2015 Oscar Predictions: Boys, Birds, Budapest, and Basket Cases

I've gained slightly more interest in the Oscar race ever since what was essentially me being totally clueless back when nominations were announced. However, I believe I've only seen one (UPDATE: three) of the eight films nominated for Best Picture this year, and I remained tempted to balk at posting picks this year.

Still, I couldn't resist putting some guesses in order of confidence and seeing how I scored things once again. Admittedly, I'm again playing it fairly safe since most every category has a clear frontrunner. However, what makes this year particularly interesting is that probably the two races that remain the biggest mysteries are what will be the final two awards presented.

I'm once again typing this post during a lunch break, so forgive me if I decline to offer accompanying comments for all 24 picks this year. I can only say that I found myself agreeing with many of the sentiments that were expressed in Drew Magary's "Hater’s Guide To The 2015 Oscars" (especially love the guns as therapy for PTSD and 12 Years a Slave winning last year causing Selma reluctance). Seriously, most of his comments for the Best Picture nominees are pretty much exactly what I had planned on saying, so I'd recommend checking it out because he probably put it in a much funnier way than I would've.

I can't say I'm especially interested in watching the entire show unfold before those final two awards get handed out, as Doogie Howser serving as host could be entertaining but could also mean overkill with musical numbers. Still, at least it'll be OK to have something to put on the TV that the wife and I can agree on.


Again, I'm not commenting on all these, but here's my picks:

UPDATE (1:12 P.M. 2.22.2015): Despite my attempts to indicate that I'm not really concerned with the results or thinking about this too much, I've decided to revise the order of confidence here (but no actual predicted winner changes). The previous Friday rankings for certain picks will be in parentheses, and no parentheses indicates no changes.

1. ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Julianne Moore, Still Alice

— When the nominations were first announced, I initially dismissed Moore because I thought she was a past winner. Then it dawned on me that she's only been nominated so many times that it seems like she should have won. There's not many actresses who garner more respect in the biz today, so this is the biggest lock of the night to me.

2. ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: J. K. Simmons, Whiplash 
— An actor's actor who is surely respected by every member of the Academy. Hell, he's probably worked with every member of the Academy. Seriously, look at his IMDb profile. Crazy.

3. (4) ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
— She aged a dozen years on screen. As real and compelling a transformation as you can get.

4. (5) PRODUCTION DESIGN: Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration), The Grand Budapest Hotel

5. (6) FILM EDITING: Sandra Adair, Boyhood

— I'm assuming that condensing 12 years of footage down to a few hours will get a lot of votes.

6. (7) COSTUME DESIGN: Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel 

7. (3) CINEMATOGRAPHY: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
— This violates the rule I established just a few years ago to rank this as low as possible, but everything I've read has indicated this is essentially a sure thing. So, you know, watch Roger Deakins finally win an Oscar during the year I don't pick him.

8. (9) DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutsky, Citizenfour

9. (16) MUSIC — ORIGINAL SCORE: Jóhann Jóhannsson, The Theory of Everything 

10. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold, How to Train Your Dragon 2 

11. (13) MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier, The Grand Budapest Hotel 

12. (15) VISUAL EFFECTS: Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher, Interstellar

13. (14) SOUND EDITING: Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman, American Sniper

14. (18) SOUND MIXING: Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley, Whiplash

15. (8) MUSIC — ORIGINAL SONG: John Legend and Common, "Glory," Selma
— A lot of people are higher on this than myself, as I'm tempted to believe "Everything is Awesome" could pull off an upset as a way to atone for the snubbing of The Lego Movie. Still, Common and John Legend are big names that I think the Academy will gladly honor as a way to also atone for the perceived snubbing of another film.

16. (11) FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Paweł Pawlikowski, Ida (Poland)

17. (12) WRITING — ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness, The Grand Budapest Hotel

18. (17) WRITING — ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game

19. ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything 
— I'm quite tempted to pick Michael Keaton here, and he's the very real contender. Still, there's already enough acting awards being handed out as a form or career recognition, and Redmayne's performance is the kind that the Academy normally swoons for.

20. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry, Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

21. SHORT FILM — ANIMATED: Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed, Feast

22. SHORT FILM — LIVE ACTION: Mat Kirkby and James Lucas, The Phone Call 

23. BEST PICTURE: Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
— Yes, I'm seriously ranking this lower than even the short films. Of the two remaining categories, I guess this is the one I'm more confident in. While I think I have Grand Budapest winning the most awards, and I think that the strong box office showing of American Sniper has helped it garner more respect, this still comes down to Boyhood or Birdman. While the former has been considered the favorite ever since the nominations were announced, the latter won the Producers Guild award, the Directors Guild award, and the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Ensemble. Oh, and it's about the main character having a career in the film industry, which history has shown time and again the Academy are suckers for. 

24. DIRECTING: Richard Linklater, Boyhood
— I wanted to default to Iñárritu winning here since I'm picking Birdman for the Picture prize, but I just have the strong inclination to believe that we've got one more career achievement to hand out. It's not as though Linklater's been an Oscar bridesmaid multiple times, but he's been working long enough and has impressive credits to his name. I could easily see this being the flip-flop of what I've got with Boyhood and Iñárritu winning the respective awards instead, but I'm ultimately going with the movie about a movie star getting Best Picture while the more well-known director gets honored here.

UPDATE: I guess the re-ordering my confidence levels wasn't very beneficial, although it admittedly cost me only three points. The lesson this year would be to leave the initial rankings as is, but another takeaway should be not to take too much stock in anonymous ballots published online. (One voter does not represent an entire block, of course.)

All of that said this was the second-best year I've had for number of categories I had correct (play it safe strategy works yet again, so thank you, Gold Derby), but it was decidedly middle of the pack for points:

2014 —  292 points (21/24)
2009 — 268 points (18/24)

2010 — 252 points (18/24)
2006 — 248 points (17/24)

2015 — 240 points (19/24)
2011 — 237 points (15/24)

2012 — 229 points (17/24)

2013 —  226 points (14/24)

My incorrect guess for Film Editing was the highest level of confidence incorrect of any year I've published picks here. Other than that, I have relatively few thoughts on the actual show. There were a few nice moments with some of the speeches, but I wasn't particularly wowed by Neil Patrick Harris as a host. I thought he missed the logical joke opportunity when after speaking to two seat-fillers he spoke to Steve Carell and instead of asking if he was also a seat-filler, Harris had a very awkward long moment of silence before asking if there was anybody he was looking forward to meeting. And the bit with predictions locked in a safe never delivered any laughs, and it was especially painful to watch the totally unsatisfying payoff right be dragged out before the final award was presented when everybody just wanted to get the show over with.

I don't know that I'll be seeing more movies in time for next year's Oscars, but I figure I'll still submit award predictions even if I don't make the nominee guesses. For now, I'm happy I got in another year of predictions, because Lord knows we don't get enough of those on this here blog.