My Final Predictions for the 2016 Academy Award Winners

THE MAJOR EIGHT

BEST PICTURE: The Revenant
BEST DIRECTOR: Alejandro G. Inarritu (The Revenant)
BEST ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
BEST ACTRESS: Brie Larson (Room)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sylvester Stallone (Creed)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy (Spotlight)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Charles Randolph & Adam McKay (The Big Short)

BEST "OTHER FILM"

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE: Inside Out
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Amy
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Son of Saul

What Does The 2015 Academy Awards Say About Future Oscar Predictions

BEST PICTURE AND BEST DIRECTOR

In 2013 and 2014, the winner of Best Director and the winner of Best Picture came from different films. In 2013, Life of Pi's director Ang Lee won Best Director defeating the hypothetical nominee Ben Affleck. We'll never know if Ben Affleck had received an Oscar nomination if Argo still would have won Best Picture, but since the Director's Guild of America Awards gave Affleck a nomination (and eventual win), there was clearly strong support for the film and the director before and after the Oscar snub.

In 2014, 12 Years A Slave won Best Picture yet its director Steve McQueen lost to the eventual winner- Gravity's Alfonso Cuaron. Neither win was a surprise as both 12 Years A Slave and Cuaron were each the favorite to win their respected categories before the 2014 Oscars.

In 2015, I think we were conditioned to have some sort of split with many predicting Boyhood's Richard Linklater to win Best Director and Birdman winning Best Picture. I think that was a condition of the past two years and not seeing the broader picture. Almost always, the Best Picture and Best Director come from the same picture and that held true for the 2015 Academy Awards.

Further, do not doubt the DGA! Not only are they an incredible predictor of who will eventually go on to win Best Director, but they also are a great predictor of Best Picture as well. Birdman was both the DGA and the Producer's Guild of America (PGA) Award winner, which means it was going to win their respected Oscar statutes.

BEST SCREENPLAY

A lot of people expected The Grand Budapest Hotel and Wes Anderson to win the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award; however, I correctly predicted Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Birdman to win. Hotel had won the BAFTA (a terrible predictor) as well as the Writer's Guild of America Awards (a great predictor); however, Birdman was not nominated for a WGA Award. This isn't terribly surprising, as many people (seemingly) can write a great script without being a member of the Writer's Guild.

Again, the biggest predictor of a screenplay award is if the film wins Best Picture, which means one should look heavily at the DGAs. 2015, probably more than any other year, shows us that the film that wins Best Picture will have a trickle down effect for other categories.

Still, the WGA is an incredibly reliable predictor of a Best Screenplay Oscar win. Graham Moore and The Imitation Game won the WGA for Best Adapted Screenplay and it also went on to win the Academy Award. I don't fault anyone predicting the WGA winner for Best Original Screenplay, Wes Anderson, would go on to the wins the Oscar, but the use of common sense (Anderson not going against Inarritu at the WGAs) in conjunction with other factors (Birdman's DGA and PGA win) to predict correctly.

Also, for the past four years, the winner of Best Original Screenplay was for a writer who also directed his picture. That would have held true for Wes Anderson, but it also is still true for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

My Final Predictions for the 2015 Academy Award Winners

THE MAJOR EIGHT

BEST PICTURE: Birdman
BEST DIRECTOR: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)
BEST ACTOR: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
BEST ACTRESS: Julianne Moore (Still Alice)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, et al (Birdman)
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Graham Moore (The Imitation Game)

BEST "OTHER FILM"

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE: How To Train Your Dragon 2
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Citizenfour
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Ida

Final Predictions For The 2014 Academy Awards

Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Picture nominees

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Director nominees

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Actor nominees

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Actress nominees

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Supporting Actor nominees

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Supporting Actress nominees

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Song and Best Soundtrack

BEST SONG

NOMINEES:

- "Happy" (Despicable Me 2)

- "Let It Go" (Frozen)

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2014 Academy Award Nominations

1) My absolute favorite movie of 2013 was This Is The End. But there was no way in hell it was going to get any Oscar nominations. My second favorite movie of the year was The Wolf of Wall Street. It earned many nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Hill), and Best Adapted Screenplay. While Wolf was getting some Oscar buzz, many predicted it was going to be the last man standing in many categories (like the 2 acting ones and Best Director). I can confidently say I was not one of those people.

2) Tough day for Tom Hanks. He seemed like a lock to get a Best Actor nomination for Captain Phillips and had a decent shot of Best Supporting Actor for his work in Saving Mr. Banks. Not only does Hanks not get any Oscar nominations this year, neither did Saving Mr. Banks (OK, technically they got one for Best Score, but really, that doesn't count). Serves Disney right for Disney-fying a story where they screw an author out of her original work.

I know many people are going to claim that Tom Hanks is a true snub for Captain Phillips but a) let's be honest, Hanks was good, but not great in the movie, b) does Tom Hanks really need any more Oscar nods?, and c) between Christian Bale's performance in American Hustle and Hanks's performance, I choose Bale every day of the week.

Predictions for the 2014 Academy Award Nominations

BEST PICTURE
- 12 Years A Slave
- American Hustle
- Captain Phillips
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Gravity
- Her
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Nebraska
- Saving Mr. Banks
- The Wolf of Wall Street

SUPER, DUPER LOCKS: 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle, & Gravity

LOCKS: Captain Phillips, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, & The Wolf of Wall Street

STRONG EDUCATED GUESSES: Saving Mr. Banks, Dallas Buyers Club

I think Saving Ms. Banks gets a nomination just because a large portion of the Academy are old fuddy-duddies who love to reminisce about the "Good Ol' Times" of Hollywood, and Saving Mr. Banks fits right into their wheelhouse. As for Dallas Buyers Club, even though it did not get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, it did get a PGA and SAG nomination for Best Film- and those factions mean a helluva lot more than the Hollywood Foreign Press of the Golden Globes. It has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and the likely Best Actor win for Matthew McConaughey doesn't hurt either.

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Inside Llewyn Davis

On one hand, Inside Llweyn Davis earned a Golden Globe nomination and was one of AFI's top ten best films of the year. On the other, neither the SAG (not that surprising) nor the PGA (super surprising) awarded it with a nomination. However, I think it gets nominated just because it's a Coen Brother's flick. Three out of their past four films (True Grit, A Serious Man, & No Country For Old Men) have all gotten nominated, and I think the super boring and dull Inside Llewyn Davis does the same.

DARK HORSE: Philomena

How Did My Academy Award Predictions Turn Out?

Overall: 17 / 24 (71%)

You can see all of my predictions for the 85th Academy Awards here

BEST CALL: Predicting Ang Lee (Life of Pi) would win Best Director

WORST CALL: Choosing Tommy Lee Jones over Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor
(Also, I should have chosen "Curfew" over "Buzkashi Boys" for Best Live Action Short. If you read as much Oscar blogs and articles as I have it was obvious)

BIG SIX CATEGORIES: 5/6
(Best Film, Best Director, the 4 acting categories)

Predicting the Winners of the 85th Academy Awards

BEST PICTURE: Argo

BEST DIRECTOR: Ang Lee (Life of Pi)

BEST ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

BEST ACTRESS: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURED FILM: Wreck-It Ralph

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Searching For Sugarman

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Michael Haneke (Amour)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Argo (Chris Terrio)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Life of Pi (Claudio Miranda)

BEST FILM EDITING: Argo (William Goldberg)

BEST HAIR AND MAKE UP: Les Miserables

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Durran)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Amour

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: Adele and Paul Epworth "Skyfall" (Skyfall)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Life of Pi

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: The Paperman

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT: Buzkashi Boys

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: Mondays at Racine

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Life of Pi

BEST SOUND EDITING: Argo

BEST SOUND MIXING: Les Miserables


Stone Cold Locks

- Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
- Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones
- Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway
- Best Animated Film: Wreck-It Ralph
- Best Documentary Feature: Searching For Sugarman
- Best Foreign Language Film: Amour

Almost A Sure Thing

- Best Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio (Argo)
- Best Original Song: "Skyfall" (Skyfall)
- Best Cinematography: Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi)
- Best Editing: William Golberg (Argo)

Between Two Candidates

- Best Picture: Argo
- Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Best Director: Ang Lee (Life of Pi)

Strong Educated Guesses

- Best Orginal Screenplay: Michael Haneke (Amour)
- Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina
- Best Animated Short: The Paperman
- Best Make Up and Hairstyling: Les Miserables
- Best Production Design: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi
- Best Sound Mixing: Les Miserables

Straight Up Guesses / I Stole What Other People Predicted

- Best Original Score: Life of Pi
- Best Documentary Short: Mondays at Racine
- Best Live Action Short: Buzkashi Boys
- Best Sound Editing: Argo

What are your predictions for the 85th Academy Awards?

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Predicting the Best Picture Race: Argo vs. Lincoln

It seems that the two legitimate contenders to win Best Picture at the 85th Oscars are Lincoln and Argo. Of course anything can happen but the common perception is that these two are the two to beat.

Looking Back On My Predictions For The 2013 Oscar Nominations

BEST PICTURE

How Did I Do?: 8/9

BEST CALL: Beasts of the Southern Wild

WORST CALL: Not selecting Amour

NOTES: A pretty good list from me if I do say so myself and I'm also going to pay myself on the back for saying 9 films would get selected. If I had to extend my list to 10 I would have selected Amour as the 10th but I am shocked The Master didn't get a nomination and a foreign language film did.
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What I Got Right: Argo, Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life Of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

What I Should Have Done: Selected Amour instead of The Master

BEST DIRECTOR

How Did I Do?: 2/5

BEST CALL: Ang Lee (Life Of Pi)

WORST CALL: Every one of my other selections

NOTES: What a complete at utter joke these five nominees are. Ben Affleck (Argo) and Katheryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) absolutely needed to be there. I'm actually fine with no Tarantino and I really enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook so I'm not super upset to see David O. Russell there but still, he probably shouldn't be nominated considering how super deep 2012 is.

I think Affleck needs to be there because Argo was incredible (and because Affleck did the best directing out of everyone in 2012) and based on what I've heard about Zero Dark Thirty so does Bigelow. Despite my opinion on Lincoln of course Spielberg was going to get nominated and Life Of Pi was too brilliant to leave Ang Lee off of the list. That's four (Affleck, Bigelow, Lee, Spielberg) selections right there with maybe Michael Haneke (Amour), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts), or Tarantino fighting for the fifth. That would have been both fair and just. (Although personally having Beasts get no nominations is probably fair and just. Have you seen it? It's boring as all hell).
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What I Got Right: Ang Lee (Life Of Pi), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)

What I Should Have Done: Selected Michael Haneke (Amour), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts Of The Southern Wild), and David O. Russell over Ben Affleck (Argo), Katheryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), and Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

BEST ACTOR

How Did I Do?: 4/5

BEST CALL: Saying BOTH Bradley Cooper (SLP) and Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) would get nominated since it seemed like these two were fighting against each other for the "fifth spot"

WORST CALL: Saying Denzel Washington (Flight) would not get a nomination

NOTES: There were six obvious contenders for only five slots. Daniel Day-Lewis was a mortal lock and I just knew that both Bradley Cooper and Joaquin Phoenix would get a nomination because they were both incredible. That left Hugh Jackman (Les Mis), John Hawkes (The Sessions), and Washington fighting for two spots. It turns out that Hawkes was the odd man out and not Washington. In my defense though, I DID SAY that I was guaranteed to be wrong about Denzel missing out.
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What I Got Right: Bradley Cooper (SLP), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Hugh Jackman (Les Mis), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

What I Should Have Done: Selected Denzel Washington (Flight) over John Hawkes (The Sessions)

BEST ACTRESS

How Did I Do?: 4/5

BEST CALL: Qu'venzhane Wallis (Beasts Of The Southern Wild)

WORST CALL: Not going through one of my last second edit of deleting Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone) and adding Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)

NOTES: I am so proud of myself for this one. The only locks were Jennifer Lawrence (SLP) and Jessica Chastain (ZDT) so the fact that I got four out of five correct in what I said was the category I felt the weakest about feels pretty good to me.
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What I Got Right: Jessica Chastain (ZDT), Jennifer Lawrence (SLP), Qu'venzhane Wallis (Beasts), Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

What I Should Have Done: Selected Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) over Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

How Did I Do?: 4/5

BEST CALL: The four that I predicted would get a nomination and did get a nomination took no big leaps of faith on my part so no real "best call" here

WORST CALL: Claiming that all five of my selections would be 100% correct and "stone cold locks"

NOTES: God does the Academy hate Leo. I know he has three nominations and two are for Best Lead Actor but listen to the list of films Leonardo DiCaprio has been in in which he DID NOT receive a nomination: Django Unchained, Inception, The Departed, Titanic, Catch Me If You Can, and Gangs of New York. I bet DiCaprio wished The Great Gatsby was a 2012 film not, huh? Although with the Academy's hatred of him, it might not matter and he'll probably get snubbed again at next year's Oscars.
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What I Got Right: Alan Arkin (Argo), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Robert De Niro (SLP), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

What I Should Have Done: Selected Christoph Waltz (Django) over Leonardo DiCaprio (Django)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

How Did I Do?: 4/5

BEST CALL: Amy Adams (The Master). She was no lock to getting a nomination considering her SAG snub, but I also really didn't go out on this one either.

WORST CALL: Thinking Jacki Weaver only had a 10% chance of getting nominated.

NOTES: Even though Weaver neither received a SAG nomination nor a Golden Globe nomination and even though Nicole Kidman received both, Weaver earned the "last spot" over Kidman.
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What I Got Right: Adam Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Mis), Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

What I Should Have Done: Selected Jacki Weaver (SLP) over Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

How Did I Do?: 4/5

BEST CALL: Michael Haneke (Amour)

WORST CALL: Thinking the Academy actually liked, or at least respected, The Master

NOTES: Out of the four selections I got correct, only two (Moonrise Kingdom and Zero Dark Thirty) earned WGA nominations. However, Quentin Tarantino (Django) is not in the WGA so of course he was not going to receive a nomination (although weirdly that hasn't stopped the WGA from nominating him in the past) and Haneke wasn't eligible because the "A" in "WGA" stands for "America" and Haneke is not from America. Even though John Gatnis did earn a WGA nominations, I really did not think that it would translate over into an Oscar nod. However, it did. It's a shame the same didn't hold true for Rian Johnson (Looper).
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What I Got Right: Amour (Michael Haneke), Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino), Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola), Zero Dark Thirty (Mark Boal)

What I Should Have Done: Selected Flight (John Gatnis) over The Master (P.T. Anderson)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

How Did I Do?: 5/5

BEST CALL: Picking all five nominations perfectly

WORST CALL: NONE MOTHA FUCKAS!

NOTES: The only other contender for this category was Stephen Chbosky for The Perks Of Being A Wallflower because it earned a WGA nomination. However, because Benh Zeitlin is not in the WGA (in fact, no one associated with Beasts Of The Southern Wild is in ANY guild) he wasn't going to be nominated for a WGA. However, I knew Zeitlin would earn Chbosky's place come Oscar time.
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What I Got Right: Argo (Chris Terrio), Beasts Of The Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin), Life Of Pi (David Magee), Lincoln (Tony Kushner), Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell

What I Should Have Done: N/A

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Final 2013 Oscar Nomination Predictions

BEST PICTURE

- Argo
- Beasts Of The Southern Wild
- Django Unchained
- Les Miserables
- Life Of Pi
- Lincoln
- The Master
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Zero Dark Thirty

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Beasts Of The Southern Wild getting a nomination

BEST DIRECTOR

- Ben Affleck (Argo)
- Katheryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
- Ang Lee (Life Of Pi)
- Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
- Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) not getting nominated. Probably over Ang Lee

BEST ACTOR

- Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
- John Hawkes (The Sessions)
- Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)
- Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
- Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

WHAT I'M DEFINITELY WRONG ABOUT: Denzel Washington (Flight) not getting a nomination. He'll probably get it over Phoenix.

BEST ACTRESS

- Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
- Marion Cotilliard (Rust and Bone)
- Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Qu'venzhane Wallis (Beasts Of The Southern Wild)
- Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: In a weak year (in an always weak category) this is the category I'm the most unsure about. I could see Helen Mirren (Hitchcock), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), and Rachel Weisz (Deep Blue Sea) each getting nominated. Only Chastain and Lawrence are locks.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Alan Arkin (Argo)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
- Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Nothing. All five of these are stone cold locks.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

- Amy Adams (The Master)
- Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
- Helent Hunt (The Sessions)
- Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy)
- Sally Field (Lincoln)

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Maggie Smith not getting a nomination. Probably for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Also, for some reason Amy Adams' nomination is in jeopardy.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

- Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)
- Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom)
- Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty)
- Michael Haneke (Amour)
- Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

WHAT I'M MAYBE WRONG ABOUT: Possibly John Gatins for Flight but overall I think this is a good list

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

- Tony Kushner (Lincoln)
- David Magee (Life Of Pi)
- David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
- Chris Terrio (Argo)
- Benh Zeitlin (Beasts Of The Southern Wild)

WHAT I'M MAYBE WRONG ABOUT: It's hard to get a gauge on Beasts Of The Southern Wild considering it wasn't eligible for any of the guilds (WGA, SAG, DGA, and PGA) so it hasn't gotten nominated for anything beforehand. It's possible Stephen Chbosky (The Perks Of Being A Wallflower) gets nominated considering it has some Oscar buzz and it did get a WGA nod, but I'm still putting blind faith in Beasts (whether or not I think it deserves to be there is another story)
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NOTE: This is a list of who I think WILL get a nomination and not about who I think DESERVES to get a nomination. That post will come later.
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