Predictions for the 86th Annual Academy Awards

The end of the Hollywood awards season is here with the presentation of the Academy Awards tomorrow night. It’s been a fantastic year for movies which is evident based on how great all the nominees are this year. Trevor and Joe have debated the nominees and have decided to offer up their picks for the winners of all the big categories (we don’t pick the three Short Film categories because we have not seen any of them). So here are our picks for the 86^th Annual Academy Awards. We welcome any and all attempts to outguess us!

Best Picture of the Year:

The way we see it, there are really only three movies that could win this award: “12 Years a Slave”, “American Hustle” or “Gravity”. Joe thinks a fourth film with a legitimate shot to win is “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Trevor would be surprised to see that happen and thinks it has no chance. “Slave”, “Hustle” and “Gravity” have enjoyed universal critical acclaim since their openings. Both “Gravity” and “Hustle” have also enjoyed commercial success grossing $269.6 million and $144.8 million respectively. Should “Gravity” win, it would be the highest grossing movie to win the top prize since “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” 10 years ago. “Slave”, on the other hand, has only brought in $49.4 million, which would be one of the lowest grossing movies to win over the last 10 years (behind only “The Artist” and “The Hurt Locker”). Of the nine nominees, Trevor would vote for “Her” as the Best Picture winner if he were an Academy member. Joe would vote for “Gravity” as it topped his Best Ten list for 2013. However, given the subject matter of “12 Years a Slave” and its continued critical success and high praise, we believe that is what will walk away with the night’s top prize. We will also have to refer to Brad Pitt as an Academy Award Winner from here on out seeing as he is nominated as a producer in this category. Additionally, all nine of these films deserve the recognition they’re getting by being in this category. Every one of them. It’s been a very long time since we’ve been able to say that about all the Best Picture nominees.

Best Director:

This one is open and shut. Take it to the bank. Go all in. Alfonso Cuarón will win best director for “Gravity”. He’s won nearly every award in this category this season including the Directors Guild Award. Winners of the DGA almost always go on to win the Oscar for Best Director if they’re nominated. Very rarely does this not line up. It didn’t last year, but Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated at the Oscars for some reason. You have to go all the way back to 2002 to see a director win the DGA, be nominated for the Oscars and lose to someone else. Rob Marshall won the DGA for “Chicago”, was up for an Oscar, but lost to Roman Polanski for “The Pianist”. The technical scale of “Gravity” and how seamless Cuarón made the images on screen should be enough to secure him a victory. The Academy, however, is famously anti-technology. James Cameron was up in this category a few years ago for “Avatar” but failed to win (he did not win the DGA that year either, so it wasn’t a complete surprise). “Avatar” was a grand technical achievement - albeit a terrible film , but grand in size nonetheless. It also revolutionized the current 3D trend, which “Gravity” is a part of. Could the famously old and traditional Academy go for someone else instead of someone who pursued new technologies? Could we see Steve McQueen take the award for “12 Years a Slave” or even David O. Russell for “American Hustle”? We’d both be shocked by that. This looks like the year the Academy will finally honor the new technologies available to filmmakers. Cuarón should win and will win.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Heading into the Oscar season, Trevor was all but certain this award would be going to Chiwetel Ejiofor for “12 Years a Slave”. But then, everyone saw “Dallas Buyers Club” and Matthew McConaughey’s role in it. McConaughey has been cleaning up the awards circuit this season with wins at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. It seems pretty logical that he will win the Oscar too. The Academy loves to see actors play real life people. They also love to see actors go through major physical transformations for their role. Check and check. He’s also the star of the new HBO series “True Detective” which is the Toast of the Town right now. Rest assured, Oscar voters will have that show on their mind when they cast their ballots for McConaughey. There are some possible upsets in the mix though. Ejiofor winning would be a surprise but not out of the realm of possibility, especially if the Academy decides to gush over “12 Years a Slave”. Leonardo DiCaprio’s presence in this category is also interesting. This is his fourth acting nomination and third in the Best Actor category. A lot of people, including us, feel he’s a very deserving actor for this award and has been passed over numerous times already (mostly for films where he wasn’t nominated). Could this be the year where Oscar voters say, “You know what, Leo? You’ve never won before. Here you go!” That seems to have happened before. Julia Roberts winning an Oscar for “Erin Brockovich” over Ellen Burstyn for “Requiem for a Dream” is one of those instances. Another would be Sandra Bullock winning for “The Blind Side” rather than Carey Mulligan for “An Education”. We both feel that McConaughey will win this award. Joe, however, would vote for DiCaprio. Trevor wouldn’t be upset to see DiCaprio win since he’s one of Trevor’s favorite actors. Trevor would vote for Bruce Dern for “Nebraska” if he had a vote. We both disagree on who should win this category, but agree that by the end of the night, McConaughey will walk away with his first Oscar.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

This one is a more sure thing than Cuarón is for Best Director. Cate Blanchett put on one of the most critically acclaimed performances of the year in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine”. She’s cleaned up at practically every award show and critics circle possible. She’s already won an Oscar before for Supporting Actress in “The Aviator” in 2004. We would both vote for her and we both think she will win. Her only real competition here would be Amy Adams for “American Hustle”. Four people from “Hustle” are nominated and you would expect they’d get at least one of those awards (more on that later). We don’t see Christian Bale upsetting McConaughey for Best Actor (we both think Bale is just lucky to be in that category anyway) nor do we see Bradley Cooper winning in his category. Adams is a long shot here, but if there’s any chance of an upset in this category, it’s Adams. And it would be a monumental upset if she beat Blanchett.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Jared Leto for “Dallas Buyers Club” is who will win this category. We both think that. And how could anyone think any different? Leto, much like McConaughey and Blanchett, has won just about every award possible for his role. As with McConaughey, the Academy loves it when people go through physical transformations. Leto lost a lot of weight for this role and has been put in heavy makeup making him almost unrecognizable. He’s also mesmerizing in his role as Rayon in “Dallas Buyers Club” so that helps out a little too. Joe would absolutely vote for Leto in this category. Trevor would vote for Michael Fassbender for his role as the evil and sadistic slave owner in “12 Years a Slave”. Fassbender’s presence in this category is similar to Ralph Fiennes in “Schindler’s List” where he played an evil and sadistic man, much like Fassbender. Fiennes lost, but should have won. The Academy doesn’t really tend to vote for evil and sadistic. Not unless they go through some kind of transformation (Javier Bardem and his ugly hair style in “No Country for Old Men” or Heath Ledger in the face paint in “The Dark Knight”). So while Fassbender is great, his character is probably too evil for Oscar voters. Bradley Cooper could score an upset, but that’s unlikely. The Academy could vote for the ultimate Cinderella story and give it Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips”. The limo driver turned Oscar nominated actor scored a victory at the British Academy Awards, but he wasn’t nominated against Leto. Look for Leto to take home the award.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

This is the first category where Trevor and Joe disagree on who will win. We believe this will be a two-woman race. First is Lupita Nyong’o for her heartbreaking role in “12 Years a Slave”. Second is Jennifer Lawrence, Hollywood’s current queen of everything, for her role as the crazy Rosyln in “American Hustle”. Trevor would vote for Nyong’o but thinks Lawrence will end up winning. Joe feels the opposite: he’d vote for Lawrence but thinks Nyong’o will win. Lawrence was a winner last year in the Best Actress category. If she wins, she’ll be the first actor to win an Oscar in back-to-back years since Tom Hanks won for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump” in 1993 and 1994 (Lawrence was 2 and 3 years old when those movies were released). She’d be the sixth performer ever to win in back-to-back years, and the only one to win in the separate acting categories. She’s great in “American Hustle” and Hollywood loves her to pieces. Why wouldn’t they vote for her? Nyong’o is brand new to Hollywood. “12 Years a Slave” is her first big role. She puts on a fearless performance in the film. She even beat Lawrence during this awards season at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. That’s a pretty big victory heading into the Oscars. So this one could go either way. We love both of these actresses and their performances this year. Who will win it?

Best Screenplay

There are several options for who could win in the two screenplay categories. For Best Adapted Screenplay, we both think that John Ridley’s screenplay for “12 Years a Slave” will win. Trevor would vote for “12 Years a Slave” if he were an Oscar voter while Joe would vote for Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke for their “Before Midnight” screenplay. Joe is a big fan of that trilogy and this third installment was just as good as the previous two. The upset special here could be Billy Ray’s “Captain Phillips” screenplay, which won at the Writer’s Guild Awards (“12 Years a Slave” wasn’t nominated) and recently at the British Academy Awards. Over in the Original Screenplay category, we would both vote for Spike Jonze’s “Her” to win. Joe thinks Jonze will walk home at the end of the night with an Oscar. Trevor, on the other hand, thinks that David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer will win for their “American Hustle” screenplay. A win here would boost “American Hustle’s” chances of winning Best Picture, especially if “12 Years a Slave” doesn’t win. You don’t normally win Best Picture without at least being nominated for a Best Screenplay award. There are many exceptions to that rule, but that’s typically how it goes. “Gravity” is not nominated here, so that limits its chances, but only slightly.

For the other categories, let’s look briefly at what we each think will win and what we would vote for.

We didn’t see any of the nominees for Best Documentary Feature, so we will abstain from voting there. Trevor thinks “20 Feet from Stardom” will in this category. Joe thinks “The Square” will win. We didn’t see any of the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film either. We both think Italy’s “The Great Beauty will win. For Best Animated Feature, we both think “Frozen” will win. Trevor only saw “Monsters University” and “Despicable Me 2” so he’d vote for the latter. Joe would vote for “Frozen”.

We both think “Gravity” will take Best Cinematography. We would both vote for Emmaunel Lubezki’s groundbreaking work. We both think “Gravity” will take Best Film Editing. Joe would vote for it too, but Trevor would cast his vote for “American Hustle”. For Best Costume Design we like “American Hustle” to win and that’s where our vote would go too. For Best Makeup and Hairstyling, we like “Dallas Buyers Club” to win. We would vote for that too. But why wasn’t “American Hustle” nominated here? Christian Bale’s epic comb-over should have been enough to secure a nomination! For Best Production Design we both like “The Great Gatsby” to take that. Trevor’s vote would go to “Her” while Joe would vote for “American Hustle”.

For the two music categories, we would vote for “Her” in both categories. For Best Original Score, we both thought William Butler and Owen Pallett’s score was the year’s best music. Trevor is a big fan of Butler’s band Arcade Fire (who was actually credited in the film as writing the music, but I guess the Academy didn’t want to recognize all the band members). However, we see Steven Price winning for his work on “Gravity”. It’s hard to argue against that; the music in “Gravity” was great. Best Original Song should go to Karen O for “The Moon Song” from “Her”, but it won’t. Instead, we think “Let It Go” from “Frozen” will win. That song is everywhere right now and it’s by far the most popular song from that soundtrack. However, Pharrell’s song “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2” topped this week’s Billboard Hot 100 and it’s the only song nominated that has. Could that be the upset? You can’t rule out U2 either. Why wouldn’t Hollywood want to give an Oscar to Bono? They famously denied him of the award once already in favor of Eminem back in 2002. This is a great category. All four songs are really good. It would be a surprise if “Frozen” did not win though.

As for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects we would both vote for “Gravity” on all three. We expect “Gravity” to actually win all three of these as well. The only upset alert could be “Inside Llewyn Davis” winning in Best Sound Mixing. That one typically goes to a musical when there’s one nominated. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is the closest thing to a musical we have this year. It’s pretty unlikely, but if it wins that’s why.

The 86^th Annual Academy Awards will be held tomorrow night, March 2, at 8:30pm EST/5:30pm PST and will be televised on ABC. Tune in to see the show and to see how we did at picking the winners for this year’s awards!