They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
Final Oscar Predictions for the 86th Annual Academy Awards
By J Don Birnam
February 27, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com

'Tis a fine barn, English.
So it has all come down to this. The votes have been cast and the results are being tabulated. We can talk through theories and statistics until we are blue in the face, but it is time to have the courage of our convictions and make final predictions. Hopefully, the last few months of obsessive Oscar-watching will net you a good result on your Oscar ballot Sunday night. Or perhaps you are like me and are hoping for major surprises and upsets. Indeed, I hear rumors and truly hope that this might in fact be the year we finally get a big upset in the top eight categories. But don’t count on it - the Oscars have been utterly predictable over the past years. Sure, we don’t know yet if American Hustle, Gravity, or 12 Years a Slave will win Best Picture, but it won’t be an upset unless one of the other six nominees somehow pulls it off.

First let’s walk through the anatomy of my own strategy for filling out my Oscar ballot at any Oscar contest. I like to make my selections in two stages - first, the “lesser” 16 categories, leaving for second the eight major awards (Picture, Director, four acting races, and two writing races). Within each stage, it is always comforting to click off the easy categories first; it lulls you into a false sense of easiness and complacency. When you come to the more iffy races, first eliminate the “no way” contenders (for this you can use past columns where I have discarded some nominees outright) and then pick from what is left based on what you think is objectively best or the most popular film. The Oscar race is a popularity contest first and foremost. Or you can simply pick whatever most pundits are predicting in those categories with two or three potential victors.

Alternatively, you may try a different strategy for the harder to call races: you may go out on a limb and predict a surprise. The strategy of crossing off “no way” contenders and selecting either your favorite or the pundit favorite will net you a consistently high score of around 14-22 correct. You will never get them all right by going with the pundit consensus. There is always an unforeseen winner in the tech races where the Academy just decides to go its own way. The latter strategy, picking against the consensus in the iffy races, may result in an embarrassing disaster if applied across more than one or two categories - it is just a fact that favorites win most awards (a consistently reliable trend of late but maybe statistically overdue to be broken) - but of course could make you look brilliant if you were the only one who called Lincoln for Art Direction or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for Editing. I tend to go the safer route, having been bitten one too many times with off-the-cuff predictions.

Finally, apply this same strategy to the major awards. The only difference for the main races is that the guild and critical precursors (which we have covered here) do provide hints as to what and who is popular. Remember: popularity contest. Normally, none of the major eight are “vulnerable” - they are either locks or a toss-up between a particular number of contenders. Sometimes it is just wide open, like last year’s Best Supporting Actor race, and there you just have to guess - who do they like more? What movie do they like more? Sometimes it is a lock between two contenders, like Best Supporting Actress this year.

Oh, here is one more thing I resort to when I am hopelessly confused: I ask my parents. Seriously. They are the quintessential Academy demographic - older, mostly male (or male centric), who think of themselves as cool liberals. Spoilers: this year they are gaga over American Hustle, Jennifer Lawrence, and all that jazz. So rest assured that I will be trembling all night that the Best Picture envelope does not yield American Hustle.

One last thing before we get started. Here are three key questions particular to this year’s race that you should answer before you begin filling out your ballot.

1. Will American Hustle really go home empty-handed and can it still win the top prize?
2. Will the Weinstein-backed movie in the race really go home empty-handed for the first time in decades or will the beloved Philomena sneak through somewhere?
3. What category of the technical races will have an out-of-left-field winner?

So here we go, from easiest to hardest to predict, divided into two groups. In iffier races I will list my own pick first, and a potential spoiler second.

The “Lower 16” Categories

Best Visual Effects – Gravity. Easy, move on.

Best Original Make-up – Dallas Buyers Club. Sorry, Grandpa.

Best Animated Feature – Frozen. Just let it go.

Best Cinematography – Gravity. I want to not jinx the overdue Emmanuel Lubezki, but there is no real competitor.

Best Sound Effects (Sound Editing) – Gravity. Gravity is clearly strong in the technical categories and I expect the “sounds of silence” gimmick will carry it to a sweep of the two sound categories.

Best Sound Mixing – Gravity. Inside Llewyn Davis is the potential spoiler but I would not count on it.

Best Original Score – Gravity. This one really puzzles me for some reason as we get into iffier races. I have a nagging feeling that Philomena will win its consolation Oscar here, but the pundits are virtually unanimous that it will be Gravity’s somewhat muted score.

Best Production Design – The Great Gatsby. Watch for a Gravity sweep of technical prizes if it steals this award from the more deserving Gatsby. Indeed, Gatsby faces four Best Picture nominees in this race, so it is honestly due for an upset.

Best Animated Short Film – Get a Horse! The Disney entry seems to be popular and plays ahead of Frozen, but a win by Mr. Hublot is more in line with past victors here.

Best Documentary Short – The Lady in Number 6. Karama Has No Walls is your potential spoiler.

Best Live Action Short Film – That Wasn’t Me. Most pundits, however, are betting on The Voorman Problem, which admittedly is more in line with past winners in this category, so take that into account. Me, I’m sticking with the Spanish entry.

Best Original Song – Let It Go. This looked a lot safer a few days ago, but many think the older-skewing Academy could go for U2’s Ordinary Love or even the hipper Happy by Pharrell Williams. It’s going to be close, but I think Let It Go still has it.

Best Costume Design – American Hustle. We are quickly getting into very murky territory. Because I refuse to believe that (a) American Hustle will win Best Picture and (b) that it will go home empty-handed, I am predicting it to win here. But this is perhaps my least confident prediction of the night—most pundits are expecting the Great Gatsby. I think 12 Years a Slave is also a possibility. Trust your gut on this one.

Best Foreign Language Film – The Great Beauty. That is the safe bet. The more interesting pick that I would love to see is Broken Circle Breakdown. But I doubt it.

Best Documentary Feature – 20 Feet From Stardom. But the Act of Killing has been the critical darling and the pundit pick throughout the year, this one is also a close race.

Best Film Editing – Captain Phillips. Caveat emptor: This will likely go to Gravity if they just click it off in every technical race. But the most deserving is, in my mind, Phillips. I doubt anything else has a chance but if 12 Years a Slave pulls of this win then you know it has won Best Picture.

Phase Two: The Big Boys

Best Supporting Actor – Jared Leto. Signed, sealed, and delivered.

Best Actress – Cate Blanchett. Weeks ago, this would have been the easiest call. But Oscar smear campaigns are a yearly tradition now (Zero Dark Thirty anyone?) and this time the target was the best-reviewed performance of the year. If it worked, Amy Adams stands to benefit. But you would have to be very…brave…to predict Amy to win.

Best Adapted Screenplay – 12 Years a Slave. With or without a Best Picture win, nothing else can beat it here. It’s either a consolation prize or a reaffirmation prize. Admittedly, it is another category where they may see fit to give a consolation prize to Philomena or even Wolf of Wall Street, but a win for Slave here is like a reaffirmation for Solomon Northrup’s life story itself. I can’t see anything else winning.

Best Director – Alfonso Cuarón. Cuarón has won every single precursor, even in awards where the ultimate big prize has gone on to McQueen’s film. If Cuaron does not win, not only is Gravity not winning Best Picture, the Academy has lost its mind. If McQueen manages to pull off a win, then of course we know 12 Years won Best Picture.

Best Original Screenplay – Her. This is a tough one because the Academy really loves American Hustle, but Her is also very liked and respected. This could go as another consolation prize to Hustle, but Her is the type of movie that tends to win here. Still, this it’s a very close race, one you ought to think of carefully before making a selection.

Best Actor – Matthew McConaughey. Matthew has everything going for him. Incredible year of work, transformative performance, charming and important speeches, plays a real life hero, etc. DiCaprio plays a despised character, which rarely yields a Best Actor win. McConaughey, of course, could be the target of resentment from the older members who prefer to reward more seasoned talents than a once romantic comedy boy toy. If the race between the two is tight enough, then I suppose Chiwetel Ejiofor or even Bruce Dern can slip in. I’m sticking to the safe pick, but this category is ripe for an upset.

Best Supporting Actress – Lupita Nyong’o. Here is a telling stat: in this century, how many women have won the Golden Globe and then BAFTA but failed to win the Oscar? Answer: Zero. So what I am predicting in picking Nyong’o is that Jennifer Lawrence will become the first to win the Globe and BAFTA but lose at Oscar. Typing it up makes the prediction seem even more insane, and it is undoubtedly my most queasy of the entire ballot and I may still change my mind before marking off my ballot at my own Oscar contest on Sunday. But, my rationale to stick with Nyong’o is in part because of my continued belief as to what will win Best Picture. 12 Years a Slave voters will surely mark off Lupita, and Gravity voters will likely want to recognize that film somewhere.

Best Picture. Well, at least we have had a semi-exciting Best Picture year, which has not happened since The Departed won in 2006. This year, we have the three major guilds giving awards to three very different movies, each of which represents markedly different paths for the present and future of Hollywood and filmmaking. So what do I predict?

If recent patterns hold, the crowd-pleasing American Hustle will win.

If the Academy is finally ready to embrace effects-driven films, then it will be Gravity’s Oscar on Sunday.

But if the Academy sticks to the more “traditional” type of movie, the more “prestigious” and important-sounding of the bunch, they will pick 12 Years A Slave.

And picking Steve McQueen’s brilliant film is precisely what I think they will do.

That is all folks. I hope you have enjoyed this Oscar season as much as I have. When we speak next, it will be on the other side of the telecast, and we will do a brief post-mortem of surprises, winners, and what it all means. Happy Oscar predicting!