has well-known stars” rule. So even though The Phone Call and Crisis Hotline have eerily similar subjects, I’m going to predict them both to win their respective categories. Really, though, all I can definitively say is that Butter Lamp is in last place. This category does love children and the Irish, so I’m probably selling Boogaloo and Graham short.