Maria’s 2014 Oscar Picks

These are my 2014 Oscar picks.  I’ve noted who I WANT to win and who I THINK will win.  Sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re not.  This is mostly for my own amusement, more than anything.  Also noted, if I have a review for the mentioned movie, the link will take you to my review of it.

*Edit* The actual winners are now noted.

Actor in a Leading Role

• Christian Bale in “American Hustle”
• Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”
• Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – Will they ever give him an Oscar? We can keep dreaming… I’d like him to get one but not in this category this year.
• Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave” – WANT to win and probably WILL win
• WINNER – Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club” – If Ejiofor doesn’t win it, I think McConaughey will.

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips” – haven’t seen it but heard he was great, so I’d be ok if he won.
• Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle” – honestly surprised he was nominated….
• Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave”
• Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – He was surprising in this, I’ll give him that.  But I think other performances by people in this category were better.
• WINNER – Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyers Club” – WANT to win and strong chance that he WILL win.

Actress in a Leading Role

• Amy Adams in “American Hustle”
• WINNER – Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine” – WILL win, if the other award shows are anything to go off of.
• Sandra Bullock in “Gravity”
• Judi Dench in “Philomena”
• Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County”

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Sally Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine”
• Jennifer Lawrence in “American Hustle” – If it doesn’t go to Nyong’o, I want it to go to JL.
• WINNER – Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave” – WANT to win and I hope to god she WILL win. I think she has a good chance.
• Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County”
• June Squibb in “Nebraska”

Animated Feature Film

• “The Croods” Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco and Kristine Belson
• “Despicable Me 2” Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin and Chris Meledandri
• “Ernest & Celestine” Benjamin Renner and Didier Brunner
• WINNER – “Frozen” Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee and Peter Del Vecho – Is there even really a debate in this category? WANT to win and WILL win.  If it doesn’t, people will freak out.
• “The Wind Rises” Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki

Cinematography

• “The Grandmaster” Philippe Le Sourd
• WINNER – “Gravity” Emmanuel Lubezki – Probably will win… which I don’t think it’s fair since so much of this movie is CGI.
• “Inside Llewyn Davis” Bruno Delbonnel
• “Nebraska” Phedon Papamichael
• “Prisoners” Roger A. Deakins – WANT to win – I thought this movie was gorgeously shot.

Costume Design

• “American Hustle” Michael Wilkinson – WILL probably win, though both this and Great Gatsby I think had the same amount of “wow” in costume design.
• “The Grandmaster” William Chang Suk Ping
• WINNER – “The Great Gatsby” Catherine Martin – see above.  Want to win equally with American Hustle.
• “The Invisible Woman” Michael O’Connor
• “12 Years a Slave” Patricia Norris

Directing

• “American Hustle” David O. Russell
• WINNER – “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón – WILL probably win.
• “Nebraska” Alexander Payne
• “12 Years a Slave” Steve McQueen – WANT to win since I thought this movie was incredible and the directing was fantastic.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese

Documentary Feature

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “The Act of Killing”Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
• “Cutie and the Boxer” Zachary Heinzerling and Lydia Dean Pilcher
• “Dirty Wars” Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill
• “The Square” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer
• WINNER – “20 Feet from Stardom” Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen and Caitrin Rogers

Documentary Short Subject

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “CaveDigger” Jeffrey Karoff
• “Facing Fear” Jason Cohen
• “Karama Has No Walls” Sara Ishaq
• WINNER – “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed
• “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall” Edgar Barens

Film Editing

• “American Hustle” Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Alan Baumgarten – want (ish) to win.  Not a fan of the movie, but the editing style of this movie was interesting, so I’d be ok if it won.
• “Captain Phillips” Christopher Rouse
• “Dallas Buyers Club” John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa
• WINNER – “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger – Will probably win
• “12 Years a Slave” Joe Walker – Of course I’m biased and would rather have this win over anything… because again, best movie.

Foreign Language Film

I haven’t seen any of them, though have heard great things about “Omar”.

• “The Broken Circle Breakdown” Belgium
• WINNER – “The Great Beauty” Italy
• “The Hunt” Denmark
• “The Missing Picture” Cambodia
• “Omar” Palestine

Makeup and Hairstyling

• WINNER – “Dallas Buyers Club” Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews – WANT to win and WILL win.
• “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” Stephen Prouty
• “The Lone Ranger” Joel Harlow and Gloria Pasqua-Casny

Music (Original Score)

Having only seen Gravity, which didn’t have memorable music to me, I don’t feel I can accurately judge this category.  I’m sure The Book Thief score is great since it is John Williams, but I’ve not heard any so can’t judge.

• “The Book Thief” John Williams
• WINNER – “Gravity” Steven Price
• “Her” William Butler and Owen Pallett
• “Philomena” Alexandre Desplat
• “Saving Mr. Banks” Thomas Newman

Music (Original Song)

• “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
  Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
• WINNER – “Let It Go” from “Frozen” – WANT to win, because like most people, I’m addicted to this song.  And probably WILL win.
  Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
• “The Moon Song” from “Her”
  Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
• “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
  Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson

Best Picture

• “American Hustle” Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison and Jonathan Gordon, Producers
• “Captain Phillips” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca, Producers
• “Dallas Buyers Club” Robbie Brenner and Rachel Winter, Producers
• “Gravity” Alfonso Cuarón and David Heyman, Producers – If ’12 years a slave’ doesn’t win, this one will.  Which I honestly don’t get…. but meh. I’d rather DBC or Wolf of Wall Street get it than this.
• “Her” Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze and Vincent Landay, Producers
• “Nebraska” Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, Producers
• “Philomena” Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan and Tracey Seaward, Producers
• WINNER – “12 Years a Slave” Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen and Anthony Katagas, Producers – WANT to win, so much.  It has a good chance of winning after seeing all the pre-Oscars award circuits.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joey McFarland and Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Producers

Production Design

• “American Hustle” Production Design: Judy Becker; Set Decoration: Heather Loeffler
• “Gravity” Production Design: Andy Nicholson; Set Decoration: Rosie Goodwin and Joanne Woollard – Probably WILL win, which I would be ok with for this one. The interiors of the ships were amazing.
• WINNER – “The Great Gatsby” Production Design: Catherine Martin; Set Decoration: Beverley Dunn – WANT to win, since the sets for this were super cool.
• “Her” Production Design: K.K. Barrett; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena
• “12 Years a Slave” Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Alice Baker

Short Film (Animated)

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “Feral” Daniel Sousa and Dan Golden
• “Get a Horse!” Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim
• WINNER – “Mr. Hublot” Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares
• “Possessions” Shuhei Morita
• “Room on the Broom” Max Lang and Jan Lachauer

Short Film (Live Action)

I haven’t seen any of them.

• “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me)” Esteban Crespo
• “Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything)” Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras
• WINNER – “Helium” Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson
• “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)” Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari
• “The Voorman Problem” Mark Gill and Baldwin Li

Sound Editing

I had to look this up. The best description I found is that sound editing is the creation of NEW sounds while sound mixing, below, is the mixing/layering of all the sounds.

• “All Is Lost” Steve Boeddeker and Richard Hymns
• “Captain Phillips” Oliver Tarney
• WINNER – “Gravity” Glenn Freemantle – Equal chance to WILL win with Hobbit.
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Brent Burge and Chris Ward – Equal chance to WILL win with Gravity, but this is my WANT to win.
• “Lone Survivor” Wylie Stateman

Sound Mixing

I had to look this up. The best description I found is that sound editing, above, is the creation of new sounds while sound mixing is the mixing/layering of all the sounds.

• “Captain Phillips” Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith and Chris Munro
• WINNER – “Gravity” Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick and Tony Johnson – I kind of want this to win since there is just SO many different things.
• “Inside Llewyn Davis” Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland
• “Lone Survivor” Andy Koyama, Beau Borders and David Brownlow – I also kind of want this to win, I’m conflicted though.  I think this one would be super hard to get the mixing of shots, dialogue, and music right.

Visual Effects

• WINNER – “Gravity” Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk and Neil Corbould – Probably will win.
• “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds – I also think has a decent chance to win.
• “Iron Man 3” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash and Dan Sudick
• “The Lone Ranger” Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams and John Frazier
• “Star Trek Into Darkness” Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann and Burt Dalton – I’d love for this to win, it’s my strong WANT to win, but I doubt it will.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• “Before Midnight” Written by Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
• “Captain Phillips” Screenplay by Billy Ray
• “Philomena” Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope
• WINNER – “12 Years a Slave” Screenplay by John Ridley – WANT to win. Probably WILL win.
• “The Wolf of Wall Street” Screenplay by Terence Winter

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• “American Hustle” Written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
• “Blue Jasmine” Written by Woody Allen
• “Dallas Buyers Club” Written by Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack – WANT to win.
• WINNER – “Her” Written by Spike Jonze – probably WILL win, which I am ok with.
• “Nebraska” Written by Bob Nelson