Last Tuesday and Wednesday, I broke down the Academy Award nominations and set about predicting which films I expected to win which awards. As part of that process, I predicted that Gravity would sweep most of the technical awards and take Best Director, that Dallas Buyers Club would take home three awards, and that American Hustle, despite being nominated for ten awards, would win only a handful. I think Meatloaf has a song which is pretty pertinent to those predictions.
Let's see how I did overall.
Best Short Film, Live Action
Prediction: Just Before Losing Everything
Winner: Helium
Best Short Film, Animated
Prediction: Get a Horse!
Winner: Mr Hublot
Best Documentary, Short Subjects
Prediction: Karama Has No Walls
Winner: The Lady In Number 6
Best Documentary, Features
Prediction: The Act of Killing
Winner: 20 Feet from Stardom
Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Prediction: Gravity
Winner: Gravity
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Prediction: Gravity
Winner: Gravity
Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
Prediction: Gravity
Winner: Gravity
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
Prediction: Frozen: "Let It Go"
Winner: Frozen: "Let It Go"
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Prediction: Gravity
Winner: Gravity
Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling
Prediction: Dallas Buyers Club
Winner: Dallas Buyers Club
Best Achievement in Costume Design
Prediction: American Hustle
Winner: The Great Gatsby
Best Achievement in Production Design
Prediction: American Hustle
Winner: The Great Gatsby
Best Achievement in Film Editing
Prediction: Gravity
Winner: Gravity
Best Achievement in Cinematography
Prediction: Gravity
Winner: Gravity
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Prediction: The Great Beauty
Winner: The Great Beauty
Best Animated Feature
Prediction: Frozen
Winner: Frozen
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Prediction: 12 Years a Slave
Winner: 12 Years a Slave
Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Prediction: Her
Winner: Her
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Prediction: Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle
Winner: Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Prediction: Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club
Winner: Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Prediction: Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Winner: Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Prediction: Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club
Winner: Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club
Best Achievement in Directing
Prediction: Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity
Winner: Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Prediction: 12 Years a Slave
Winner: 12 Years a Slave
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With 17 out of 24 correct guesses, I did considerably better than last year, where I completely misjudged the support for Argo and was undone by the surprisingly broad spread of winners (in my defense, relatively few people expected Ang Lee to win Best Director over a lot of safer options). This year was a lot more predictable, with Gravity being the pretty clear favourite for all the technical categories and building up a huge head of steam as a favourite for Director. It was a year so devoid of major upsets that even the Foreign Language award went to the frontrunner, The Great Beauty, and that category (along with the Short Subjects) consistently screws up Oscar pools year after year.
My biggest error this year was over-estimating how popular American Hustle was, partly as a response to my own keen dislike for it. Admittedly, I didn't overestimate it by much, since I only expected it to win three awards and it didn't win any, but it's so unusual for a film to be nominated for so many to win nothing that I thought it had to pick something up. Though I'm not too annoyed that I got Production Design and Costume wrong, I am annoyed that I let Jennifer Lawrence's BAFTA win convince me that she was going to win the Oscar. Had I made the predictions after the Independent Spirit Awards, I'd have probably gone for Lupita Nyong'o, who had been my favourite up until the BAFTAs, but that result really threw me. I'm absolutely fine with American Hustle getting shut out since I really didn't care for it, but I am annoyed that it stopped me from getting at least 20 right.
The big upset of the night, though it was a fairly mild one, really, was 20 Feet from Stardom winning Best Documentary. This is only really a surprise because it was the one that I hadn't had a chance to see from that category, and it was also the one that I had heard the least acclaim for, so I never really paid it much attention. Clearly, it was a populist choice, being probably the least serious and upsetting of the nominees. The Act of Killing will just have to make do with being a hugely important, powerful piece of filmmaking.
That was the only result that irked me from a ceremony that was pretty low on surprises or things to get angry about. Most of my favourite films from last year either weren't nominated for anything (Frances Ha) or had no realistic chance of winning (The Wolf of Wall Street) so the results weren't egregious in the slightest. I thought Ellen DeGeneres was a very good host who did her best with how unwieldy the event itself is (no matter who hosts, you're never going to get a speedy Oscars ceremony at this point), and her ordering pizza bit, while not entirely successful, was suitably weird enough to stand out in a ceremony that didn't take as many conceptual risks as Seth Macfarlane's show did last year. However, its lack of ambition meant that most of Ellen's bits didn't fall as flat as his did.
The standout speeches, for me, were Jared Leto, Matthew MacConaughey, Cate Blanchett, and Lupita Nyong'o. The first two were as weird as you would have hoped, though Leto's particularly brand of oddball has always struck me as more grating than anything else, and MacConaughey is really pounding his preferred catchphrase into the ground now. Blanchett was just delightful, and managed a nice balance between pride in legitimately great work and humility at being given such recognition. Nyong'o was probably the star of the evening, though, and she gave one of those speeches that you just know people will be talking about for years and years to come. It's easy (not to mention fun) to be cynical about awards ceremonies, and the Oscars in particular, but when you see that it actually means something to someone, that goes away for a moment because you get to truly see what it means for a dream to come true.
The thing I was most pleased about was the return of having the Best Song nominees performed live, which really breaks up the monotony of things (and means that there is less room for pointless montages or, as happened last year with TWO tributes to Chicago, auro-erotic tributes to the producers' past work). It helps when you have a song as bouncy as "Happy" or as huge as "Let It Go," but I hope they don't renege on their return next year. To level the playing field, though, all future performers should be allowed to project an image of Nelson Mandela on to the backdrop to ensure they all receive standing ovations like U2 did. It's a trick I plan to employ the next time I have to give a presentation.
Well, the Oscars may be done with 2013, but I've still got some catching up to do. I'm going to see The Wind Rises later today, so I can finally know if I should have been annoyed about Frozen beating it. At the moment, I'm pretty okay with it.