Just like last year, I am going to make my best guess about what will win at the Oscars this weekend. I’ll provide commentary for the major categories and then just highlight my predicted winners on the rest of the ballot.
Best Picture
You have no idea how much I would prefer this Birdman sweeping towards Osar glory.
This has been an extremely weird race. For most of the year it looked like Boyhood would win Best Picture with relative ease. It had literally unanimous critical acclaim, became a breakout hit for a film of its scale, and is built around a the very relate-able experiences and emotions of growing up. An early bevy of critics awards and the Golden Globe for Best Picture-Drama seemed to set up another “boring” race for the big prize.
That presumption was shattered on the rocks once the industry guilds started giving out their awards. Seemingly out of nowhere, Birdman has swept up the top awards from the Producers’, Screen Actors, and Directors’ guilds. You have to go all the way back to 1995 to find a year where one film (Apollo 13) won those three guilds and lost Best Picture at the Oscars. Boyhood does have the British Academy’s Best Picture award in hand, but the race has definitely shifted in favor of the movie that speaks directly to Hollywood. That’s becoming a depressing pattern, but I’ll save it for another article. Look for Birdman to win. Boyhood is close behind and The Grand Budapest Hotel lurks as a potential spoiler.
Best Director
Linklater probably won’t win, but I like him. An image of Innaritu’s smug face will only piss me off.
The above situation applies to this race as well. It is worth noting that there has been an uptick in the number of splits between Picture and Director over the past few years. These two awards are usually tied at the hip, but the switch to a preferential ballot in Picture a few years ago has seen two splits in the past two years. It’s a seemingly close race between Boyhood and Birdman, so a split is plausible. If I had to guess I think we’d see Birdman‘s Alejandro González Iñárritu take Director while the more emotionally resonant Boyhood takes Picture. It could go the other way, though. Or one of them will win both. But Iñárritu seems like the safest bet.
Best Actor
Not gonna lie, I find Eddie Redmayne’s face deeply punch-able.
This is another weird race, though it’s one I have a hard time investing in. The actual crop of nominees here is pretty lifeless to me, but we do have some lingering drama about whether Eddie Redmayne’s mimicry of Stephen Hawking in The Imitation of Everything or Michael Keaton’s meta parodying of his own career in Birdman. I’d rather it go to an non-nominated performer like Ralph Fiennes or David Oyelowo, but they have not given me dictatorial control over these awards yet. Redmayne has all the requisite precursors (SAG, Globe, and BAFTA), so he seems the safer bet. But it also seems weird that Birdman is sweeping towards Best Picture and won’t bring along one of its three nominated performances. Plus, the Academy tends to give lead Actor to veterans more often than not. I’ll go with Redmayne, but don’t be shocked when Keaton gets a standing ovation.
Best Actress
Julianne Moore will win for Still Alice. She has won every precursor. She has never won an Oscar. She is playing a character with early onset Alzheimer’s. Go ahead and feel happy for her and then move along with your day.
Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons will win for Whiplash. Read the above section about Julianne Moore, but sub in “demonically aggressive music instructor” for “Alzheimer’s patient.” I’ll be really pleased with this one because Simmons just lights the screen on fire in Whiplash and he’s long been a great character actor.
Best Supporting Actress
Arquette’s win is a long time coming.
Hey, look, another pre-ordained winner! Patricia Arquette will win for Boyhood. Look up. Read it again. The word apply thrice. She plays an average Texas mom who does her best by her kids, even as she has trouble with her own life decisions. She’ll give a pretty adorable speech, so you can look forward to that.
Best Original Screenplay
Does this not make it an adapted screenplay?
This category will either be my greatest triumph or worst defeat of the night. The race seems to be down to The Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman. The former has won the screenplay awards from the Writers’ Guild and the British Academy, along with a Golden Globe for Best Picture-Musical/Comedy. The latter won the Globe for Screenplay and is suddenly in the pole position for Best Picture. It would feel weird for a very verbose movie like Birdman to win Picture and Director, but not Screenplay. Also, Birdman’s screenplay is bad. So…that should count for something, right? On the other hand, Budapest‘s Wes Anderson is on his 3rd nomination in this category and has finally seen his cult of adoration break through at the Oscars. And his screenplay is the best of the year. I’m going to go with good taste and say that The Grand Budapest Hotel wins. If not, then I invite all of you to enjoy my ranting and raving about the cold injustice of the universe on social media.
As harrowing a moment as cinema had this year.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Just like Original Screenplay, this is a battle between the forces of good taste and mediocrity. Here the showdown is between Whiplash and The Imitation Game. The latter is the sport of bloodless Oscarbait that would have won Best Picture 15-20 years ago, but has thankfully fallen out of favor lately. Despite that, it looked like a safe bet to win this relatively barren category until the Academy pulled a fast one on everyone. Whiplash is an original screenplay, but the film’s writer/director made a short sample film based on it in order to secure funding for the feature. Unlike every other awards body, the Academy decided that this made Whiplash an adapted screenplay. Is that bullshit? Most definitely. But I’ll take it! Whiplash is a crackerjack piece of writing and it has a lot of fervent support and a sure-thing Supporting Actor winner who might have coattails. Whiplash will win a squeaker thanks to category fraud.
Best Editing
Winner: Boyhood
Alternative: American Sniper
Best Cinematography
Winner: Birdman
Alternate: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Production Design
Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alternate: Interstellar
That safe will be a good place to store all the Oscars that The Grand Budapest Hotel will collect.
Best Costume Design
Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alternate: Into the Woods
Best Makeup and Hair
Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alternate: Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Sound Mixing
Winner: Birdman
Alternate: Whiplash
Best Sound Editing
Winner: American Sniper
Alternate: Interstellar
Best Original Score
Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alternate: The Theory of Everything
Selma deserved so much more than a token Original Song win.
Best Original Song
Winner: “Glory” by Common and John Legend – Selma
Alternate: “Lost Stars” by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley and Nick Southwood – Begin Again
Best Visual Effects
Winner: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Alternate: Interstellar
Best Animated Feature Film
Winner: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Alternate: The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Best Documentary Feature Film
Winner: CitizenFour
Alternate: Virunga
No, I’m not predicting the short film winners. No one knows who will win those, so it’s not worth guessing. Anyway, the actual results from this will differ quite a bit. Feel free to hector me for being wrong afterwards on Twitter at @ABeanTweeting.
Alex Bean
A life-long Midwesterner, currently living and working in Chicago. Primarily writes here about television and film (which is what he accrued crushing debt to study in school), but will write about books, sports, video games, or whatever else strikes his fancy. He's the one who thinks baseball is really boring.
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“Boyhood” will win Best Picture- in my humble opinion. “Birdman” is too weird for the Academy. The only recent comparison was “The Artist” and that won in a much weaker year. Iñárritu might win (Two Mexican directors in a row!) because “Birdman” was more visually… directed, but even then I see a split like last year. 3/4 of the acting front runners should be able to put Oscar winner on their resume. I’m still calling Bradley Cooper for Best Actor, because I want at least one upset in the major Awards and he seems most likely. Also, “The Theory of Everything” should win nothing!
I can also see “Foxcatcher” win Best Hair and Make-up because the Academy seems to prefer realistic make-up (See “The Iron Lady”, “Ed Wood”, fucking “Driving Miss Daisy”). I know there are dozens of wins to counter those, but I can see them fawning over Steve Carrell’s horrible fake nose.
A Cooper win would genuinely surprise me at this point. I think American Sniper became too political for them to give it a big award, though there is a lot of goodwill built towards him. Plus, Redmayne has just the baitiest role imaginable (from what I can tell).
Boyhood winning would not surprise me, but the way Birdman has dominated the guilds is really telling. I also think the preferential ballot may be leading us towards these pattern of self-congratulation in Hollywood. Everyone likes being told they’re special.
Dowd’s comments on AV Club today on what Cooper brought to Sniper was really what I’ve been trying to say when i thought it was an interesting character study. People hear that and think you support the actual man and how he was and that you loved the movie but I pretty much hate everything about it except intense parts of his performance. I could see it sneaking in ahead of Redmayne. Redmayne is such Hollywood royalty that he will win it in the next 20 years at some point and I think there were better performances than him this year.
Eddie Redmayne is good and REALLY acting (I imagine this movie sucked to make for him), but, yes, this may be the baitiest role in the history of film. I’m pretty sure he’ll win, if for no other reason than there always has to be one winner playing a real life person especially if they’re an icon.