Thursday, January 14, 2016
Oscar Nomination Predictions 2015
It's that time of year again. The Academy Award nominations will be announced bright and early tomorrow morning, so just for fun, here are my predictions for who will see their names listed. I'm quietly confident about most of my picks - most categories have only one or two alternates that could sneak in. But boy oh boy, Best Supporting Actor is a doozy. There are just so many potential variations of the final nominees that I had trouble settling on five. Similar story with Best Documentary (are there enough Scientologists to quash Going Clear's chance of a nom?) and Best Adapted Screenplay (is it ever a good idea to leave out Charlie Kaufman?), so we'll see how everything pans out.
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Hi Matt: I agree that it is a tougher than normal prediction year. Here are the differences we have in the top 6 categories:
ReplyDeleteBest Picture: I have Straight Outta Compton and Room, you have Inside Out and Trumbo. Both of us have these in the #9 and #10 slots.
Best Director: I have Adam McKay and you have Steven Spielberg.
Best Actor: No differences
Best Actress: No differences
Best Supporting Actor: I have Christian Bale and Benecio Del Toro and you have Michael Shannon and Tom Hardy. Definitely the toughest category.
Best Supporting Actress: I have Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kristin Stewart and you have Helen Mirren and Rachel McAdams. Also I have Alicia Vikander for Ex Machina and you have her for The Danish Girl, which I must admit is the more Academy friendly movie.
Nice work. Looks like we broke even!
ReplyDeleteI thought there might be 8 nominees this year, which there were, but I was surprised to see Carol miss out. I had Room at no. 11.
I admit Spielberg was not an obvious choice but the Academy loves him, so I thought I'd take a chance. And to be honest, I had Haynes as my first alternate, so even if I left out Spielberg, I still wouldn't have put McKay in. You got one up on me there. We both missed Abrahamson. I considered him but in the end, I didn't even have him on my alternate list.
We both got 5 for 5 in both Actor and Actress. (I also got 5 for 5 for Sound Mixing and Visual Effects!)
We both got 4 out of 5 in Supporting Actor. I missed Christian Bale but even if I put him in, I would have replaced him with Hardy, I think, not Shannon.
Similarly with Supporting Actress - Jennifer Jason Leigh was my first alternate but I would have replaced her with McAdams and kept Mirren in, so I would have had the same result. If we're being technical, you only picked 3 correct, so I'm one up on you there. ;-)
So, in the top 6 categories, that's 28 correct out of 33 nominees. Not bad. I suppose I should concede to you, though, since you had Vikander, even if it was the wrong film. Plus, you at least had Room in your top 10.
Overall, I had my best year yet with a 79% strike rate (I picked 84 out of all 106 nominees, excluding the short film categories).
Along with Carol's omission, I was also surprised to see no love for Aaron Sorkin. I loved the script for Steve Jobs. Likewise, Tarantino missed out for his The Hateful Eight script. Although, nice to see Straight Outta Compton in there instead.
Best Song always has a couple of unpredictable entries. The two most likely songs (based on prior awards) completely missed out, although Fifty Shades had another song nominated instead. Animated Feature also has a history of unexpected choices - this year was no different. (Though obviously Inside Out is the clear favorite anyway.)
So, with 12 nominations, The Revenant seems to be the frontrunner at the moment, which leaves open the possibility of an Inarritu double-double - Best Director and producer of Best Picture two years in a row. That would be quite the feat, so perhaps it's unlikely.
Mad Max has the next most noms with 10. That seems even less likely to win Best Picture, but you never know. Spotlight was my inkling before going into the nominations. It has 6 nominations (in important categories) so it's still a possibility. Bridge of Spies also has 6 and The Martian has 7, but neither got that all-important Film Editing nom.
Well, whatever happens, it's going to be interesting to see how things shape up over the next few weeks.
I'd say we tied overall. A miss is a miss and I missed Vikander, as I would have if I had picked her for The Danish Girl, but placed her in the Best Actress category instead. Actually, her category confusion for The Danish Girl was the main reason I picked her for Ex Machina,
ReplyDeleteWay to go on all your other picks. Quite a few interesting races. Spotlight and The Big Short pulled in nominations in the other big 4 categories: Director, Editing, Screenplay and Acting. The Revenant missed screenplay, but the 12 overall nominations are impressive. We'll have to see what the Guilds select for some guidance.