Friday, January 8, 2016

Oscar Predictions 2015, Part 1: Picture

And just like that a year has passed, which means it's once again time for me to toss my silly obsession mindlessly into the void and wait like a crazy person for the inevitable, echoing emptiness that awaits! But see, it's not just any wild-eyed, furiously typed little cry of madness this year--this just so happens to be my tenth straight year of writing up Oscar predictions and determinedly pasting them somewhere for public consumption. That's right--I've been doing this ten years. I'm so old my grandkids have been doing Oscar predictions for a decade. Madness. And yet, for whatever reason (and that reason probably is "because the inside of my head is horrifying and nonsensical"), I'm glad I've been throwing up into your internet spaces for a decade. And I hope that I'll still be doing it in a decade, and in a decade after that (if we still have internet), and a decade after that (if the radioactive spiders haven't gotten to my computer yet) and so on and so forth.

So here's how it'll go: today I'll do best picture plus a few throwaway categories, tomorrow will be acting categories, Sunday will be directing, Monday will be craft categories, and I'll wrap it all up and put a little bow on it Tuesday. Note that I'm doing things a little early this year--I'll be on the road and internet-less from the 12th (after my little bow post) to the night of the 15th--and as the Oscars are announced the morning of the 14th, that means my reactions will be a little delayed as well. Somehow I'm sure we'll all manage together.

So here we go!



Best Picture
In case, shockingly, someone isn't intimately familiar with Oscar voting procedures, members rank their top 5 films on their ballots--#1 votes are crucial, because any film with enough #1 votes immediately qualifies and is nominated. After this initial count, however, there's a big silly pile of math that reshuffles all the ballots, which means that #2, 3, or even 4 placements can come into play. So it's most important to have a large group of passionate supporters, but being universally well liked is also big.

Group 1: Man, I'm Confident This Year. I Should Stop That
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

What, there are only potentially 5 slots and I'm willing to bet your firstborn that these six movies are completely safe? Yup, them's the breaks. It's been a profoundly weird year for Oscar, and surprises just may abound on Thursday morning, but if any of these movies miss, I will personally throw your firstborn into that special volcano we've always talked about.

Group 2: I'm Like That Awkward Kid Drinking Punch Under the Bleachers, Because I Should Be More Confident, But Instead I'm Just Going to Fill My Empty Empty Soul with Punch
Brooklyn
Carol

Well if the group title doesn't tell you exactly what you're looking at, then I don't know what to do for you. I'm reasonably sure both of these movies will get nominated Thursday morning, but for whatever reason I'm a little tentative--maybe because Carol is very much not the Academy's usual thing, and because I love Brooklyn enough that the Academy will probably ignore it to spite me.

So that could be it--Academy rules these days allow for a fluid number of best picture nominees--between 5 and 10, depending on how many films get the necessary number of votes. Last year we only had 8, but every other year under this rule set we've had 9. So I'm going to bank on 9--particularly because there have been so many films this year to garner some kind of passionate support.

Group 3: One Spot Left, You Say? Let's Make Movies Murder Each Other for Sport!
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
Sicario
Straight Outta Compton
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

See above, re: it's been a weird year for movie awards. Which means that all of these very populist and genre films might just muscle in over all the prestige dramas and mopey failed indies to make a mark on a utterly wacky race. I wish I could be more confident about Mad Max: it's so obviously deserving, and it's performed like gangbusters at all the precursor awards, but I'm having lots of trouble believing that anything as defiantly insane and inscrutable as the 4th movie in an apocalyptic series about looking for gas really has the juice to make it this far. It would be cool, but it's also probably far-fetched. I'd also like to think that Inside Out is safe, but for some reason it's not. I haven't seen Straight Outta Compton, so like you, I'm slightly perplexed that I'm including it here, but hey. And Star Wars is Star Wars, which means that anything's possible. So any of these four movies could take the final slot, or muscle one of the other movies up there out of competition, or all four could be left behind. Craziness. Please don't come here looking for accuracy.

Group 4: Here are More Words for You to Read!
Creed
Ex Machina
The Hateful Eight
Son of Saul

I absolutely believe that none of these movies have a chance in hell of being nominated, but I want to look smart in case a crazy surprise happens, so I'm hedging my bets.

My Predictions, in order of likelihood:
Spotlight
The Martian
The Big Short
The Revenant
Room
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Brooklyn
Sicario

Alternates: Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out

Ugh, that Sicario call is so wrong. I'm absolutely changing that when I do my final picks on Tuesday.

Now I'll race through a few categories that I'm devastatingly under-qualified to speak about. Yay!

Best Animated Feature
So we know two things--Inside Out has already won this prize, and Anomalisa will provide the scrappy adult-er alternative. So what other three movies will have the pleasure of losing on Oscar night? This category tends to throw bones to big populist fare as well as little international movies that no one has heard of, but are miles better than their American counterparts (I'm looking at you, Minions). It's certainly possible that Anomalisa takes the 'little, indie, and/or serious' slot, but given the breathtaking dearth of quality in major mainstream animation releases this year, I'm going to bet on at least one little guy. It could be Salma Hayek's passion project Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, or Studio Ghibli's lovely final film, When Marnie was There, but I'm leaning towards Boy and the World--a Brazilian, allegedly gorgeous and wordless little parable movie. So that leaves two slots for mainstream-er movies, which means a horse race between Pixar's other (dramatically inferior) movie this year, The Good Dinosaur, surprisingly passable reboot The Peanuts Movie, and latest Aardman import Shaun the Sheep Movie. Let's not talk about the possibility of Minions here, because I can only stand so much.

My Predictions, in order of likelihood:
Inside Out
Anomalisa
The Peanuts Movie
Boy and the World
Shaun the Sheep Movie
Alternates: The Good Dinosaur, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

Best Foreign Language Film
Each year, the Academy helpfully releases a shortlist of nine eligible films in this category. This year, they are:
The Brand New Testament-Belgium
Embrace of the Serpent-Colombia
The Fencer-Finland
Labyrinth of Lies-Germany
Mustang-France
Son of Saul-Hungary
Theeb-Jordan
Viva-Ireland
A War-Denmark

Now, I haven't seen any of these movies (because the middle of the country doesn't deserve the kind of movies that are released on the coasts!), but here's what I know: Son of Saul is the inarguable frontrunner, people seem to love Mustang and Labyrinth of Lies, and Testament, Theeb, and The Fencer have all gotten big nominations thus far. But the Academy sometimes goes for the weird, unexpected choice here (Dogtooth? Tangerines?), which very much gives Embrace of the Serpent a leg up, as well as Viva, to a lesser extent.

My Predictions, in order of likelihood:
Son of Saul-Hungary
Labyrinth of Lies-Germany
Mustang-France
Theeb-Jordan
Embrace of the Serpent-Colombia
Alternates: A War-Denmark, Viva-Ireland

Best Documentary Feature
Full disclosure: I haven't seen most of these movies, and for whatever reason I always find myself vaguely uninterested in this category. I always love the documentaries I see, but I so rarely end up choosing to see them. Oh well. Odds-on frontrunner is Amy, but I can't help but feel like it'll get snubbed, so I'm not going to predict it, which is probably breathtakingly silly. I'm also going to predict The Look of Silence, which is the odds-on favorite to win the 'great movie that gets ignored' slot. But I'm gonna play with fire, because I can't really bothered to care too passionately.

My Predictions, in order of likelihood:
The Hunting Ground
The Look of Silence
Cartel Land
Best of Enemies
Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom
Alternates: Amy, Meru

That's that for today! I'll be back tomorrow to wax effusive about acting tomorrow. Until then, what are you rooting for? What did I get wrong? Let me know!

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