TV & Film
Best Animated Feature
Nominees:
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
Deany: I’d like to start off this discussion by pointing out perhaps the most glaring non-Gone Girl snub this year: The LEGO Movie. Personally, I had it pegged to run away with this one.
Paul: But ever since that snub, How to Train Your Dragon 2 has been taking this category by storm. At this point, I wouldn’t predict any other film to win.
Deany: I’m going with How to Train Your Dragon 2, and even if the LEGO Movie snub casts a bit of a shadow on this pick, it is in no way obligatory. How to Train Your Dragon 2 was a pitch-perfect sequel straight out of the Hollywood dream factory—the kind of escapist fun that doesn’t feel inconsequential. It’s extremely well-made, with a tight script and gorgeous visuals. All in all, a deserving, if slightly formulaic, Best Animated Picture.
Deany and Paul’s pick: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Best Supporting Actor
Nominees:
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Paul: I can’t imagine anyone else winning aside from J.K. Simmons. His performance sent chills down my spine. While the other nominees are strong, I’m going to fight for a Simmons win to death.
Deany: Well, Ethan Hawke was sublime in Boyhood, but his performance isn’t the kind that nabs Academy votes. Edward Norton was one of the best parts of Birdman, as well, but yeah, I’m for J.K. Simmons all the way, if only because of this scene.
Deany and Paul’s pick: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Best Supporting Actress
Nominees:
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Deany: This is Patricia Arquette’s race to lose.
Paul: I’m not even mad that this is a sure win. By the end of Boyhood, I felt like she was my own mother and I had a hard time leaving her behind.
Deany: Taken in a vacuum, the performance is already outstanding, alternating between subdued and expressive while hitting all the right beats. When you find out that she kept this tricky balancing act going on and off for twelve years, you realize just how monumental a turn this was. In a field stacked with pedigree—Streep, Dern—and potential—Knightley, Stone—Arquette stands out simply by being genuine.
Deany and Paul’s pick: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Best Cinematography
Nominees:
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Emmanuel Lubezki
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Robert Yeoman
Ida, Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
Mr. Turner, Dick Pope
Unbroken, Roger Deakins
Deany: Another year, another Roger Deakins nomination that’s destined to fall short. Emmanuel Lubezki is a god among cinematographers, and he’s most likely going to pull off a well-deserved back-to-back after winning this award last year for the equally stunning Gravity.
Paul: While I’d say The Grand Budapest Hotel is the prettiest to look at out of the bunch, this category belongs to Birdman, hands down. The movie isn’t perfect, but if there’s one thing that Birdman nailed completely, it’s the cinematography.
Deany: The washed-out aesthetic of Birdman feels almost theatrical, and Lubezki casts each scene in a dreamy haze that highlights the surreal magic realism of the film. I love how this movie looks, even if I may not love the movie itself. All hail Lubezki.
Deany and Paul’s pick: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominees:
American Sniper, Jason Hall from American Sniper by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
The Imitation Game, Graham Moore from Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson from Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
The Theory of Everything, Anthony McCarten from Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Wilde Hawking
Whiplash, Damien Chazelle from his short film of the same name
Paul: It makes me sad that The Imitation Game, my second favorite film this year, is barely getting as much love as its competitors. But after winning the USC Scripter Award, a good predictor of this category, The Imitation Game looks like the one to beat for Best Adapted Screenplay. And I couldn’t be any more glad. It’s well-deserved. Alan Turing deserves to have his story told in the most masterful way possible, and this movie achieved that.
Deany: In an alternate universe, we would already be crowning Gone Girl as the prohibitive favorite to win it all, but with Gillian Flynn’s screenplay getting surprisingly shut out of the running, the field is a lot more even. Still, I’m picking Whiplash, and it isn’t particularly close. Damien Chazelle’s script is intelligent, edgy and oozing with a fresh originality the screen hasn’t seen perhaps since The Social Network. The Academy simply cannot pass this movie over.
Deany’s Pick: Whiplash, Damien Chazelle
Paul’s Pick: The Imitation Game, Graham Moore
Best Original Screenplay
Nominees:
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Alejandro G. Inarritu et al
Boyhood, Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness
Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy
Paul: A lot of these movies are great, but for most of them, the screenplay is not the standout aspect of the film. That is, except for The Grand Budapest Hotel. I thought Anderson was poised to win in 2012 for Moonrise Kingdom (he lost to Tarantino for Django Unchained), but I’m glad to see his chances are much stronger this year.
The Grand Budapest Hotel’s screenplay is complicated without being muddled, and heartfelt without being mushy. In previous Anderson films, the screenplay takes a back seat while the director’s style takes over; but this time, the story and screenplay shine through, even complementing Anderson’s usual charm as a filmmaker.
Deany: There’s a bit in Birdman where a tramp recites a few choice lines from Macbeth that say everything about the film’s screenplay—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I agree that the film’s beauty doesn’t have much to do with its slightly too contrived screenplay, and I agree that the same thing goes for Foxcatcher and Nightcrawler, films that depend heavily on their actors’ performances.
However, I’m pulling for Boyhood in this one, if only because it’s harder to craft normalcy than fantasy in dialogue. The Grand Budapest Hotel has a beautiful, elegiac screenplay that’s quintessential Wes, but Boyhood’s screenplay just feels a hair better and a hair more hyped.
Deany’s Pick: Boyhood, Richard Linklater
Paul’s Pick: The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness
Best Director
Nominees:
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro G. Inarritu, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
Paul: I’m so torn in this category. There is a part of me that thinks Linklater is leading this race, but then there are parts of me that believe some other director deserves it more. And then there’s Ava DuVernay, whose work in Selma deserves to at least kick out one white man in this category. The snub is tragic, but in predicting, we gotta work with what we have.
Case in point, I think Inarritu’s directing made Birdman great even with a mediocre screenplay. Perhaps the film’s flashy style (which worked wonders, by the way) makes Inarritu’s efforts more prominent than the other guys in this list. But then again, the way Linklater pulled off such an amazing subtlety in Boyhood is beyond me.
At the end of the day, either Linklater or Inarritu could win and I’d still be at peace. And since I’m hundred percent sure you’re picking Linklater, I’m going out on a limb here and choose Inarritu. No guts, no glory!
Deany: You know me well. I believe Boyhood is mankind’s greatest cinematic achievement of the new millennium, and Linklater’s direction plays an enormous role in its brilliance. The film never gets dramatic or ostentatious, but the rhythms it deals with feel incredibly impactful. It flows with the awkward grace of everyday life, but is so measured and precise that it could only be the work of a true artist. Plus, twelve years, man.
Deany’s pick: Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Paul’s pick: Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Birdman
Best Lead Actress
Nominees:
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Paul: Rosamund Pike’s turn on Gone Girl still haunts me to this day, but Julianne Moore for Still Alice has been unstoppable in this category.
Deany: Just to be clear, I genuinely feel that Pike deserves this Oscar. However, we’re predicting the actual winners here, not necessarily the deserving ones. Thus, I’m going with Julianne Moore bagging an Oscar that unfortunately feels like a legacy award.
Paul: I agree with Moore’s potential win as a legacy award, but I don’t see that as a terrible thing. We’ve seen her do a lot of great things throughout her career, and her heartbreaking performance in Still Alice just happens to be one of them. At this point, the film isn’t even a standout on her filmography; she’s always just great in whatever she does. Just this past year, she actually deserves a nomination (and win, I dare say) for two movies: This, and Maps to the Stars. But for Still Alice, she’s in almost every frame, carrying the movie with a kind of grace and tenacity that really wins awards. I cried every thirty minutes of that movie because of her.
Deany and Paul’s pick: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Best Lead Actor
Nominees:
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Deany: Surprise pick alert! Against every Michael Keaton-loving bone in my body, I’m going to have to put my money on Eddie Redmayne for this one. There’s too much hype and too many precedents—looking at you, Colin Firth—for him not to be considered the favorite at this point.
Paul: Before I go into the Keaton v. Redmayne battle, let’s take a moment of silence for one of the grossest snubs this season: David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma. If he were nominated, I’d pick him in a second.
But at this point, Redmayne and Keaton are really head-to-head. Redmayne’s performance as Stephen Hawking is an absolute turning point in his rather fresh career. Keaton, on the other hand, is a veteran who hasn’t done anything worth noting for quite some time but is back with a vengeance. I can’t even tell which performance I like more. All I can do is base my prediction on a gut-feeling, and my gut, although not always reliable, says this one’s going to Redmayne.
Deany: Pour one out for Batman—I mean, Birdman—then.
Deany and Paul’s pick: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Best Picture
Nominees:
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Paul: Boyhood. Done. Game over. See you at the next year’s Oscars.
Deany: You beat me to it, but we might as well talk about the other nominees while we’re here. American Sniper, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything all fall under the “also-ran” pile in what is essentially a five-film race. We have Alejandro G. Inarritu’s wonderfully bleak ensemble comedy Birdman, Richard Linklater’s intimate coming-of-age epic Boyhood, Wes Anderson’s immaculately made diorama The Grand Budapest Hotel, Ava DuVernay’s genuinely powerful historical drama Selma, and Damien Chazelle’s intensely original rampage of a film Whiplash.
Paul: However, Birdman has been getting a lot of awards attention recently, nabbing the top prizes at the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Producers Guild Award. If Inarritu even beats Linklater at the Directors Guild Award, we might be underestimating Birdman’s chances and would have to rethink our prediction. But then again, I think we’ve already said everything there is to say as to why Boyhood is this year’s best film. Let’s just hope the Academy is on board with it too.
Deany and Paul’s pick: Boyhood
