Film Inquiry’s 2015 Oscar Predictions

There has been an almost endless line of award shows over the last few months where Hollywood’s elite have had all the chances in the world to pat themselves on the back. But now the prelims are over. It is time for the main event. I won’t remember who won at the BAFTAs. I won’t remember who won at the SAG Awards. It is only the Oscars that I will remember. Every year I try to denounce the Oscars as rigged and stupid, but every year I come crawling back, hoping to see my favorites win those shiny gold dudes. I think this will be a very interesting year for the Oscars. Some film fans will be upset. Some film fans will be elated. But we will all have something to talk about. And that’s the way it should be.

To the predictions!

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

It’s no secret that the Oscar voters are predominantly old white men. I imagine many of them sitting at the Bel-Air Country Club sipping on mojitos and complaining about these darn men in tights taking advantage of an art form that was one artistically sacred. “Sure, they look good, but we should not reward them for this hollow nonsense,” I imagine one saying to another as the waiter secretly spits in his food nearby. There is a lot of carry over with these awards, and being fundamentally opposed to a film can prevent it from winning anything, regardless of its technical merit.

I predict the mere inclusion of 3 comic book movies is enough to turn voters off of each and every one of them (or they will at least cannibalize each other out of contention). Guardians of the Galaxy was a beautifully constructed world, but Interstellar will take this award. Even if a voter is one the fence about the technical proficiency of Guardians and Interstellar, Interstellar will win because a) it is a Christopher Nolan film and b) it isn’t a Marvel property.

Winner: Interstellar

Sound Mixing

American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Interstellar
Unbroken
Whiplash

Yes, it is that time of year again. The time when I freshen up on the differences between sound editing and sound mixing. For those who need a quick refresher: sound mixing is the process of layering sounds on top of one another, while sound editing is the process of inserting new sounds on top of the film to in an effort to enhance the film.

Being a film that revolves around the world of music gives Whiplash has an inherent upper hand in the mixing category. It is relatively easy to notice the mixing in a movie like this. In most films, good sound mixing equates to not noticing the mix. But with a film so dependent on sound, the mix is one of the most important elements of the film. It is literally recording a concert, and each member of the band should be leveled to perfection. And in Whiplash, they did just that.

Winner: Whiplash

Sound Editing

American Sniper
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Unbroken

Meanwhile, in sound editing I really think the voters will look for an excuse to give American Sniper an award. The film has been picking up a lot of steam on the awards circuit and voters seem keen on rewarding it. It has been one of the more polarizing films in recent memory, but the box office numbers speak for themselves. A lot of people really liked this movie.

No matter what you think about the film (I found it to be quite powerful despite it sometimes forgetting about the many moral shades of grey that go along with the red, white, and blue) it is undeniable that the sound of the film greatly enhanced the film. Any movie with guns is ripe for sound editing. Put one on the board for Old Man Eastwood’s flick.

Winner: American Sniper

Documentary Short Subject

Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper (La Parka)
White Earth

Full disclosure—I have seen exactly zero of the works nominated in the next three categories. These categories are where predictions go to die. But after some vigilant Googling and researching, I have chosen the winners. I will not be placing any bets on these three, but I will try to get into the minds of the voters. When it comes to these shorts, the award is often handed to the one that the feels the most “important”. So little more needs to be known about these shorts than the subject matter. And boy are this year’s nominees bleak. Here are the topics:

• The crippling suicide rate of U.S. veterans
• A dying mother recording the lessons she wishes to teach her son
• Caring for a baby with a life-threatening disorder
• The life of a slaughterhouse worker
• Winter in North Dakota (cue “One of These Things (is Not Like the Others)”)

It is a tough call between the film about veterans and the dying mother, but my gut says the personal nature of the film about the mother wins out. So…

Winner: Joanna

Live Action Short Film

Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
Butter Lamp (La Lampe Au Beurre De Yak) 
Parvaneh
The Phone Call

Again, we must look at the subject matter. While my heart wants to pick the film about the little boy raising two baby chicks, I have to go with my head, which notes that one of the films is about a woman manning a suicide hotline.

Winner: The Phone Call

Animated Short Film

The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life

I based my decision regarding the Animated Short Film category on the quality of animation. This is an indication of visual appeal as well as production value. The Bigger Picture has a very cool, abstract stop-motion thing going on, but it looks like it may have been made in somebody’s basement. Me and My Moulton looks to be one step above a Dilbert cartoon. The Dam is very interesting looking with its fuzzy, shadowy animation.

I see real production value in A Single Life but the character design is too weird for me to get behind. That leaves us with Feast, the story of a dog who follows a young man who feeds him treats. It’s by a new animation firm called Disney. Something tells me they have a bright future ahead of them.

Winner: Feast

Production Design

The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Into the Woods
Mr. Turner

Wes Anderson treats his sets in the same way you or I would treat our playrooms as children if we had millions of dollars to create whatever we wanted. He creates this exaggerated dream world where symmetry and color is omnipresent. All of his films may look very similar, but that just means he has his execution down to a science.

If there is one thing Anderson has, it’s commitment to his vision. It’s whimsical and twee and a lot of other things that many people don’t like (I often feel this way, myself) but damn if it isn’t pretty. Watch out for Into the Woods as a potential upset special here. Live action fairy tales lend themselves to extravagant sets.

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Original Song

“Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie (Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson)
“Glory” from Selma (Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn)
“Grateful” from Beyond the Lights (Music and Lyric by Diane Warren)
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me (Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond)
“Lost Stars” from Begin Again (Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois)

You know that “Glory” is going to win. I know that “Glory” is going to win. We all know that “Glory” is going to win. So I will make a quick aside. I hate the “Everything Is Awesome” song. Hate hate hate. I hate the techno-for-toddlers rhythm. I hate the synthesized singing. I absolutely abhor the rap/dubstep breakdown. It is a way, way, way worse version of “America, Fuck Yeah!”. I know it is a kid’s movie, but we can do better than:

“I feel more awesome than an awesome possum
Dip my body in chocolate frostin’
Three years later, wash off the frostin’”

Can we please be better than this? Do it for the children.

Winner: “Glory”

Original 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

It’s a relatively weak year for Best Original Score, a category I really look forward to each year. Hans Zimmer has fallen out of the good graces of many critics as he continues to get louder and louder with each successive film. I don’t really remember being particularly blown away by any of these scores, but I will go with The Grand Budapest Hotel, simply because it won the BAFTA. Overall review of this category: needs more Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. There is not nearly enough Gone Girl love at the Oscars.

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Makeup and Hairstyling

Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy

I am really sad that this award will probably go to The Grand Budapest Hotel (its third already). Anyone that saw Guardians of the Galaxy knows that its most defining element is its spectacular characters. Not just the ragtag gang of heroes, but every single bizarre creature that walked on-screen. It is a lot more creative than making all the characters in a movie look like a human caricature. Just sayin’, Wes…

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Foreign Language Film

Ida – Poland
Leviathan – Russia
Tangerines – Estonia
Timbuktu – Mauritania
Wild Tales – Argentina

Again—have not seen any of these. Sorry. I know Ida has pretty much been cleaning house this awards season, and with a story about discovering a secret Nazi history during the occupation of Poland surely made the Academy salivate. Wait—I am now receiving word that it was filmed in black-and-white. Game over.

Winner: Ida

Film Editing

American Sniper
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Whiplash

Why Birdman is not nominated in this category and The Imitation Game is, is a question that will elude me to my grave. They made it look like one take… The whole movie. That is very difficult. Other than its historically fascinating protagonist, The Imitation Game didn’t have much going on. The Oscar bait hooked them again! Damn you Academy!

Without Birdman in contention this seems like a runaway win for Boyhood. Editing film over a 12 year period and making sure it has visual continuity is a task they I would not recommend undertaking. The team should be award for not pulling all of their hair out. Congratulations, guys. You earned it.

Winner: Boyhood

Documentary Feature

Citizenfour
Finding Vivian Maier
Last Days in Vietnam
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga

The Snowden one. Next.

Winner: Citizenfour

Costume Design

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Inherent Vice
Into the Woods
Maleficent
Mr. Turner

This looks like another win for The Grand Budapest Hotel. That Wes Anderson sure is diligent. No stone left unturned. Every costume is made with a purpose. If it was socially acceptable, I think Wes Anderson would dress in the purple tux Ralph Fiennes wore in The Grand Budapest Hotel every day. And I think he would add a little tiny top hat. I bet he doesn’t even own an iPod. I don’t think he owns a microwave. Wes Anderson lives in his own little world. It’s like if all the hipsters in New York congregated and created their version of Neverland Ranch.

For the record, I actually really enjoyed The Grand Budapest Hotel, but it was the first Wes Anderson film I have liked in a long time. He is so talented, so one-dimensional. It’s just a bunch of quirky characters in quirky clothes doing quirky things with their quirky friends in a quirky world of quirks. Thankfully, The Grand Budapest Hotel went to a darker place than Anderson has in a while and it brought out the best in him.

Winner: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Cinematography

 

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ida
Mr. Turner
Unbroken

If there were one category I would bet my life’s savings on, it would be this one. Anyone that has seen Birdman knows why. In that film, the camera almost becomes its own character, leading us around at its will. We are jerked around frenetically and without warning. The entire movie is shot as if it were one long take. You know that isn’t the case, but you can’t help but wonder, “How?”

Winner: Birdman

Adapted Screenplay

American Sniper
The Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Another big time Gone Girl snub here. Anyway, the script was one of American Sniper’s weakest elements and there is no way the Academy will go for a movie like Inherent Vice, which leaves three viable options to win. Whiplash is the strongest film of these five, but it was a pretty minimalist script that will be remembered more for its performances than its structure.

It looks to be a battle of the Oscar bait, and I like The Imitation Game to take down its British counterpart, The Theory of Everything. By itself, the story of Alan Turing is an incredible one, and one that was ripe for a film adaptation. He was one of the more important men in history, even if his story wasn’t executed perfectly on the big screen.

Winner: The Imitation Game

Original Screenplay

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler

It is really nice to see Nightcrawler getting a nomination. I know it has no chance of winning, but it was a fascinating story about a world that we haven’t seen before in film. This is an award that often goes to one of the stronger Best Picture nominees, and this year should be no different. The Grand Budapest Hotel has become a bit of a trendy pick in this category, but I expect it to come down to Boyhood and Birdman. A true clash of the titans. There are a ton of brilliant things that Boyhood did, one of which is the minimalist script that it ran off of. It wasn’t a crazy narrative that took the viewer to a world unknown. It was simply the story of a child that resonates with each and every one of us.

Birdman, on the other hand, is a brilliant satire of the film industry that is equal parts drama, humor, and pure cynicism. I am picking a patented Film Inquiry Upset Special™ and picking it to take home the prize. The Academy has shown time and time again that they like movies about movies.

Winner: Birdman

Animated Feature

Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

This is another relatively weak category this year, notable for its lack of Pixar production. How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the frontrunner, but that digit at the end will prevent it from earning the win. Sequels rarely fly at the Oscars. Instead, the award will go to Big Hero 6, riding a combination of acclaim and box office success to an Academy Award.

Winner: Big Hero 6

Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette in Boyhood
Laura Dern in Wild
Keira Knightley in The Imitation Game
Emma Stone in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Meryl Streep in Into the Woods

Sadly, it looks like most of the acting categories are locks. Patricia Arquette is almost a shoe-in to win for her 12-year performance as a mother in Boyhood. I’m not sure if I agree with the notion that she was “brave” for allowing the camera to show her aging 12 years in one film, but she did a tremendous job of grounding the film in reality. She was a rather tragic figure who suffered through abuse and multiple financial crises while raising her two children alone. But, in the end, she found solace in herself and her children.

There is a slight chance that Emma Stone sneaks up and steals this award from Arquette for her performance as Michael Keaton’s drug-addled daughter in Birdman, but I don’t like those odds.

Winner: Patricia Arquette

Supporting Actor

Robert Duvall in The Judge
Ethan Hawke in Boyhood
Edward Norton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons in Whiplash

This is absolutely locked up. J.K. Simmons tore the roof off the place with his performance as an abusive music teacher. It was absolutely riveting. It is great to see a journeyman actor like J.K. Simmons get the credit he deserves. We always knew he was great, but he just now received his career-defining role.

It is a shame that no one will remember how incredible Edward Norton was in Birdman. Can I tell you a secret? I think he may have been better than Michael Keaton. Don’t tell anyone, please. But Simmons absolutely earned this award. Make sure to catch him in his next role as the voice of the yellow peanut M&M (and, no, I am not kidding).

Winner: J.K. Simmons

Actress

Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore in Still Alice
Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon in Wild

I wish I could say that Rosmund Pike had a chance because Gone Girl totally doesn’t work without her, but I just don’t see it happening. Everyone not named Julianne Moore can leave their speeches at home and prepare their best camera faces for the moment when Moore wins. This is all part of a simple mathematical formula that the producers of Still Alice were able to uncover:

Great Actress + Dementia = Oscar

Winner: Julianne Moore

Actor

Steve Carell in Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything

This is the only acting category with any drama to it, and we may see a serious upset. For almost the entirety of awards season, Michael Keaton has been the critical darling for his self-aware performance as a superhero-actor-turned-washout in Birdman. He has deserved all the praise he has gotten, but a couple of the actors he has been seeing in his rear view mirror have caught up in the Oscar race. Eddie Redmayne probably has the best chance to spoil Keaton’s awards tour for his Oscar-y role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. His performance is everything you would expect from an Oscar winner except for the fact that not everyone loved the film as a whole.

The other potential spoiler? Bradley Cooper. American Sniper has gained steam at an alarming rate and there is a lot of buzz for the film in seemingly every category. Bradley Cooper crushed it in American Sniper, creating an incredibly nuanced character. People will argue that the person whom the character was based on wasn’t quite so nuanced, but this cannot be held against Cooper; he was terrific.

In the end, though, I still think the voters will pick Keaton, in part because many of them will be afraid not to. I think people want him to win, and that will vault him over the top.

Winner: Michael Keaton

Director

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Boyhood – Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher – Bennett Miller
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson
The Imitation Game – Morten Tyldum

The last two years have been very interesting ones for these final 2 categories. It is difficult to differentiate between Best Director and Best Picture. Many people would say that awarding both is completely redundant, but the last couple of years have seen the awards given out to different films. Last year, it was Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave that won best picture, but Alfonso Cuarón brought home the trophy for Best Director for Gravity. A year earlier, Ang Lee won Best Director despite Ben Affleck’s (still feels weird to write about Affleck as an Oscar-caliber director) Argo taking home best picture.

With two very strong competitors vying for Best Picture, I expect this trend to continue and the Best Director award to be a quasi consolation prize. If you didn’t skip down to the bottom of the article, you read that the Academy loves movies about movies. For that reason, I believe Birdman will beat Boyhood for the Best Picture Oscar and Richard Linklater to win Best Director.

Winner: Richard Linklater

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

Now that I spoiled my pick for Best Picture above, let’s discuss the merits for each. Boyhood is a film unlike any other. The idea of filming a movie over a 12-year span to follow the physical and emotional transformation of character while the young actor portraying goes through the same transformations is an incredible endeavor that makes no sense practically or financially. Thankfully, some people are willing to sacrifice profit in the name of art. But it is possible to poke holes in Boyhood by calling the structure a gimmick. Did filming the movie over 12 years really make the movie any better? The suspension of disbelief when it comes to young actors playing young versions of older characters is completely ingrained in our view of film. What they did in Boyhood is unbelievably ambitious, but if someone told me that they didn’t think it added anything to the film as a whole (which I disagree with), I would have a hard time convincing them otherwise.

It could also be said that Birdman features a gimmick: its presentation as one long take. Some might call it distracting. Some may call it utterly unnecessary. But there is no doubt that this element added to the experience (whether that addition was positive or negative is up to the individual viewer). It has 3 of the 10 best performances of the year and has all the ambition of Boyhood, just condensed into a very short production period. Where Boyhood sprawls, Birdman is like packing all of your belongings into a single backpack. It seems impossible, but Alejandro G. Iñárritu must have one of those endless Mary Poppins bags, because he makes it seem easy. It is the most confident film of the year, and it may be the funniest and most poignant, as well. But above all, in the Academy’s eyes, it is about the world of movies. And very often, that is enough by itself.

Winner: Birdman

And that’s it. What are your thoughts on my predictions? Share them below.

(top image source: Oscars.org)