Oscar Predictions: Best Sound Editing and Mixing

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short
Song & Score
Animated Feature
Lead Actor
Lead Actress
Original and Adapted Screenplay

Glossary: 
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
CAS - Cinema Audio Society Awards
Golden Reel - Motion Picture Sound Editors Award

Similar to the Screenplay awards, the Sound awards are difficult to parse for several reasons. There are two great strategies to use when picking the winners. The most common is laziness: Mixing and Editing go to the same movie. That's happened 10 of the last 20 years. The other is the proven principal of "editing for war and mixing for musicals" (I also heard this described as "bullets and Broadway" recently, which I love). That has happened 5 of the last 20 times depending on how you classify things, almost all of these in the 10 years since they opened Sound Editing up from 3 to 5 nominees.

The BAFTA only has a generic Sound award, not distinguishing between Editing and Mixing like the Oscars. It corresponds with Mixing more often though calling 12 of the last 20 winners. The only time is predicted the Sound Editing winner and not the Mixing winner in that time was 2003 (Master and Commander). So, unless you are expecting a sweep, only use it for Mixing.

The Cinema Audio Society is the guild award for Sound Mixers. It isn't very reliable as an Oscar harbinger. That award has only matched the Oscar winner for Sound Mixing 11 of the last 20 times. Like the BAFTA Sound award, it has nominated the eventual Oscar winner 19 times in that span. The one omission was recent though (Whiplash in 2014).

The Golden Reel is the Sound Editors' guild award. In previous years, I haven't bothered tracking it because they split the award up so much (Dialogue/ADR, Effect/Foley, Music, etc.) that it's hard to suss out a frontrunner. Even when there's a consensus, it can go the other way with the Oscar (Ex. 2009, The Hurt Locker won the Oscar after Avatar won multiple Golden Reels). Of the 19 years I could track down for the award [it's hard to go back sometimes and I don't always trust IMDB], the Oscar winner for Sound Editing has won one of the major Golden Reels* 14 times. The eventual winner has always managed to be nominated for at least one Golden Reel, even if it's just barely in some cases.

*There's some shifting of the category names, but the awards boil down to Dialogue and ADR in a Live-Action Feature, Sound Effects and Foley in a Live-Action Feature, Music in a Feature Film, Music in a Musical Film, Sound Editing in a Foreign Feature, and Sound Editing in an Animated Feature.

Sound Mixing

La La Land
BAFTA - Sound - Nominee
CAS - Sound Mixing - Winner
If La La Land doesn't win Sound Mixing, then why am I even bothering? Look, musicals don't win the Oscar for Best Picture often lately. The only true musical of the last 20 years to win was Chicago in 2002 which also won this award. I suppose I could be a little worried that Hugo beat The Artist  here in 2011. However, Hugo dominated the tech awards that year. There's no dominant tech movie like that this year except maybe La La Land, which only cements my pick.

Hacksaw Ridge
BAFTA - Sound - Nominee
CAS - Sound Mixing - Nominee
Well, I'm going with "Bullets and Broadway" for the Editing/Mixing split this year, but if I'm wrong, the best money is on one film to win both.

Arrival
BAFTA - Sound - Winner
The sound is distinctive in Arrival, which I associate more with Sound Editing. The BAFTA win shows some support for Arrival. And, Arrival isn't a British production, so they had no vested interest in it winning.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
CAS - Sound Mixing - Nominee
If The Force Awakens didn't win last year, I'm not assuming Rogue One will now.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Fun fact: this is Greg P. Russell's 17th Oscar nomination without a single win. I don't assume Oscar voters care enough for an "it's his time" narrative to take hold, but he's earned it.

Sound Editing

Hacksaw Ridge
BAFTA - Sound - Nominee
Golden Reel - Dialogue/ADR - Winner
Golden Reel - Effects/Foley - Winner
Golden Reel - Music - Nominee
As I said, the BAFTA win is only useful for picking the Sound Editing Oscar if you expect a sweep. Hacksaw Ridge is the most likely of any movie to sweep this year, although it's unlikely. By far, the Effects/Foley Golden Reel win is the most indicative of the Oscar winner. More than anything I'm trusting my gut which is telling me "go with the war movie".

La La Land
BAFTA - Sound - Nominee
Golden Reel - Music in a Musical- Winner
Folks, this is uncharted territory. Musicals simply don't get nominated for Sound Editing. If you don't believe me, go check. I'll wait....The closest thing you will find is a couple animated films like The Polar Express and Aladdin. So then, the question is if  La La Land love will extend as far as winning the award or if being nominated at all is a big enough coup. If you look at the recent Best Picture winners with the most Oscar wins, the run away freight trains on Oscar night (Titanic - 11 wins, The Return of the King - 11, The English Patient - 9, Slumdog Millionaire - 8, Shakespeare in Love - 7, Dances with Wolves - 7, Schindler's List - 7), only Titanic won for Sound Editing. In other words, this award likes to go its own way.

Arrival
BAFTA - Sound - Winner
Golden Reel - Dialogue/ADR - Nominee
Golden Reel - Effects/Foley - Nominee
Golden Reel - Music - Nominee
That's a lot of Golden Reel nominations. While the BAFTA win isn't much, it isn't nothing either.

Deepwater Horizon
BAFTA - Sound - Nominee
Golden Reel - Effects/Foley - Nominee
If it was up to me, I'd rank this maybe behind Hacksaw Ridge if not the outright favorite to win. In terms of Oscar chances though, there's not much hope.

Sully
Golden Reel - Dialogue/ADR - Nominee
They had to round out the field somehow.

Oscar Predictions: Best Original and Adapted Screenplay

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short
Song & Score
Animated Feature
Lead Actor
Lead Actress

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award
WGA - Writers Guild of America Awards

There's enough overlap between what happens in the two screenplay categories that I'm going to talk about them together. Thanks to odd rules, restrictions, and categorizing, the precursor awards for screenplay aren't great.


The WGA award is the most reliable on both sides...I think. You see, the WGA is stricter than the Oscars about what is eligible. They only accept screenplays from members of the guild. So, there's always a couple Oscar nominees that, because they are from Pixar or foreign writers or any number of reasons, aren't eligible for the WGA Award. It's tough to track down lists of what isn't eligible for the WGA, so I can only account for 2010-present. On the Original Screenplay side, the WGA Award has matched the winner of the Oscar 3 of the last 6. The 3 times it missed were because the Oscar winner was ineligible for the WGA award. Similarly, for the Adapted Screenplay, they've called 5 of the last 6 Oscar winners. The one they missed was also ineligible for the WGA award. What that means is, that you can put good money on either the WGA winner or what wasn't eligible to win the Oscar. Based on that, this year, for Original Screenplay, it would be between Moonlight (winner) and The Lobster (ineligible) and for Adapted Screenplay, it would be between Arrival (winner) and Lion (ineligible). That is, if Moonlight wasn't nominated as an Adapted Screenplay for the Oscar instead of Original Screenplay, where everyone else had it. Thanks Oscars, for making something straightforward much more confusing.

The BAFTA Award is less reliable but easier to translate. Original Screenplay has matched the Oscar winner 10 out of the last 20 times and nominated the winner 18 times in the same span. Adapted Screenplay is less reliable, going 7/20 for matching winners and 17/20 for nominating the eventual winner.

The Golden Globes don't bother dividing screenplay up, so it literally can't call both the Original and Adapted Screenplay winners. That said, it's very consistent at picking one. The winner of the Golden Globe has gone on to win the screenplay Oscar in its category 15 of the last 20 times. To pad those numbers further, 3 of the 5 misses (Globe winners who didn't win an Oscar) weren't even nominated for a screenplay Oscar at all. That means, the Golden Globe winner is functionally 15/17 over the last two decades.

Original Screenplay

La La Land
BAFTA - Original Screenplay - Nominee
Golden Globes - Screenplay - Winner
WGA - Original Screenplay - Nominee
The three heavy-hitters of the screenplay pack are La La Land, Manchester, and Moonlight.  Moonlight is mercifully out of the Original Screenplay field, which opens things up for La La Land. Basically, I'm comparing La La Land's Golden Globe win to Manchester's BAFTA win. Globe winners have a much better track record of going onto winning Oscars. I do worry that people will assume that La La Land is more directed than written. It's the same stupid logic that makes people credit comedies to the actors more than the writing. That's a rant for another time.

Manchester by the Sea
BAFTA - Original Screenplay - Winner
Golden Globes - Screenplay - Nominee
WGA - Original Screenplay - Nominee
I really wish either La La Land or Manchester could've won the WGA award to clarify things more. I worry that voters could look at this as Manchester's best place to win with Affleck's chances fading late. I wouldn't be sad to see Manchester win. I'm just banking on the idea the the Golden Globe's predictive success isn't a fluke. But, how does the saying go: Don't trust a Golden Globe any further than you can buy it a dinner.

The Lobster
WGA - Ineligible
Past the top two, everything else is a major upset. The WGA ineligibility makes The Lobster the biggest wildcard in the field.

Hell or High Water
BAFTA - Original Screenplay - Nominee
Golden Globes - Screenplay - Nominee
WGA - Original Screenplay - Nominee
Taylor Sheridan's screenplay has been there every step of the way and hasn't won anywhere. That isn't very encouraging.

20th Century Women
Another member of the 2017 "Just happy to be nominated" club.

Adapted Screenplay

Moonlight
BAFTA - Original Screenplay - Nominee
Golden Globes - Screenplay - Nominee
WGA - Original Screenplay - Winner
We are in uncharted territory here. The only other case of a movie switching between Original and Adapted screenplay in the middle of the award season like this that I could find is Whiplash a couple years ago, and it wasn't going to win no matter what category it was nominated in. Moonlight won the WGA Award against the much competitive Original Screenplay field. The move to Adapted all but locked the award up. I've been a major pre-Oscar apologist telling people to not expect Moonlight to not win much, but even I'd lose it if this screenplay doesn't run away with this win award.

Arrival
BAFTA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee
WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Winner
The WGA win is meaningless without Moonlight to go up against. All else the same, it would be my pick to win without Moonlight. Eric Heisserer's screenplay is a tricky one. Looking back though, the "tricky" screenplays win in the Original Screenplay more often (for obvious reasons when you think about it).

Lion
BAFTA - Adapted Screenplay - Winner
WGA - Ineligible
The BAFTA win isn't nothing and the WGA ineligibility makes it more of a wildcard. Again though, the discussion is moot with Moonlight in the field.

Fences
WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee
There's gotta be some August Wilson fans out there.

Hidden Figures
BAFTA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee
WGA - Adapted Screenplay - Nominee
This is such an unassuming screenplay. It's the kind of film that plays so smoothly, you forget it even has a screenplay.

Oscar Predictions: Best Lead Actress

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short
Song & Score
Animated Feature
Lead Actor

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award
SAG - Screen Actors Guild Award

Unlike the Lead Actor race, the Lead Actress race is done, despite anyone attempting to claim otherwise. The Golden Globes are incredibly reliable (17/20). The SAG award isn't far behind (15/20). The BAFTA award is decent (12/20). All of those should be a little higher because Kate Winslet's jump from Supporting to Lead in 2008 threw everything out of whack. The 8 times in the last 20 years that all three awards have gone to the same actress, she also won the Oscar.

Emma Stone (La La Land)
Golden Globes - Lead Actress Comedy - Winner
SAG - Lead Actress - Winner
BAFTA - Lead Actress - Winner
The Lead Actress category is stacked this year and there really should be more debate about who will win. There isn't though. No actress who has been as dominant throughout the season has gone on to lose the Oscar. Stone also has the added boost of being in the likely Best Picture winner. Only 2 other actresses in the last two decades have won the Lead Actress award for being in the Best Picture winner (Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love in 1998, Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby in 2004)* and neither of them tore through the season like Stone. The other actresses nominated for the award won't even have speeches ready.

*Which, is an absurd stat that reflects the massive imbalance of good roles for women in good movies versus men.

Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Golden Globes - Lead Actress Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actress - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actress - Nominee
There's a strong argument to be made that Portman is better in Jackie than Stone is in La La Land. I'm not posting my "should win" predictions though.

Isabelle Hupert (Elle)
Golden Globes - Lead Actress Drama - Winner
A lot of people are tricking themselves into believe some sort of "it's her time" story for Hupert. While it is kind of crazy that this is her first ever Oscar nomination, don't believe the hype. This isn't Marion Cotillard winning for La Vie en Rose in 2007. She was all over that award season with BAFTA and Globe wins. Hupert is a critical darling but didn't even manage a nomination by the more European leaning BAFTA.

Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)
Golden Globes - Lead Actress Comedy - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actress - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actress - Nominee
Her Golden Globe speech helped to secure her a spot in the field and because she's Meryl Streep, she was a staple throughout the season. This looks a lot more like the 16 times she's lost than the 3 times she's won.

Ruth Negga (Loving)
I was thrilled to see she made the cut. She has no momentum behind her and no chance to win.

Oscar Predictions: Best Lead Actor

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short
Song & Score
Animated Feature

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award
SAG - Screen Actors Guild Award

The trouble with the Lead Actor Oscar is that if there isn't a total consensus, prognostication falls apart quickly*. The SAG award is the most reliable award. It has matched the Oscar winner 16 of the last 20 times. Technically, 17 if you count 2000 when Benicio del Toro switched from Supporting to Lead and still won. They've also never missed at least nominating the winner. The Golden Globes are a little shakier sitting at 14 of the last 20 winners (and that's with splitting the award in two - Drama & Comedy/Musical). They often get caught up in the critical hype before a more general, populist wave rolls in. The BAFTA award is fine, but has some weird omissions, like when it left Matthew McConaughey out in 2013. In total, the BAFTA has matched the Oscar winner 12 of the last 20 times (and a slightly better 7/10 in the last decade).

*And even with a consensus, surprises can happen. That's how Denzel won for Training Day in 2001.

Denzel Washington (Fences)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actor - Winner
I don't know what to do with the Fences omission. Is it because it was released so late in England*? Do the Brits not like Denzel as much as Americans**? I don't know, but his exclusion makes Affleck's BAFTA win almost meaningless when it comes to Oscar predicting. Denzel's SAG win is huge. After all, the Screen Actors Guild hasn't disagreed with the Oscar voters since Johnny Depp in 2003 for the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. For the record though, this would be the first time an actor would win the Oscar after only winning the SAG award out of the big three. Then again, Denzel won in 2001 without any precursor wins. That was also a weird case though. Russell Crowe won all the precursors for A Beautiful Mind before losing to Denzel for Training Day. However, the year before, Crowe had won the Oscar for Gladiator without any precursor victories, so Oscar voters felt less of an imperative to vote for him again.
Lastly, in a race this close, I should address the elephant in the room: #OscarSoWhite. Don't think that after two years of being accused of institutional racism, the Oscar voters wouldn't love to give three of the four acting awards to people of color. Is that a cynical way of looking at it? Yes, but no more than #OscarSoWhite. For the record, I am in no way saying that Denzel would only be getting a win because he's black or is in some way undeserving of a win. All sorts of superficial things tip the scales all the time that have nothing to do with the performances (late-breaking scandals, actors not actively campaigning on the award circuit, an "it's his/her time" narrative).

*It opened on 2/10. The BAFTA Awards were handed out on 2012.
**He has never been nominated for a BAFTA award despite two Oscar wins.

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Winner
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Winner
At first glance, Affleck looks like the favorite. More wins. More nominations. More critical adoration in general throughout the season. A lot of things are picking away at his chances though and making him look like a classic late season flame-out.
Sometimes, the Globes get caught up in the critical praise. That certainly got Mickey Roarke a win for The Wrestler over Sean Penn in Milk in 2008. It probably explains that About Schmidt win for Jack Nicholson in 2002. The BAFTA win isn't nearly as impressive without Denzel Washington in the mix. Also, stories have been circulating about a sexual harassment lawsuit against Affleck on the set of his 2010 film I'm Still Here. Not much is known about it because it was settled out of court, so legally he nor anyone else can make a statement on it. Regardless of whatever the truth is about the situation, it's certainly going to have some effect on voters. Finally, his Manchester by the Sea performance is very internalized. Awards voters respond much better to a big, flashy performance like Denzel's. It's a small wonder that Affleck has stayed in the thick of it this late into the season. All combined, Affleck's chances are fading by the day, and I'm taking the gamble that he's been fading enough for Denzel to overtake him.

Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Comedy/Musical - Winner
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
Look, a win here is only if La La Land dominates historically. I'm pretty convinced that La La Land will have a big night, and even I don't believe Gosling stands a chance. That said, I think that his work in this isn't being given the credit it deserves. He makes it look easy. He is a level below Affleck and Washington though.

Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
I'm glad he's being recognized so much this season. This simply isn't an Oscar winning performance in any year.

Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)
SAG - Lead Actor - Nominee
Golden Globes - Lead Actor Drama - Nominee
BAFTA - Lead Actor - Nominee
I'm pretty stunned he's stuck around this long.

Movie Reaction: Fist Fight

Formula: High Noon / Superbad

There is a difference between a good pitch and a good story. This has been a problem with TV shows on the major networks for several years. The networks like a good pitch because it grabs one's attention immediately, and given how ratings-starved the networks are, that's very enticing. Often, a pitch has nowhere to go after the first handful of episodes. The best shows, comedies in particular, tend to be more about the characters than the plot. Cheers, Friends, and Parks and Rec all had thin pitches and succeeded without them. This pitch/story distinction doesn't matter quite as much with movies. A pitch can sustain 90 minutes much easier than 22+ episodes.

The most common form of this divide in film is the idea of the movie in which the pitch is the joke. Casa De Mi Padre is a great example of this. It is a Will Ferrell movie all in Spanish and it's played completely straight. The joke is that it's unflinching in how seriously it's being done without ever winking at the camera. While not quite at that level, Fist Fight is close to being a "pitch" movie.

The idea that inspired Fist Fight is "A high school movie about a kid who gets challenged to a fight by a bully...except they're both teachers". That's a funny enough twist on the formula. That alone is not enough to sustain a movie though. The sad-sack protagonist is pushover nice guy, Andy (Charlie Day). The bully, is the intimidating Mr. Strickland (Ice Cube). After Andy lets the school principal know about a particularly violent outburst by Strickland in his class, Strickland challenges Andy to a fight at the end of school for snitching. Andy spends the rest of the day getting advice from other faculty members, like the school's highly inappropriate guidance counselor (Jillian Bell) and the checked-out gym teacher (Tracy Morgan), trying to get out of the fight through legal and illegal means, attempting to keep his job amidst budget cuts, and keeping a promise to show up for his daughter's talent show. It's like Ferris Beuller's Day Off in the way that it fits more events into a single day than most people could in a week or month.

I saw this for the cast. Charlie Day can lead a movie like this rather easily. While he's known for playing crazier roles, he can switch to being an "everyman" without losing what's funny about him. Ice Cube's career for the last decade or more has been about reminding people that he's a tough guy, so this role is fitting with Jump Street, Ride Along, etc. Jillian Bell does what she normally does well: takes jokes too far in a funny way. Tracy Morgan, Dean Norris, and Kumail Nanjiani, playing different levels of faculty at the school, get a few laughs out of funny line readings. Christina Hendricks has a dud of a role as a French teacher with a sadistic streak. I think it was intended to play off a contrast of what you expect her to be like. The role isn't built up enough though and she just doesn't pull off 'unhinged' well.

This movie was mostly a dud. The humor was a touch too sophomoric and tactless (such as the students mowing a giant penis on the school's football field). The school is a cartoon, which is fine if they weren't trying to make serious points about school funding at the same time. The movie gives several potential outs for the fight to not happen, and the reasons it come up with to move forward with the fight anyway are the kind of reasons that exist only because the movie needs them too (the classic "plot driven decisions" vs. "character driven decisions"). Worst of all, the fight promised at the end was a bummer. Like the rest of the movie, it couldn't decide what the scale of it should be: genuine fist fight or Peter Griffin versus the chicken.

Fist Fight is ok. No one will be blown away by it unless this is the first high school comedy he/she has ever seen. It has a lot of performers doing what they do well. A few of the jokes land well even despite some forced staging (For example, children swearing will just always be funny to me). This makes a strong case for Charlie Day leading more movies in the future. I want to find more to be excited about by it, but I can't.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend 

Oscar Predictions: Best Animated Feature

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short
Song & Score

Glossary:
Annie - Awards for Animation
Eddie -  American Cinema Editors Award
PGA - Producers Guild of America Award
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award

The animated feature award is one of the most precursor rich categories for the Oscars. That doesn't necessarily mean there's a lot to debate though. All the precursor awards have nominated the eventual Oscar winner every year since they've been around. That's pretty impressive. As far as matching winners go, they are all pretty good too. The Annies are 10/15. The PGA is 7/11. The BAFTA award has been 9/10. Golden Globes 8/10. Eddy Award 6/7. If you squint real hard and kind of tilt your head to the left, a couple years have been a little hard to predict. Most of the time, this award is one of the biggest locks of the night.

Zootopia
Annie - Animated Feature - Winner
PGA - Animated Feature - Winner
BAFTA - Animated Feature - Nominee
Golden Globe - Animated Feature - Winner
Eddie - Edited Animated Feature - Winner
All six times a film has won at least 4 of the precursor awards, it has won the Oscar. It's hard to argue with that stat. The BAFTA loss is a little worrisome, but not enough to keep me up at night.

Kubo and the Two Strings
Annie - Animated Feature - Nominee
PGA - Animated Feature - Nominee
BAFTA - Animated Feature - Winner
Golden Globe - Animated Feature - Nominee
Eddie - Edited Animated Feature - Nominee
Here's a fun fact: the biggest upset ever in the category was when Happy Feet beat out Cars in 2006 after Cars won the Annie Award, the PGA Award, and the Golden Globe*. The one award that Happy Feet did win? The BAFTA.

*There was no ACE award for animation yet.

Moana
Annie - Animated Feature - Nominee
PGA - Animated Feature - Nominee
BAFTA - Animated Feature - Nominee
Golden Globe - Animated Feature - Nominee
Eddie - Edited Animated Feature - Nominee
This is the 16th year for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. In the first 15 years, a Disney film has won all but three times and hasn't lost since 2006. There's a strong argument to be made that Moana, not Kubo, should be my second most likely to win. I just don't see anything to sway me to pick Moana over Zootopia.

My Life as a Zucchini
Golden Globe - Animated Feature - Nominee
The Animated Feature Oscar is not an award for upsets. It's one of the categories in which studio-backing matters the most (I point again to Disney's dominance). But, with the Globe nomination, this is the slightly more likely of the nominees that don't stand a chance.

The Red Turtle
I actually really want to see this movie. There are no signs that it's gaining any momentum in the late stages of this Oscar race though.

Oscar Predictions: Best Original Score and Song

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing
Live-Action, Animated, and Documentary Short

Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association  Award

Best Original Score

The Golden Globe and BAFTA awards are about as reliable when it comes to predicting the Oscar winner. They've each nominated the eventual Oscar winner 17 times in 20 years. The Golden Globe's winner has matched the Oscar winner 10 times in that span. The BAFTA isn't far behind at 9 times. Interestingly, the BAFTA and Globe award disagree more often than they agee. So, the Oscar winner has won either the BAFTA or Globe 15 out of 20 times and the Oscar winner has failed to be nominated by either only once in 20 years (The Red Violin in 1999).
There are some notable omissions from the field like Arrival which was deemed "not original enough" by the Academy. Their absence makes the race a little less competitive, but at the end of the day, won't change the results.

La La Land
Golden Globes - Original Score - Winner
BAFTA - Original Score - Winner
If La La Land can't manage to win this, then the Oscars have gone completely rogue. Winning the BAFTA and Golden Globe award isn't a lock to win the Oscar*, but it would be shocking if a musical Oscar front runner loses for Original Score.

*2 of the last 7 times that's happened, a different movie went on to win the Oscar - Brokeback Mountain over Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005 and The Fellowship of the Ring over Moulin Rouge! in 2001

Jackie
BAFTA - Original Score - Nominee
On paper, there's a more likely winner that I have ranked below this, but here's what I'm thinking. If La La Land is going to lose, it's not going to lose to a traditional score. It's going to lose to an attention-grabbing one. No score on this list sticks out for me as much as Jackie's. However unlikely a La La Land loss is, look to Jackie to cause it.

Moonlight
Golden Globes - Original Score - Nominee
This film has a pretty gorgeous score. Even in a non-La La Land year where Moonlight was the front runner though, it strikes me as a movie that wins the major awards (directing, acting, screenwriting) more than the tech awards. I am giving this a slight bump just because, as La La Land's main competition, it would probably need to pick up a couple smaller awards along the way to build to knocking La La Land out for Best Picture.

Lion
Golden Globes - Original Score - Nominee
BAFTA - Original Score - Nominee
It's the only movie other than La La Land recognized by both the Globes and BAFTA, but I don't believe in it as a spoiler. It isn't a score that stuck with me. To beat La La Land, it can't just be a good score. It needs to be different.

Passengers
Pardon the pun, but Passengers is just happy to be along for the ride. There is a small part of me that wonders when Thomas Newman (14 nominations, 0 wins) is going to finally get his "it's his time" win.

Original Song

This is a category that is best to go with your gut on. The only precursor is the Golden Globe award and the rules for that aren't as strict. For the Oscar, there has to be unequivocal proof that the song only exists because of the movie it's used in. That's how, for example, there were only 2 nominees in 2011 or "Alone Yet Not Alone" was ruled ineligible in 2013 after initially getting a nomination. The Golden Globe is only a moderate indicator of what will win the Oscar, although it's been more accurate lately. After only matching the Oscar winner once from 2004-2011, the Globes have matched 3 of the last 4 Oscar winners. The one exception in that span is when "Let It Go" lost the Globe in 2013, and that song was never going to lose the Oscar anyway.

La La Land "City of Stars"
Golden Globes - Original Song - Winner
The Golden Globe winner is also the Oscar winner about half the time over the last two decades. More importantly, except for last year, when Sam Smith's generic "Writing's On The Wall" somehow beat Lady Gaga's "Til It Happens to You", you can usually see the winner coming. In 2014, "Glory" became the stand-in for the all the love people felt for Selma, a movie whose Oscar campaign was completely bungled leading into the nomination period. The two years before that, only a fool would've bet against "Let It Go" and "Skyfall". Remember "Falling Slowly"? "Lose Yourself"? "My Heart Will Go On"? These all seem so obvious now. As an earworm that you can't get out of your head and the theme throughout the film, "City of Stars" has that kind of feeling.

Moana "How Far I'll Go"
Golden Globes - Original Song - Nominee
Here's some things to consider. Lin Manuel Miranda is a big deal right now. Don't think that his name will go unnoticed by voters. Disney has a history of finding a way to win this award. Also, vote splitting is somewhat of a concern for La La Land here. The last five times a movie has had two or more Original Song nominees, only once did that film come away with a win (Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, when it had two of the three nominated songs). That carves out a little room for Moana to sneak in with a win. That said, "How Far I'll Go" isn't quite the anthem the way "Let It Go" was and Moana doesn't match Frozen in popularity.

La La Land "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)"
Golden Globes - Original Song - Nominee
Continuing from what I said about "How Far I'll Go", let's look at those cases of vote splitting.
In 2009, a song from Crazy Heart beat out two songs from The Princess and the Frog. I couldn't name any of the songs, but I do remember that Crazy Heart song being tied to a Jeff Bridges march to a Lead Actor win.
In 2007, "Falling Slowly" beat three Enchanted songs. I'm biased because "Falling Slowly" is one of my favorite songs, but I don't see how someone could listen to that and not vote for it.
In 2006, Melissa Etheridge's "I Need To Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth beat three Dreamgirls songs. That one is legitimate vote splitting happening and maybe a dash of the Oscars getting political.
In 2003, a Return of the King song beat two Cold Mountain songs. That year, LotR was an unstoppable freight train and those Cold Mountain songs were nothing special.
The point I'm trying to make is that vote splitting is only a concern when the songs from the film in question were already pretty vulnerable. "Audition" works best in the context of the film, so "City of Stars" is a more obvious pick.

Trolls "Can't Stop the Feeling!"
It's a popular song, but that's about all it has going for it.

Jim: The James Foley Story "The Empty Chair"
The fact that I know nothing about the song or movie worries me a little bit as a wildcard, but this isn't really a category for wildcards.

Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary, Animated, and Live-Action Short

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography
Editing

Glossary:
Annie Awards - Awards for Animation 

Best Documentary Short

I haven't seen any of these. I've looked some things up, but if you are going to ignore any of my predictions, Documentary Short should top the list.

Joe's Violin
This sounds like a slam dunk. The most common winners for this award are for something that's tragic or something with a musical tie-in. Joe's Violin has music and the Holocaust in it.

The White Helmets
A documentary about Syrian civilian volunteer first-responders. Any of those words alone could win an Oscar.

Watani: My Homeland
Four Syrian refugee children try to adjust to life in Germany. I'm expecting the two Syrian documentaries to split the vote. If there was only one, that one would be the front runner.

Extremis
Follow around the doctors and nurses who work at an Oakland, CA ICU. I've heard this described as "a gut punch" and "hard to watch". In a vacuum, I could see this winning, but again, the Oscars are somewhat political. This doc isn't "of the moment" the way some others are or a cheerful distraction.

4.1 Miles
Another doc about refugees. This time, it's about the Greek Coast Guard workers who try to rescue refugees attempting to make it from Turkey to Lesbos.

Best Animated Short

Technically, this award does have the Annie Award for Shorts as a precursor. It's pretty useless though.

See my Short reaction

Piper
Annie - Animated Short - Winner
There is no clear front runner. Nothing that tugs at the heartstrings like Bear Story last year. Without that, I'll go with the prettiest looking short, which Piper is by a mile.

Pearl
Annie - Animated Short -Nominee
The first VR nominee ever and the shortest nominee this year. This reminds me of World of Tomorrow last year. It's visually distinctive in a way that forward-thinking voters could unite behind.

Borrowed Time
My favorite of the shorts. It feels a bit like a tryout for a larger film rather than something self-contained.

Blind Vaysha
Annie - Animated Short -Nominee
Frankly, I think the style of it will turn voters off. And, it doesn't really have a story.

Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Too long and meandering. The most cynical part of me isn't even convinced most voters will even watch it once they compare the 30 minute run time to the 5-7 minute lengths of the others.

Best Live-Action Short

Silent Nights
Look, the Oscars are political. Don't think a story about an immigrant refugee won't go unnoticed by the Oscar voters. Even though I think this short has some flaws in the storytelling, the pieces that make it up align too perfectly with what's going on in the U.S. while the voting was going on.

Timecode
Last year, I was pleased that voters went for the crowd-pleasing Stutterer over some really depressing shorts. If they vote with their hearts again, it's hard to see how Timecode loses. My guess is that La La Land will sate any need for fluff though.

Ennemis Interieurs
Another story about fear of immigrants. This one feels more like a response to Bush's America than Trump's, so I'm feeling better about Silent Nights.

Sing
That ending is delightful, but this iy is all fluff and not a tightly told story.

La Femme et le TGV
Too long. Too insignificant. I'm not sure how this could come away with the win.

Oscar Short Reaction

For the second year in a row, I tracked down the Oscar nominees for Animated and Live-Action Short. I'll be coming out with their chances at the Oscars shortly. Before I do that, I want to give a quick reflection on them. I've gone ahead and ranked the shorts from what I enjoyed the most to the least.

Live-Action

Timecode
Two security guards bond over a love of dance on the job.
This is just delightful. It's a two-hander with very little dialogue. Many of the other shorts are depressing. This one isn't at all. It's a sweet story. The dance sequences in the climax are charming and the last line is perfect.

Sing
A grade school choir teacher tries to win a competition by getting the bad singers to mime singing.
The beginning and middle are all overly familiar. That ending is so perfect though, that it makes up for everything else.

Silent Nights
A Danish woman volunteering at the Salvation Army falls in love with a Ghanaian refugee.
I really liked the relationship at the center of the film. It also does fine work showing the shit that immigrants have to put up with sometimes. There were too many rough edges to ignore though.

La Femme et le TGV
An older woman bonds with the engineer of a train that passes by her house every day.
A lot of this year's nominees felt very familiar, like I was watching 30-minutes-or-less versions of movies I'd seen before; none more than this one. This was both too long and too short if that makes any sense. There wasn't enough story to make it any longer, but I needed more time to buy into the repetition of her life. I wasn't as impressed with the fact that it was based on actual events as the movie wanted me to be.

Ennemis Interieurs
An Algerian man is interrogated by French police while applying for citizenship.
This reminded me a lot of the HBO movie Strip Search. Perhaps it's timely in France, but this story felt dated by 15 years to my American eyes. And it wasn't distinctly directed enough to leave an impression otherwise.

Animated

Borrowed Time
An old sheriff reflects on an accident from his youth.
I love how efficient these animated shorts are. This is visually pretty traditional but it looked great. The story is simple and sad. Nothing hit me like We Can't Live Without Cosmos last year.

Piper
A bird gets over his fear of the ocean.
I saw this one already (before Finding Dory). It's sweet. The "I've seen some shit you wouldn't believe" look of the bird after the first disastrous experience with the tide gets me every time. It's the most beautiful of the shorts.

Pearl
The story of a father and daughter as told from the passenger side seat in their old car.
The animation was nice. This is the first VR film to be nominated by the Oscars. It also tells an efficient story. I would've been more impressed if it abandoned the conceit (the passenger side perspective) less.

Pear Cider and Cigarettes
A narrator reflects on the story of his hard-living friend Techno.
I like local fable storytelling normally. This reminded me of hearing about the Swede in American Pastoral at the beginning. Once it got to the adventures in China this really dragged. I started to feel like I was watching part 12 of a collection of short films with this narrator and I was missing out on something. The soundtrack has moments that drip with cool. It has just as many moments when the soundtrack gets in the way. Especially compared to the efficiency of the other shorts, this felt very undisciplined.

Blind Vaysha
The story of a woman who sees the future in one eye and the past in the other.
Too much exposition. It was all narration and didn't go anywhere. I get the point it's trying to make, but I'd like a little visual story-telling along the way. It had a distinctive look though. I'll give it that.

(Like last year, there were a few other "Highly Recommended" shorts shown to fill the time. I won't be covering them, however, they were fine)

Oscar Predictions: Best Film Editing

The Oscars are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominee from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.

Previously:
Oscar Nomination Thoughts
Introduction & Documentary Feature
Foreign Film
Visual Effects
Production Design
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Cinematography

Glossary:
Eddie -  American Cinema Editors Award
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards

The Editing award is another one with two precursors: the Eddie and the BAFTA. The Eddie is handed out by the American Cinema Editors. It's an incredibly reliable precursor. It has matched the Oscar winner 16 of the last 20 years and hasn't missed nominating the winner in that time. It's has been less reliable lately though, going 2-3 in the last 5 years. The BAFTA is currently on a run of calling 7 of the last 9 winner. They were only 2 of 11 before that.

La La Land
Eddie - Comedy/Musical Film Editing - Winner
BAFTA - Film Editing - Nominee
Damian Chazelle's last film, Whiplash, won this award. It was also about music, although edited much differently. It's hard to find trends for the Editing award, but it likes to go to Oscar winners and "runners up". Since it's hard to really even notice editing when it's done right, I'll assume the voters will take the easy route and vote La La Land.

Arrival
Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Winner
BAFTA - Film Editing - Nominee
The Drama Film Editing Eddie has a stronger history of picking Oscar winners than the Comedy/Musical does (a meaningless comparison in a year like this). The time-hoppy story calls attention to the editing. As the most showy nominee, it's the best potential spoiler for La La Land (think: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2011 or The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007).

Hacksaw Ridge
Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Nominee
BAFTA - Film Editing - Winner
The BAFTA, not the Eddie, predicted Whiplash's somewhat surprising editing win two years ago. That has me a little worried that I'm not placing Hacksaw Ridge high enough. The truth is, the Sound Editing award is more in love with war movies than the Film Editing Oscar. The Hurt Lock won in 2009 as part of a Best Picture campaign. Saving Private Ryan won for Film Editing in 1998 in one of those tech. award sweeps like Fury Road last year. Blackhawk Down in 2000 is the only recent war movie winner that didn't enjoy an Oscar frontrunner status at any point in the season.

Moonlight
Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Nominee
As I said, a lot of "runner-up" movies tend to win this. Moonlight looks like the only film capable of knocking La La Land out of Best Picture, however unlikely that would be. So, by my own logic, that gives them a chance at the Editing Oscar. I wouldn't count on it though.

Hell or High Water
Eddie - Drama Film Editing - Nominee
It's improbable enough that this movie was remembered at all by the Oscar voters. A win here would be too much to ask for.