To begin with, let’s not even talk about my predictions, and I apologise deeply if you were using me for the office pool.
Second, a very surprising morning, and not always for the best (Selma is the obvious talking point of the morning, and I have some scattered thoughts about that throughout). But if we don’t worry about having the Oscars matter – it’s hard to say that, collectively, the Academy “meant” anything by these choices, since institutional votes don’t really work as political statements; “they just plain didn’t think about it” is probably more accurate, and more depressingly symptomatic of where most Americans stand as far as the state of society – and just enjoy them for the idiosyncratic view on American cinema they represent, well, it was real damn idiosyncratic this year.
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
Finally, a number other than 9 in the great age of “it can be anywhere from 5 to 10”. I’ll talk about this more whenever I get around to making my year-end list (still waiting on seeing some things! Goodbye to Language opens so soon!), but it freaks me out a little bit that two of my absolute favorites of the year – Boyhood and Grand Budapest Hotel – are so thick in the Oscar race. Is the Academy becoming smarter, or am I losing my taste?
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Boyhood
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
And so, the first “lone director” since Best Picture increased above five is Bennett Miller. This is at once shocking and unfair, but also feels oddly right. The lack of Ava DuVernay here just feels really shitty, even more than when it seemed that they were going to pass her over for Clint Eastwood.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Richard Linklater
Best Actor
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 haven’t seen American Sniper yet, which feels like the bulwark between this being a halfway satisfactory list, versus “Michael Keaton and those four other performances that I can’t remember a thing about”. With David Oyelowo missing out, this makes the first all-white group of 20 acting nominees in something like 20 years. Because, if there’s one thing that 2014 taught us, it’s that America has finally become the post-racial utopia that we’ve all been dreaming of.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Michael Keaton
Best Actress
Alternate: Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Reason to be happy: I don’t have to hunt down Cake now. Reason to be very happy: Cotillard joins the two nominations club for the best performance of her career and one of the legitimately best of the year. This is, like, easily the classiest acting category this year, right?
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Julianne Moore
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
Reason to be sad: okay, so I officially have to track down The Judge now.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: J.K. Simmons
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
HOLY SHIT good for Laura Dern. I mean, she was fine and all, but there just wasn’t a role there. Given the Academy’s refusal to engage with interesting performances in hidden movies, I feel like this category is about as good as it could be.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Patricia Arquette
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
So they really hated Gone Girl, huh? And that’s all I’ll say about this, since I haven’t seen two of the films, and one of them seems pretty likely to be my favorite.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: The Imitation Game
Best Original Screenplay
Boyhood, by Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, by E. Max Frye & Dan Futterma
The Grand Budapest Hotel, by Wes Anderson
Nightcrawler, by Dan Gilroy
It does seem bizarre that Foxcatcher could land in all the places it did and not find its footing in Best Picture. And it was in this category, during the live announcements, that the depths of the Selma disinterest became viscerally clear. I mean, that’s three different categories where Foxcatcher in particular seems to have the #4 or #5 spot, while Selma was probably just barely out. It’s nonsensical to accuse enormous voting bodies of trying to make or not make political statements, but it doesn’t reflect well on the state of the culture. Or maybe it’s just that I disliked Foxcatcher so very much, and it seems like a good whipping boy. Anyway, it’s a lot more to talk about than belongs in a post like this, so I won’t bring it up again. But it makes for a sour morning.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Boyhood
Best Cinematography
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Emmanuel Lubezki)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Robert D. Yeoman)
Ida (Lukasz Zal & Ryszard Lenczweski)
Mr. Turner (Dick Pope)
Unbroken (Roger Deakins)
The absolute highlight of the morning: Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs delicately picking her way around “Lukasz Zal” and “Ryszard Lenczweski”, and then referring to the next nominee as Dick Poop. Incidentally, Ida, in this category? Probably my favorite surprise of the morning, even over Cotillard.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Birdman
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)
Hear that? That’s the sound of Birdman‘s shot at Best Picture deflating. Very weird snub. But they do like their editing to be showy.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Boyhood
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)
This is as good a place as any to note: Mr. Turner got more nominations than Selma and Gone Girl combined. This is not something that one would have predicted in advance, I don’t think. But yes, Production Design: one of only two categories I predicted perfectly, and the only one I’m proud of. I could do without Into the Woods, myself, but it’s a nice batch of 5.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
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)
I won’t like, I like this category when it goes a little bit more outrageously off-book – W./E. and the like. But I guess Maleficent counts.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Into the Woods
Best Hair & Make-Up
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy
And here I was ready to predict The Theory of Everything for the win. But this is an impossible slate to argue against. Indeed, it’s the only category where I think every nominee clearly deserves it.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
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)
I mean, hell, I am a huge Mr. Turner fan, and I don’t think I could tell you what happened in that score. But for the first time ever, the Academy has done right by Desplat, and they did it twice. That’s pretty great, for this category.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: The Theory of Everything
Best Song
From Begin Again: “Lost Stars”
From Beyond the Lights: “Grateful”
From Glenn Campbell: I’ll Be Me: “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”
From The Lego Movie: “Everything is Awesome”
From Selma: “Glory”
Not the first place I’d have wanted Beyond the Lights to show up, but it’s still pretty fantastic that it gets to call itself an Oscar nominee.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: “Glory”
Best Sound Editing
American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Unbroken
Did Birdman have interesting sound? I genuinely don’t remember that. And certainly, it’s not showy in the way this category favors. Meanwhile: this solitary Sound Editing nod (which has happened, like, several years running now. Weird) is responsible for making every one of the six Middle Earth films an Academy Award nominee, and I hope it’s proud of itself.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: American Sniper
Best Sound Mixing
American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Interstellar
Unbroken
Whiplash
Nobody’s going to talk about it, because it’s not a sexy category, but this is an extraordinary miss for Into the Woods. Especially with fucking Interstellar making it in. Clearly, the sound branch didn’t see the film in its annoyingly inaudible IMAX release.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: American Sniper
Best Visual Effects
Captain America: The First Avenger
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Two MCU films, huh? But also the two MCU films with the best visual effects so far, so it’s not that frustrating. Now, when the breathtaking work in Dawn…Apes loses, that will be frustrating.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Interstellar
Best Foreign Language Film
Ida (Poland)
Leviathan (Russia)
Tangerines (Estonia)
Timbuktu (Mauritania)
Wild Tales (Argentina)
Force Majeure would not have been the one I’d have expected to be the weak link, but I can’t say that I’m sorry. Right now, I’ve only seen but two of these, with a third to follow this weekend, so more later.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Ida
Best Animated Feature
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
Impossibly, The Lego Movie missed out. Which suddenly makes this a crazed free-for-all where nothing makes sense and all is anarchy. I like it. It’s certainly the most open race, now.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: The Boxtrolls
Best Documentary
Citizenfour
Finding Vivian Mayer
Last Days in Vietnam
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga
I mean, I haven’t seen any of these, so I don’t know. But that’s a shitload of high-profile titles they skipped over.
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Citizenfour
And then the shorts, and it’s really easiest just to not bother talking about the shorts at this stage.
Best Documentary Short
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper
White Earth
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Cris Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Best Animated Short
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: Feast
Best Live-Action Short
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh
The Phone Call
Non-binding gut instinct prediction to win: The Phone Call