Best Picture:
Should Win: Gravity - I have heard all of the criticisms of the weaknesses on the story side and I disagree vehemently. Gravity is on the shortlist of most daunting cinematic achievments of all time. It changed the way I thought about movies. It deserves the hardware.
Will Win: Gravity - I'm sticking with my gut on this one. I found 12 Years a Slave terribly cold and difficult to like. Hard to remember a movie so difficult and brutal that won.
Best Actor:
Should Win: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyer's Club - MM famously lost 50 pounds for this role, and it really is one of the most dedicated performances you'll ever see. His performance is dazzling & heartbreaking. The year of McConaughey is upon us.
Will Win: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyer's Club - the Academy loves big performances and McConaughey delivered the biggest of the year. DiCaprio is overdue, and had the most screen time, but Wolf of Wall Street is not the film to win it for. Christian Bale was brilliant, but his performance seems understated in this field. Chiwetel Ejiofor carried what many believe to be the best movie of the year, but I still think this is McConaughey's to lose.
Tangent: Three spectacular overlooked male performances - Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight; Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis; Joaquin Phoenix, Her. Phoenix, in particular, delivered a graceful, gentle, brilliant performance. A masterclass in acting that you should watch and admire, but which doesn't have the requisite fireworks to earn the Academy's recognition.
Best Actress:
Should Win: Sandra Bullock, Gravity - It's hard to recognize how brilliant and beautiful her peformance was considering the technical achievments of the film that have far overshadowed the acting, and what is widely considered a weak story, but again I disagree - Bullock in many ways makes the best movie of the year work. We are not watching a CG film. We are watching a brilliant actress at the top of her game allow a brilliant director to craft a film that changed the face of movie making.
Will Win: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine - Blanchett is a brilliant actress and her talents are on full display in Blue Jasmine. She fully embodies and brings to life a difficult character. She's got the fireworks that the Academy loves to reward.
Supporting Actor:
Should Win: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer's Club - another brilliant performance in a strong film. Leto is expected to runaway with the hardware in this category. There's a strong slate of contenders, but nobody commited like Leto did. And he will be justly rewarded.
Will Win: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer's Club
Supporting Actress:
Should Win: Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine - Blue Jasmine was an awkward, difficult film that didn't really land right with me, but Hawkins was the unsung hero of the performance. In that sense, her performance was perhaps one of the most important I saw of any this year. I think that Jennifer Lawrence's performance is vastly overrated - she was the weakest performance in a movie full of great performances and is being lauded simply for being likeable.
Will Win: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave - She wore the difficulty of this film and all that it represents with astonishing dignity and poise.
Best Cinematography:
Will & Should Win: Usually this is one of my favorite categories. I love the way movies look & feel. Alas, the only two nominees I saw out of the bunch were Gravity & Inside Llewyn Davis. ILD seems like the big snub of the show - one of my favorite movies of the year that somehow didn't earn the tenth open Best Picture nomination - and Cohen brothers films are always gorgeously filmed, but Gravity changed the way movies are made. Gravity was uniquely gorgeous, and this award should be a no brainer.
Best Animated Feature:
Should Win: The Wind Rises. I am editing this post last second because I got to watch Hayao Miyazaki's final directorial effort, the Wind Rises, just under the Oscar gun. I am a biased Miyazaki fan who has long been a lover and admirer of his work, but the Wind Rises really is a masterpiece. It is perhaps the most visually beautiful hand drawn film I have ever seen, and it is equally gorgeous thematically and in content. The film is a moving portrait of a Japanese genius and national hero. It is on one hand, a biopic, but it is like no other biopic effort I have ever seen. It floats in and out of dream sequences and infuses its reality with Miyazaki's characteristic magic and whimsy. Apparently the film is also liberal in its application of facts, because Miyazaki's intent - and the effect - is to frame a series of emotions about genius and artistry and loss and what it means to be human. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is immediately the second best film of the year to my mind, behind only Gravity which I will again say, is a revolution in filmmaking. They are two of the best movies that I have ever seen and you should see them both.
Will Win: Frozen. Despite my effusive praise for the Wind Rises, it seems to have missed its mark when it comes to the wider audience. Animated films still carry with them a stigma that they should look and feel and act certain ways - they should cap out at 90 minutes, they should stay in certain family-friendly realms - I have heard the truly perplexing criticism that the Wind Rises is "too adult-themed" (whatever the hell that even means - imagine saying that about a non-animated film and how much of a dolt you would sound like) to be a success. It has been taken issue that the characters smoke, that the subject of the film was the inventor of the japanese war plane that allowed Japan the aeronautical might to attack Pearl Harbor. None of these seem to be valid film criticisms, but they certainly seem poised to keep one of the most brilliant animated films ever made from collecting the hardware tonight. Frozen, to its credit, was cute, smart, and unconventional in its own way and was widely hailed as a return-to-form for Disney. But in reality, this is a no contest. The Wind Rises is a vastly better movie.
Gravity
The Wind Rises
Before Midnight
Inside Llewyn Davis
Dallas Buyer's Club
Her
American Hustle
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Captain Phillips
Star Trek: Into Darkness
The Place Beyond the Pines
Iron Man 3
Frozen
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
The Wolf of Wall Street
Blue Jasmine
12 Years a Slave
The Great Gatsby
Ender's Game
