Oscar Nominations: So, uh, That Happened

Well, count me somewhat perplexed. I don't really know how to nail down the nominations this year--they're not amazing, they're not terrible, they're not too out of left field. They're just sort of....there. Like furniture. Still, there's some pretty exciting furniture in there (as well as some clearly termite-infested hellspawn demonkin furniture too), so let's dive in and see what Oscar Santa brought us!

Note: I'll put asterisks next to everything I predicted, so you can see how I did.

Best Picture
American Sniper*
Birdman*
Boyhood*
The Grand Budapest Hotel*
The Imitation Game*
Selma*
The Theory of Everything*
Whiplash*

Oscar Predictions 2014, part 5: Summing It All Up

Ok kids, the Academy is announcing their nominees in a little over twelve hours (thank God I don't have much to do tomorrow, or else I'd be wrecked the whole day--why they announce nominees before the sun comes up totally mystifies me), which means I've got a little over twelve hours before every one of these prediction posts becomes totally meaningless. Yay! So I'll jump right into it. I'm just going to list my super final, super serious, super official predictions, sans commentary, allowing myself only one alternate.

As far as big changes from the predictions I've been posted are concerned, there are actually quite a few of them--chalk it up to pre-Oscar jitters. I changed my alternate in Best Picture from Unbroken to Nightcrawler, changed my alternate in Actress from Marion Cotillard/Two Days, One Night to Amy Adams/Big Eyes, changed my alternate in Supporting Actress from Laura Dern/Wild to Rene Russo/Nightcrawler, moved Big Eyes into Production Design, which meant taking Interstellar out, changed my alternate in Costume Design from Selma to The Imitation Game, moved The Grand Budapest Hotel into Film Editing, which meant kicking American Sniper out, replaced Transformers with The Imitation Game in Sound Mixing,and replaced The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies with Guardians of the Galaxy in Sound Editing.

Incidentally, I know it's all a bit silly and backwards to put this much effort into Oscar prognostication while I've yet to even offer up any thoughts about the best of the year and all that, but them's the breaks. The release schedules of all the lovely little indie movies that we apparently don't deserve in the middle of the country make it so that I'm basically unable to put out a semi-meaningful 'best of the year' post until Mid-February. But just know that if I could guarantee any nomination tomorrow, it would be Under the Skin in...just about any category (Picture! Director! Actress! Screenplay! Cinematography! Score! Sound! The list goes on), and if I could prevent any nomination, it would be The Theory of Anything for just about any of its craft category possibilities (Costumes, Score, Cinematography--it's boring on just about all counts).

So here we go!

Oscar Predictions 2014, part 4: Craft Categories

Back again--and this time, with the last major salvo before Christmas Morning (aka Oscar nomination morning, aka better than Christmas). Today we'll be having a look at the craft categories. Because there are 10 of them, because most people don't invest too much interest in them (even though those people are laaaaaaaaaaaammmme), because they're tough to predict and nigh impossible to analyze, and because I've got lesson plans to write tonight (still) (I really need to re-work my time management skills), we'll keep commentary pretty brief. So let's dive right in!

Oscar Predictions 2014, part 3: directing/screenplays

Ok kids, here's how it's going to be--I'm writing this later than I thought I would, after a long day of responsibilities and silly 80s slasher-pastiche watching (you guys, The Guest is the best movie anyone has ever seen in their lives. Not even exaggerating). So we're going to make this quick, dirty, and probably not that satisfying--just the way I like it. So let's jump right in--we'll do directing and screenplays today, aka the two categories I can't wait to not be nominated for someday.

Oscar Predictions 2014, part 2: Acting

Aaaaaaaaaannnnd we're back. I have yet to even get out of bed this morning, and am avoiding responsibilities like the proverbial plague. So here we are! Today we'll have a look at acting categories, if only so that we can allow ourselves to be hopelessly, giddily besotted by celebrities for a minute or two. And who doesn't want that? So here we go.

Best Actor
I've been hearing for months about how tough a category this is, and how deep the field runs, and how we all should basically be weeping with ecstasy over the displays of gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh that we've all been lucky enough to experience this year. Meh, I'm not so convinced. At any rate, this category isn't nearly as competitive as people are making it out to be. Here are four fine young lads who will most likely be in:

Oscar Predictions 2014, part 1: Picture

Hello again Internet! It's that brief slice of the year in which I crawl out of the proverbial cave to squeal into the also proverbial abyss. And you know what? I've almost been doing this a decade--next year will mark 10 years of Oscar prognostication. Which means that I am an ancient, inscrutable granny who should hardly even be able to look at a computer without her face melting off, Indiana Jones style. And yet here we are. Funny how these things work out. So despite my terribly advanced age, general technological ineptitude, and profoundly limited time (shocking how little free time teaching affords), I'm gonna hop into this thing like there's no tomorrow. ...Although there will be. Precisely four more, to be exact. Today I'll tackle Best Picture and a few categories that I know nothing about, tomorrow I'll look into the acting categories, Monday will be directing and screenplays, Tuesday will be craft categories, and Wednesday I'll sum everything up and put it in one pretty little box. So here we go!