Obligatory Slapdash Predictions

Alas, not to be.

The last few weeks I've been expending every ounce of energy into my first attempt at being a first assistant director on a feature film -- ultra low budget, but still a nice little step up in responsibility -- so although I came out of January having already seen the major hitters out of tonight's nominated films I simply didn't have the time to take in some of the smaller releases that only received wider availability in recent days. We wrapped on Friday, so yesterday involved a few post-shoot tasks, then the rest of the day was dedicated to a triple-header of all of the short film programs in Pasadena. Six (6) hours, one (1) intermission trip to Lucky Boy, and one (1) parking ticket later, I feel I can make a pretty good stab at all of the categories this year, so here's the quick and dirty about the gold and sparkly.

By the numbers
All noms are here. 60 different films received a nomination, counting 15 in the short categories and another 5 documentary features. The only feature from the Foreign Language and Animated features to pull an additional nom in another category is the B&W Polish drama Ida, getting a deserving cinematography nod for its crisp, moody grays and non-standard framing.

Of the 60, these are the 8 I haven't seen and cannot comment on, but none are huge threats to take home gold tonight --
Docs: Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth, and Virunga
Foreign Language: Timbuktu, Wild Tales
Original Song: Beyond the Lights, Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me
Animated: Song of the Sea

Now for the rundown of my favorites and Officially Official Predictions (We're from Official!), starting with the shorts and working up to the big guns:

Short Film -- Live Action
Annual warning that I am terrible at picking the winning shorts -- I typically hate the winners, if that helps you at all in your Oscar party pool.

Favorite: "Butter Lamp" -- Charming and simple with a brilliant little twist. Sometimes less is more.

Prediction: It's probably a toss up between the saccharine crowd pleaser "Boogaloo and Graham" and the emotionally manipulative "The Phone Call." The latter has more star cred with a Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent doing the darkest Bob Newhart bit ever, but I'll go with "Boogaloo."


Short Film -- Animated
Favorite: "A Single Life" -- Quick, witty, and legitimately hilarious.

Prediction: "Feast" -- the Disney short that was tacked onto Big Hero 6 is honestly one of its best in years due to sharp direction and fluid transitions; bounds better than past winner "Paperman," through it treads the same emotional ground.


Documentary Short Subject
Favorite: "Joanna" -- Battles with cancer are de rigueur here, but this one is so personal and undeniably beautiful that it's hard to resist. Only length (40 minutes) and pace hurt its case (Yes, it's my favorite even though I dozed off once or twice. Maybe that says more about a weak year for the category.)

Prediciton: "Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1" -- Strangely coincidental that there is also a Live Action Short nominee ("The Phone Call") about a crisis hotline worker and that their messages are practically at odds with each other. In its real life snapshot of crisis workers handling just a handful of tense calls from suicidal vets this one gets the message right.


Documentary Feature
Again, this is a category I can't attest to a strong favorite as I've only seen the presumed frontrunners. Laura Poitras' fly-on-the-wall CitizenFour is one of the most essential political docs of the last few years. Lately though, the academy has steered clear of political controversy and celebrated to more feel-good humanist stories, (Undefeated, Searching for Sugar Man, Twenty Feet From Stardom) so Finding Vivian Maier has a legit shot to upset.

Prediction: Finding Vivian Maier


Sound Mixing & Sound Editing
Prediction: Expect a win in both for American Sniper, though Whiplash deserves kudos in the mixing category.


Visual Effects
Think Interstellar is a lock for doing its best 2001 impression? Then you forgot about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. We're reaching the point where motion capture performances are so immersive that we don't even think about them anymore, but this was a huge leap forward.
Prediction: DotPotA


Original Song:
Favorite: As fun as it would be to say "The LEGO Movie won an Oscar!" it just isn't gonna happen.
Prediction: "Glory" from Selma


Original Score:
Desplat is quickly becoming the Susan Lucci of film composers. Splitting the vote isn't going to help his this year.
Prediction: Jóhann Jóhannsson, The Theory of Everything


Makeup and Hairstyling:
Favorite & Prediction: Guardians of the Galaxy -- delivering so much more than fake noses and weird haircuts.


Costume Design & Production Design:
Favorite & Prediction for both: The Grand Budapest Hotel -- It's not always the case, but this is one of those years (as with Gatsby last year) where these two went hand-in-hand to create a quirky, immersive world built entirely from scratch.

Animated Feature:
Favorite: The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Beautifully restrained with a throwback watercolor/chalk/charcoal look, but not without its eye-popping sequences that completely catch the viewer off guard (one of which is teased in this trailer). Would expect nothing less from Studio Ghibli.
Prediction: How to Train Your Dragon 2 holds off Baymax to repeat its GG win.

Dang, time's running out and there's fajitas still to make for dinner, so I'm gonna speed the rest of this up...

Foreign Language Film:
Favorite & Prediction: Ida

Editing:
Favorite: Whiplash 
Prediction: Boyhood


Cinematography: 
Favorite: Ida
Prediction: Birdman


Adapted Screenplay:
Favorite: Whiplash
Prediction: The Imitation Game

Original Screenplay: 
Favorite & Prediction: Because it's probably running 3rd behind the Boy and the Bird in the top categories, Grand Budapest Hotel will get its love here.

From here on out I really don't see much changing from the Golden Globes' results, so I'll just run down the rest quickly.

Overarching Prediction: Lots of white people.

Supporting Actress:
Favorite & Prediction: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood


Supporting Actor:
Holy Lock: JK Simmons for Whiplash


Lead Actress:
Another easy one to agree with: Julianne Moore for Still Alice.


Lead Actor:
Favorite: Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler. Yes, I know he's not nominated. No, I'm not still bitter about it.
Prediction: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything


Director:
Favorite: Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel. One of these days, Wes.
Prediction: Richard Linklater for Boyhood


Best Picture:
Favorite: Of the nominees, I go back and forth between Birdman and Grand Budapest Hotel as my pick of the year.
Prediction: Boyhood was imperfect but a monumental, deserving achievement.