Oscar nomination predictions

[DBBN]

Here they are, in order of likelihood, with possible spoilers underneath the lines, also in order of likelihood. Big 6 only.

Best Picture
1. Boyhood
2. Birdman
3. The Imitation Game
4. The Theory of Everything
5. Selma
6. American Sniper
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel
8. Whiplash
---------------------------
9. Foxcatcher
10. Nightcrawler
11. Gone Girl

I really don't have any faith in "Whiplash" - I don't think anyone cares about this movie at all. But I keep hearing hosannas from voters so...whatever. Obviously the "dark" movies from 8-11 can't all get in. But this is one of the (maybe only) reasons why I like an unfixed number of nominees in this category. Usually every year there's a real surprise. I'm thinking it might be "Gone Girl," which looks like an extreme longshot at this point.

Best Actor
1. Keaton, Birdman
2. Redmayne, Theory of Everything
3. Oyelowo, Selma
4. Cumberbatch, Imitation Game
5. Cooper, American Sniper
----------------------------
6. Carell, Foxcatcher
7. Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
8. Fiennes, Grand Budapest Hotel
9. Spall, Mr. Turner

Another intense category (but these two are it). That fifth spot is really up for grabs. Bradley is on a roll with AMPAS, the Sniper love was timed perfectly (bolstered by well-placed screeners month before, SELMA), he's a big sexy star. Carell's Emmy futility sticks in my mind - I don't think people feel like voting for him. (Even Jennifer Aniston was able to turn envy into Emmy once). As for my Jake, don't you get the feeling everyone thinks he's playing dress-up every time? I would love Nightcrawler to show up everywhere because it would be so BIZARRE - no pre-release buzz, totally non-Oscar genre and atmosphere - but, those things did happen.

Best Actress
1. Pike, Gone Girl
2. Moore, Still Alice
3. Jones, Theory of Everything
4. Witherspoon, Wild
5. Aniston, Cake
-----------------------------
6. Adams, Big Eyes
7. Cotillard, Two Days One Night

Now we get to the categories where you can probably recite them along with the nomination announcement. I think throwing a resurgent Adams into the mix with Aniston kills Cotillard. Deep sigh with this category. Aside from Pike, I don't feel the need to see any of that top six, and I am a Julianne stan. Reese possible snub?

Best Supporting Actor
1. Simmons, Whiplash
2. Norton, Birdman
3. Hawke, Boyhood
4. Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
5. Duvall, The Judge
--------------------------
6. me, Twitter

That no one even campaigned for that fifth spot (Charlie Cox? Tyler Perry? Riz Ahmed?) is just...since 2003 I've said this category should just be damn cancelled. This year has a little interest in the actors in the top 4, but man. Just wither and die, Supporting Actor.

Best Supporting Actress
1. Arquette, Boyhood
2. Knightley, Imitation Game
3. Streep, Into the Woods
4. Stone, Birdman
5. Russo, Nightcrawler
--------------------------
6. Chastain, A Most Violent Year

This thing at least got a little interesting with the Nightcrawler surge. Honestly I think anyone from 2-6 could be left out here but these are your only 6 possibilities. (Maybe.) That's a fun group of actresses though, I want to do brunch with them.

Director
1. Linklater, Boyhood
2. Gonzalez Innaritu, Birdman
3. Eastwood, American Sniper
4. Anderson, Grand Budapest Hotel
5. Tyldum, Imitation Game
--------------------------------
6. Chazelle, Whiplash
7. Fincher, Gone Girl
8. Duvernay, Selma
9. Miller, Foxcatcher

Congratulations AMPAS Directors' Branch. You now have received every excuse possible to not vote for a black woman in this category. Mission accomplished. :EYEROLL:

[janie]

Impressive! Does Becca know you've done this?? Because iirc she's a person who goes to movies and might have some views. I would love to have some views but I haven't seen any of the movies.

But why is this in the "Grand Slams" area?

[DBBN]

I haven't seen any of them either. Ha!

Oscars are the Fifth Slam.

[Lady]

Those movies are only now coming to our cinemas, and not even all of them.
I have read Gone Girl but haven't seen the movie yet, and wanted to see Nightcrowler, but it had a very short run in our cinema.

Do you really think Maryl will be nominated for Into The Woods? All i've seen on twitter is that she's the worst part of the movie together with Johnny Depp. I know Globes nominated her, but I thought it was only due to the fact that they love to include some musicals into their 'comedy or musical' category (especially since there're barely any comedies in the category as well.

My vacation should start tomorrow (if it's not cancelled again), so i should be able to watch some of those before Oscars.

[Lady]

Ok, I shouldn't have doubted that Maryl would be nominated for being Meryl.
Well, you were 9 out of 10 for the Supporting.

[Lady]

Steve Carell has been nominated after all, which YAY! And Cotillard made it over Aniston (ans Adams)

[DBBN]

Now that's how you prognosticate. I picked the exact number of Best Picture nominees (which could be anywhere from 5 to 10) - and got them all right. Where's my parade.

So I missed:

1. Carell over Oyelowo - I'll talk about "Foxcatcher" and how it made history below, so let's talk about what will heretofore be called The "Selma" Debacle. "Selma" did get its Best Picture nomination, but by the skin of its teeth. It only received a second nomination (for Song) which means a cursory glance of AMPAS support in the future will rank it below travesties like "The Blind Side" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." "Selma" is getting fine reviews, unlike those other two - what happened? The release mess, the screener mess, the LBJ mess, it really just was killed by everyone. Racism cannot be discounted here (yes, this IS one of those times, probably), but not on AMPAS's part, more on the people who tried to take it down after the fact.

But seriously...if Ava was editing until December 15 and screeners went out to almost nobody, you HOLD YOUR MOVIE UNTIL NEXT YEAR. I don't care if you think you can take down "Boyhood" - wait for a year where you can send screeners. "American Sniper" had the same release pattern, except screeners went out in the autumn - and look what happened there. It's a miracle "Selma" made it into Picture at all with almost no widespread support from any of the branches - no writing nomination, no tech nominations. Jesus. And in a hotly competitive Best Actor race, Oyelowo could not overcome that, even though I really thought he would.

Also Bradley Cooper has received 3 consecutive Oscar nominations. Who saw that one coming in 2009.

2. Cotillard over Aniston - the lack of the BAFTA nomination for Cotillard was very tough for me to get over, since they almost always put a European in there who's less likely to place here. But the performance (which I'm DYING to see) is apparently is too good to ignore if you've seen it. I discounted Adams pulling votes from just Aniston, which makes sense - I just figured Adams would pull from everyone and still keep the two Americans ahead. I was wrong. Poor Jen and her publicists - that's a huge miss considering all the work they put in.

3. Dern over Russo - I really almost put Dern in 7th, I swear, but "Wild" looked really shaky, even for Witherspoon. Totally leaving her out of my first post is my biggest regret. Anyway, what I really like about this year is a bunch of formerly 1-time female nominees who I really like finally get their second trip - Dern, Knightley, and former winners Cotillard and Witherspoon. Good for them. And good for Emma Stone, a polarizing star who I just think is fantastic.

4. Miller over Eastwood - Bennett Miller's first two fiction films, "Capote" and "Moneyball," both got Best Picture nominations, so I knew to keep them in the hunt (I had them both 9th but missing out). "Capote" is my favorite movie of 2005, "Moneyball" is excellent too - the man has skills. But this is the first time since the expansion of the field where a director has gotten nominated while his film has not (even a crazy art film like "The Tree of Life" got in there with Malick) and I never thought that would happen until they cut Picture down to 5 again (which is surely coming soon). But that branch is small, and I guess you can easily place 5th in their ballot and still not be near the 5% of votes necessary to get into Picture. Math. Whatever.

Anyway, "Foxcatcher" gets directing, writing, and 2 acting nominations, but left off the big one. So history might try to position "Selma" as the "sentimental crowd-pleaser" which pipped deep, dark "Foxcatcher." I'll make sure this revisionist history won't happen.

So - perfect Best Picture (gonna gloat about this one for years), perfect Supporting Actor which was a no-brainer, and 4/5 in the other four categories. I'm just great.

The only jaw-droppers for me were "Lego Movie" being left off Animated and Gillian Flynn not getting her screenplay nomination. I also saw many pundits leaving off "Life Itself" in their predictions and indeed it did not place - would have been shocked had I not noticed the predictions earlier. What happened there???

[DBBN]

Jan 15, 2015 8:41:55 GMT -5 Lady said:

Ok, I shouldn't have doubted that Maryl would be nominated for being Meryl.
Well, you were 9 out of 10 for the Supporting.

Most of what I've been hearing is that Meryl is the best part of the movie. Definitely hearing that Depp sucks, though - and what else is new there.

[Wagasi]

I'll be seeing Birdman this week, I wasn't following the awards races so it kind of came out of nowhere for me. I thought best actor was a Redmayne/Cumberbitch lock before this. Are all the Boyhood noms meant to be Linklater's lifetime achievement award? It's a great film but it's pretty much Linklater doing what he usually does (though maybe more autobiographical than usual) without getting so much praise from the Academy. I took a pass on Wild (not a Reese fan and don't like redemption flicks), Imitation game (not gay enough and another redemption flick), Gone Girl (the characters sound like terrible people), and Grand Budapest (Wes Anderson's twee-ness is irritating).

I should check out Selma, it seems to be getting good reviews from the right people. Same with Whiplash.
Theory of Everything is probably good, but not compelling enough to go out of one's way to see.
For foreign films, I passed on Timbuktu and Leviathan at TIFF because of poor reviews but mayhe they're worth checking out. Wild Tales looks good in a even-if-it's-bad-it's-still-Almodovar-and-probably-fun-and-campy kind of way. Ida and Tangerine look harrowing, so maybe save that for a rainy afternoon. Shame about Force Majeure not getting a nod, it's hilarious. The Tribe and Winter Sleep also seem to have not been able to capitalize on their Cannes momentum.

[DBBN]

"Boyhood" got some very helpful and unexpected consensus from the critics' awards. It's handily ahead of the pack this year with them. Coupled with the "wow 12 years to make this" narrative and no film really grabbing attention this year, and this is what happens.

I've seen 2 movies this year: "Obvious Child" and "22 Jump Street." No nominations for either - shocking, I know.

[Wagasi]

Well done on the predictions Hurley! There has to be a betting market you can profit from for these right?

Films that I'm surprised didn't get something:
"Under The Skin", weird-ish, sci-fi-ish, literary-ish, but dark and has lots of ScarJo nudity and Jonathan Glazer's directing got rave reviews, how did it not do better? Should they have made it a story about a hot alien's triumph over adversity?
"Maps to the Stars," it's got Cronenberg's indie cachet and a bunch of hollywood stars
"Rosewater"
"99 Homes" - It's about an upstanding man, in an unfair world, trying to do his best as the foreclosure crisis happens around him - Oscar-baity no?

[DBBN]

UTS was loved by critics, but way way way too weird. Had a shot at Score, but...wasn't gonna happen anywhere else.

MTTS, I don't even think that had an eligible release.

Rosewater - thin reviews, thin box office, no buzz.

I've never even heard of 99 Homes!

I'd need to be a little better to monetize predictions. But I...should definitely be monetizing my writing. That's why I've started up again - to get over my self-consciousness. Just type and post, type and post. That's going to be my 2015 (with hopefully a meaningless job to fund that. Like teaching).

[Wagasi]

Yay, it'll be good to read you in longform as well.

Oh, it looks like 99 homes is getting wide release this Spring but that means no oscars for 2016 either.

[DBBN]

This is longform enough. I have to get over my perfection paralysis. Type and post, type and post.

[Serg]

Meryl indeed saved the film,flawless acting..Deserved nomination.

[janie]

Wow, congrats, Hurley. Really impressive, considering you haven't seen the movies!

My only connection with any of this is that I read the book Wild. I'd kind of like to see the movie, unless the horrible scene with the botched horse-murder is in it. I keep meaning to read Unbroken, and I vaguely assumed that movie would be getting Oscar nominations even though I read mixed things about it. Where did it go wrong? I'm determined to NEVER see it; who wants to watch guys being tortured?

[DBBN]

The Jolie/Unbroken backlash was unrelenting once it came out and wasn't very good. If it had been by a no-name director (or had been better), it might have pushed through into Picture, but there was too much opportunity for schadenfreude here.

Anyway, I'm going to see a nominated movie this afternoon - Selma.

[janie]

Ugh. So much insider-politics involved. But maybe they're right about the movie anyway. If Jolie did botch such a fantastic true story, phooey on her. But it's odd because Louis Z., and the author of the book, Laura Hillenbrand, both thought she did a terrific job.

[DBBN]

My aunt ended up vetoing Selma in favor of American Sniper (which is kind of the issue and problem with movie expectations and production, isn't it). But I did get to see a Best Picture nominee anyway.

It was OK. It wasn't super rah-rah as many (of the people in line with us) would think. But the themes and plot beats and stuff were done much more artfully in Hurt Locker. Brad was great though. Hot too.