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
