Oscar Predictions 2016, Part 5: Director and Picture

Finally, time for the last two, the big prizes of the night. Best PIcture and Best Director, and it pains me to say they're both likely to go to my least favorite of the nominated films.

BEST DIRECTOR

  •         George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         Alejandro Inarritu, The Revenant
  •         Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
  •         Lenny Abrahamson, Room
  •         Adam McKay, The Big Short

You can't bet against the DGA in this category, ever, unless for some reason the DGA winner was not nominated for Best Director, ala Ben Affleck in 2012. But here, Alejandro Inarritu made history as the first person to win the DGA back to back, and he will very likely take the directing Oscar again as well. There are two others in Oscar history who won back to back directing prizes, and that was John Ford (1940's The Grapes of Wrath and 1941's How Green Was My Valley) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1950's All About Eve and 1951's A Letter to Three Wives). So that's quite an exclusive little club he's about to join. Coincidentally, both of those other directors only won Best Picture with one of their films, so Inarritu will very likely make history of his own this weekend as well, by winning Best Picture and Best Director two years in a row.

Winner: Alejandro Inarritu

Alternate: George Miller (this is a pipe dream on my part- it won't happen)

BEST PICTURE

  •         Brooklyn
  •         Bridge of Spies
  •         The Big Short
  •         Room
  •         The Revenant
  •         Spotlight
  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         The Martian

Okay, so full disclosure here. I really didn't like The Revenant. It's my least favorite film of everything nominated and I would literally prefer just about anything else to win instead. But, the DGA win combined with the recent Bafta wins seem to show that all the momentum, if there is any, is barreling towards this movie. Interestingly, this was the first year in a long time that the three major guilds (PGA, SAG and DGA) all went for a different film. The Big Short came in on top with PGA, Spotlight took the SAG and DGA went for The Revenant- for the last 7 years, the PGA's preferential ballot, which is the only one that matches the Academy's, has gotten Best Picture right, but historically speaking, DGA has always been the stronger precursor, and in a split year like this, it's the wisest move to stick with the decades long historical trend, plus the fact that predicting a split between Picture and Director is rare.

The last time it happened was when Alfonso Cuaron won Director and 12 Years a Slave won Picture- but there was a really strong "guilt" factor going on with 12 Years, given how many Academy voters to this day publicly refused to even watch the movie and admitted to voting for it anyway, because it was the "right thing to do." That definitely does not apply to the PGA's choice in The Big Short this year. The Revenant is a big hit, it's a sweeping historical epic, it's got the Best Actor and Director winners, it's the kind of technical filmmaking achievement film awards were made for. There's just not enough of a reason to bet against it at this point. Spotlight stands a chance as the actor's choice (although there's really nothing else it can win besides screenplay) and Big Short has that PGA ballot behind it, but with voting happening this week it may just feel like old news.

The choice seems obvious, no matter how indifferent I personally am towards this film.

Winner: The Revenant

Alternate: Spotlight

Dark Horse: The Big Short

Oscar Predictions 2016, Part 4: Acting

Okay, we're done with the techs! Time to move on to the acting awards, the big ones that people actually watch the show for, right? Well, don't worry Leo stans, you're all getting your wish this year.

BEST ACTOR

  •         Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
  •         Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
  •         Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
  •         Matt Damon, The Martian
  •         Bryan Cranston, Trumbo

Leo seems to have this in the bag, he's won everything else, and now the people who are inexplicably obsessed with him winning an Oscar (I think more than he is) can finally shut the hell up, because it's happening. Too bad it's for a movie where he barely spoke. I think he should have won for Wolf of Wall Street, if he was going to win one of these, which he doesn't necessarily deserve, and I say that as as big a Leo fan as anybody- I was one of the original Titanic fangirls, believe me. But he's not exactly Robert DeNiro in his prime, okay? He tries really hard, but he's too big a matinee idol to ever be a chameleon or a character actor, and this is first and foremost an award for being a massive movie star who brought a movie like The Revenant to over 160 million dollars. If we're going by actual performance, Fassbender deserves this hands down.

Winner: Leonardo DiCaprio

BEST ACTRESS

  •         Brie Larson, Room
  •         Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
  •         Cate Blanchett, Carol
  •         Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
  •         Jennifer Lawrence, Joy

Another one I don't really agree with. Brie Larson has won everything leading up to this, so I guess it's hers. Look, I saw Room and I did like it, but she was practically a supporting performance to little Jacob Tremblay, who carried that whole film on his shoulders. I prefer Saoirse Ronan, who really was her entire movie and didn't have to be histrionic in any sense to be convincing. But I rarely agree with the winners here.

Winner: Brie Larson

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

  •         Sylvester Stallone, Creed
  •         Christian Bale, The Big Short
  •         Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
  •         Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
  •         Tom Hardy, The Revenant

Sylvester Stallone has won the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice award, and even though he wasn't even nominated at SAG and Bafta, his standing ovations at every awards show he's made an appearance at (including the BET awards!) show you just how beloved he is after all these years, and how much people really want to give him that trophy. In other words, like Leo, he's really coasting on stardom this year, and this is kinda like when John Wayne finally won an Oscar in his old age that was primarily seen as a "we love you, thank you for being you," award. Funnily enough, Stallone's filmography doesn't include nearly as many great movies or acting roles, but c'mon, he's Rocky Balboa, people! Even I can't be too cynical about this one- I'd like to see him win that Oscar too. And you know what? He was great in Creed.

Winner: Sylvester Stallone

Alternate: Mark Rylance (he won the Bafta, and if there's any groundswell for someone else, I guess it would be him)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

  •         Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
  •         Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
  •         Rooney Mara, Carol
  •         Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
  •         Rachel McAdams, Spotlight

This is the one acting category that I actually don't think is set in stone. I'm predicting Alicia Vikander for her LEADING role in The Danish Girl, because she won the SAG award and the Critics Choice, but Kate Winslet winning that Golden Globe and Bafta award does not mean nothing. It's true that she wasn't competing against Vikander for Danish Girl at those shows, because some places did the right thing and placed her in lead where she belonged (although she was still up against her for Ex Machina), but Winslet is still a respected actress and an Academy Award winner already, and not someone they'd necessarily balk at giving another Oscar to. And Alicia Vikander is new, still unknown, and her film is very little seen. I'm going to say the SAG outweighs the other two groups, but we could definitely see a Kate upset here.

Winner: Alicia Vikander

Alternate: Kate Winslet

Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander Star in 'The Light Between Oceans'

Real life couple and Oscar nominated duo Fassbender and Vikander are starring in what looks like a pretty heavy melodrama from the guy who directed The Place Beyond the Pines and Blue Valentine, neither of which I saw. The story looks a little much though, if this trailer is anything to go by. Ostensibly a tearjerker, but the heavy sentiment looks a little too heavy for my taste.

Oscar Predictions 2016, Part 3: Costumes, Editing, Music and Screenplays

Now it's on to costumes, music, editing and the scripts. I think most of these are less iffy, except for one big one.

COSTUME DESIGN

  •         Cinderella
  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         The Danish Girl
  •         Carol
  •         The Revenant

And this is the one. This category is giving me a major headache, because Mad Max won the Bafta and the guild, but I just cannot imagine the Academy being cool enough to pick that movie here. They have a strong history of always picking the brightest, loudest, most colorful period costumes, and being a Best Picture nominee doesn't really matter too much. My instinct (and that's all it is) is telling me this is gonna be Cinderella. But the guild and Bafta win is too strong a combo to ignore.

Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road

Alternate: Cinderella

FILM EDITING

  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         The Big Short
  •         The Revenant
  •         Spotlight
  •         Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Well, this looks to be Mad Max's, again after winning the Bafta and guild awards. I used to think this was going to The Big Short, back when I thought it was going to take Best Picture- if I was still predicting that for picture I'd have to pick it for this as well. But now it seems to be Mad Max's to lose.

Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road

Alternate: The Big Short

Dark Horse: The Revenant (this is possible since the BP frontrunner always has a chance in editing)

ORIGINAL SCORE

  •         The Hateful Eight
  •         Carol
  •         Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  •         Bridge of Spies
  •         Sicario

Ennio Moriconne has been winning every music award for his Hateful Eight score, and there's no real momentum for another movie here, so that looks to be the one. I think it's more of a career award for Moricconne, who's never won, but if you're going to give those out, he's not a bad person to give it to.

Winner: The Hateful Eight

ORIGINAL SONG

  •         'Til It Happens to You,' The Hunting Ground
  •         'Writing's on the Wall,' Spectre
  •         'Earned It,' Fifty Shades of Grey
  •         'Simple Song 3,' Youth
  •         'Manta Ray,' Racing Extinction

None of these songs have any relevance this year to anything, which leaves me to predict Lady Gaga and Diane Warren's song from The Hunting Ground, mostly because they're the biggest names on the ballot. It's years like this when you wonder why this category still exists, frankly. I really hope that Bond song doesn't win though. I'm already dreading having to listen to it one more time on the show.

Winner: 'Til It Happens to You,' The Hunting Ground

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

  •         The Big Short
  •         Room
  •         The Martian
  •         Brooklyn
  •         Carol

An easy win for The Big Short, which took the WGA, Bafta and Scripter. Looks like a consolation prize, but it's deserving.

Winner: The Big Short

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

  •         Spotlight
  •         Straight Outta Compton
  •         Inside Out
  •         Bridge of Spies
  •         Ex Machina

Spotlight's in the same boat- it took the WGA and Bafta, and will win the Oscar for the script and likely nothing else (although being the SAG winner means there's a slight chance it could pull off a huge upset in picture, but very tiny).

Winner: Spotlight

Oscar Predictions 2016, Part 2: Animated, Foreign, Doc, Makeup, Sets and Cinematography

Today we're predicting the sets, makeup, cinematography, and the three feature categories that are isolated from the main films in animated, documentary and foreign language. Let's do this.

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         The Revenant
  •         The 100-Year-Old Man

I think this is an easy win for Mad Max. It won the guild and the Bafta, so it looks to me like a done deal at the Oscars too.

Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road

PRODUCTION DESIGN

  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         Bridge of Spies
  •         The Martian
  •         The Revenant
  •         The Danish Girl

Another win for Mad Max here, as it also won the Bafta (which can be very predictive in the tech categories, if not the main ones so much), and the guild, but that wasn't too informative, since they separate into genres like fantasy, period, etc. Still, I think it's the obvious frontrunner here, just based on how it looks.

Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road

CINEMATOGRAPHY

  •         The Revenant
  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         Sicario
  •         Carol
  •         The Hateful Eight

The Revenant is the ASC and Bafta winner for this- it's your Oscar winner too. Emanuel Lubezki has won this award two years in a row, and will now make it three, which is pretty amazing. If you want your movie to look good, hire Chivo.

Winner: The Revenant

ANIMATED FEATURE

  •         Inside Out
  •         Anomalisa
  •         Shaun the Sheep Movie
  •         When Marnie Was There
  •         Boy and the World

Inside Out has this walking away. There's no argument I can make for any other contender.

Winner: Inside Out

DOCUMENTARY

  •         Amy
  •         The Look of Silence
  •         Cartel Land
  •         What Happened Miss Simone
  •         Winter on Fire

I think Amy will take this one- it's won the most amount of precursors for documentary, but more importantly, whenever there's an entertainment doc among the nominees it tends to win with the whole Academy voting, which they used to not be able to do for this category, but now can. Cartel Land is more of a critical favorite, but it seems to me like Amy's got this.

Winner: Amy

Alternate: Cartel Land

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

  •         Son of Saul
  •         Mustang
  •         A War
  •         Embrace of the Serpent
  •         Theeb

Son of Saul is the favorite and like Amy, has won by far the most precursor awards from critics and other groups for this category. I wish I had gotten a chance to see it, but it never played anywhere near me, so sadly I'm in the dark on this one. But it is supposed to be amazing.

Winner: Son of Saul

Oscar Predictions 2016 Part 1: Shorts, Sound and Effects

Okay guys, it's my favorite time of the year- final Oscar prediction time. As always, I do these in five parts, starting with the below the line categories and moving up from there, so here we go now with the sound and short categories.

ANIMATED SHORT

  •         Sanjay's Super Team
  •         World of Tomorrow
  •         Bear Story
  •         Prologue
  •         We Can't Live Without Cosmos

Boy, would I love to pick World of Tomorrow to win this. It's an excellent short and it's currently streaming on Netflix for anyone who wants to watch it, but as usual, this one tends to go to Disney or Pixar when they have a decent contender in the mix, which they do this year. So I'm going with Sanjay's Super Team, but World of Tomorrow SO deserves this and I really hope it wins somehow.

Winner: Sanjay's Super Team

Alternate: World of Tomorrow

LIVE ACTION SHORT

  •         Shok
  •         Ave Maria
  •         Stutterer
  •         Day One
  •         Everything Will Be Okay

Educated guess time, because I have seen none of these, as per usual. From what I'm hearing, Shok is the frontrunner, so I'm going with that.

Winner: Shok

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

  •         Body Team 12
  •         Chau Beyond the Lines
  •         Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
  •         A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
  •         Last Day of Freedom

Even tougher, because again, I know nothing about these films. And the truth is, neither do most Academy voters, so the only people who fill out these categories are probably the doc short filmmakers themselves. I'm betting on Body Team 12 here, but apparently Chau Beyond the Lines and Claude Lanzmann are easily in the running too.

Winner: Body Team 12

Alternate: Chau Beyond the Lines

SOUND MIXING

  •         The Revenant
  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  •         The Martian
  •         Bridge of Spies

Everyone thought Mad Max was going to sweep both sound categories, but then The Revenant won this award at both Bafta and the Cinema Audio Society. That means I have to choose it to win here, which begs the question of whether I should also choose it for editing or stick with Mad Max and go for the less common split.

Winner: The Revenant

Alternate: Mad Max: Fury Road

SOUND EDITING

  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  •         The Revenant
  •         The Martian
  •         Sicario

I want to predict Mad Max for this but I just can't bring myself to not go for the same film in both sound categories. If The Revenant is going to win sound mixing, it really should take editing too.

Winner: The Revenant

Alternate: Mad Max: Fury Road

Dark Horse: Star Wars

VISUAL EFFECTS

  •         Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  •         The Revenant
  •         Mad Max: Fury Road
  •         Ex Machina
  •         The Martian

Man, I'm choosing Star Wars here, because it won both the Bafta and Guild award, which means it has to be the frontrunner. But the funny thing is, the Academy has gone with a Best Picture nominee (when one is nominated) for nearly the entire history of this category. So Mad Max and Revenant have an equal chance of taking this, and even though Star Wars won those precursors, it wasn't up against Revenant at Bafta. So I'm not real confident about this choice- then again, it does make sense that they'd want to hand Star Wars some kind of token win in acknowledgment of all the money it's made. Oy.

Winner: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Alternate: The Revenant

Dark Horse: Mad Max: Fury Road

Makeup, Sound and Scripter Awards Go Out

Last night, a couple more guilds weighed in, as well as the USC Scripter award, which has a long streak of predicting the Adapted Screenplay Oscar winner that looks to not be broken this year.

USC Scripter

To no one's surprise, The Big Short took this prize last night, and will definitely go on to win the Oscar after having taken the Writers Guild trophy as well. The movie still has an outside shot at Best Picture, due to that PGA win, but more and more it looks like brainy films Spotlight and Big Short will have to settle for the screenplay prizes.

Makeup and Stylists Guild

Another non-surprise, as Mad Max swept up this trophy from the guild yesterday, or at least the one for makeup, as hairstyling was awarded separately to Cinderella. But expect Fury Road to take the Oscar, which is awarded as one prize for both makeup and hairstyling.

Cinema Audio Society

The sound mixing guild awarded The Revenant last night, and this matched up with Bafta's choice last week as well, so it looks like I'm going to have to predict Revenant for sound mixing. The Oscars have two annoying sound categories- mixing and editing, whose guild doesn't award until next Saturday, but it's normally a smart move to predict the same movie for both. However, almost everyone thought Mad Max was going to sweep the sound awards, so I may end up predicting a split between them this year.