2015 Oscar Predictions, Final
Posted on February 20, 2015 Posted by John Scalzi 18 Comments
The Oscars are this weekend, so as I do every year, it’s time to look back at my first-blush impressions and see if I changed my mind, refined my thinking, or otherwise need to commit. The first-pass predictions are here; check ’em out and then come back.
Now, then:
Best Picture: I thought Imitation Game would have a chance in part because the Weinsteins are master Oscar campaigners, but that film has faded and at this point I think it’s probably down to a fight between Birdman and Boyhood, with Birdman probably the front runner due to its wins at the SAG and Director’s Guild and Producer’s Guild awards. I’m going to go ahead and put my marker down on Birdman, although I would be pleased to be wrong and have Boyhood take it.
(What about American Sniper? A huge hit but I’m not seeing a lot of awards love for it, outside a National Board of Review win for Eastwood as director, and the NBR isn’t very predictive in any event — it’s 2 for 10 in Best Picture in the last decade, for example, and Eastwood’s not nominated for director at the Oscars in any event.)
Best Director: I really want Linklater to win it, but I suspect Iñárritu will walk away with the award. I think Linklater may end up with the Original Screenplay Oscar, however, as a compensatory Oscar (we should all have these problems). If he does, it will likely come at the expense of Wes Anderson, but I don’t really think Wes Anderson will have a problem finding his way back to the nomination table later.
Best Actress: Same as it was. It’s Julianne Moore’s to lose.
Best Actor: I orginally placed Bradley Cooper as my bet with Michael Keaton as my follow-up; at this point I would switch them around. Which suits me; I’d love for Keaton to win.
Best Supporting Actor: People yelled at me for not thinking JK Simmons had a better chance at winning. All right, fine, I’m gonna say he takes it. Happy now?
Best Supporting Actress: As Imitation Game has faded quite a bit (at least as far as I can see), I’m moving Patricia Arquette up into the “win” slot. Again, I’m fine with this.
We’ll find out on Sunday how I did with this set of predictions.
No prediction for best animated film (the only one I really care about given that I work in the animation industry)?
wwwdrich:
Click back to the earlier piece to see my thoughts on that category.
wwwdrich, he made that prediction in his initial oscar predictions thread: Most likely How to Train Your Dragon 2, with a possibility of Big Hero 6 upsetting it.
Good predictions. I think all of them will become true, though I really enjoyed The Imitation Game, and wish Eddie would take best actor. And I also LOVED the Grand Budapest Hotel. Hated Birdman -_-
I think Eddie Redmayne will beat Michael Keaton. Actors make up the largest bloc of Academy voters, and Redmayne took the SAG. Plus it’s the kind of role AMPAS loves to reward.
I think Julianne Moore is a lock; Arquette and Simmons close to one. ‘Twill be hard-fought between Keaton and Redmayne, but I think Eddie takes it by a nose. I’m going 50-50 on Dragon 2 vs. Hero 6 and Birdman vs. Boyhood.
“A huge hit but I’m not seeing a lot of awards love for it”
I do hope that continues. Eastwood tries to portray “American Sniper” as an “antiwar” film. But its message seems to be that Iraq was essentially a “good” war and that the only “bad” thing to come out of it was the damage it does to our troops. Eastwood doesn’t even consider that maybe the Iraq war as a whole was a “bad” war, that we invaded it based on lies and that the damage we caused to Iraq lays at our feet.
Eastwood also takes Kyle’s real attitudes towards Iraqis (calling them all savages) and whitewashes them to something much more palatable (feeling conflicted for killing women, children).
The movie seems designed from beginning to end to be a “feel good about the war, feel sorry for the troops” kind of movie. The alternative certainly would have been harder: show the war for what it is and tell supporting stories of the sacrifice of the troops who served there.
But a whitewashed history is certainly more profitable.
Reblogged this on oshriradhekrishnabole.
I found it interesting, last year, to see how difficult it is to campaign for an Oscar, because you are not supposed to directly say “hey, we want our film to get an Oscar”, you’ve got to get celebs and such to say it. I wish they had more nods to docs, instead of just one Oscar doc award, though.
I think Keaton will beat Redmayne, Matthew S. Rotundo, he’s due. Keaton’s had a lot of good pics in his career and is due an academy award. I don’t they’ll want to put off giving him his award much longer and risk having to give it to him on a lower performing flick in the future. Redmayne gets the SAG this year as the compensation prize and to put him on notice that it’ll be his turn soon.
My two favorite movies last year were Grand Budapest Hotel and Guardians of the Galaxy. One won’t win anything and the other didn’t even get nominated.
Birdman opens up a dialog on questions for the movie going public to ask themselves. Do we really want serious drama as much as we say we do? Wouldn’t Hollywood be happy to give us that if we’d support such films more? Should we be ashamed to like comic book blockbusters? If we enjoy them, what’s the problem? And why do artists have to always be typecast for the one thing that made them successful. Why aren’t they allowed to branch out and try new things?
The Academy will love it and I agree it will win Best Picture.
@Catherine N, there are two documentary Oscars: short and long.
True. Last year was hard, because the long doc candidates were so good, they all deserved a nod. Why not have best doc score/music? Or Cinematography? So that there is that extra chance of recognition that the fiction films have?
I’m going to go with Redmayne for Actor.
I also think that with love for Boyhood and Birdman fairly evenly matched, we’re looking at one of those years where Picture and Director wins will be split so that both films get acknowledged. So I think if Birdman wins Picture, then Linklater gets Director. If Boyhood takes Picture, then Iñarritu gets Director.
I’d much rather see two lists, your choices and your predictions. But then again other than having “Academy Award inner . . . ” prepended to your obit the whole thing has lost it’s luster as far as I can see. I appreciate hearing your reasoning, it is most interesting as I get the impression that a sizable number of the voters have never actually seen all the work they are judging. That is not unlike the voters in your Congressional District so I suppose yo are familiar with the genre.
Highlight for me was two of the musical numbers: “Glory” by Common & John Legend, the Sound of Music medley from “I knew she could sing but not like that” Lady Gaga.
I didn’t think the choir added much — they just yelled “GLORY!!!” now and again when I would rather have heard just Common and John. Maybe it was the mix.
The Sound of Music thing was totally pointless in a 3.5+ hour show, but it made me think “I wish Lady Gaga would stop all the gimmicky stuff and just SING.” She has a nice voice that gets obscured by the meat dresses and weird hats.
Lego Oscars for all.