By CONNOR MARTIN
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
This Sunday, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and their lucky guests are going to walk the red carpet, hoping for a win that will catapult them to stardom or bring them back into the spotlight.
In lieu of the event, I am trying my hand at predicting a few of the winners for this year and to hold myself accountable for the completely underqualified critiques this article will make, I am going to put some skin into the game. Of the 8 categories most of us pay attention to (Actor/Actress, Supporting, Picture, Directing, Screenplays Adapted and Original), I would like to wager that I will correctly predict at least 6 (not very bold, I know). If I am wrong, I will happily accept a naked lap of my theme house the minute the broadcast ends, with proof to follow in next week’s issue.
Best Picture: Birdman. It is a packed category and one of the stronger ones of this year’s contest, but there is a key difference between films that are built for Oscar greatness and those that are built for greatness statue or no statue. Bearing that in mind, Boyhood, Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel manage to distinguish themselves from the other challengers, and while all three are timeless movies, it is Birdman that will take the cake. Sure, Boyhood is nuanced, took 12 years to make and is absolutely groundbreaking, and Wes Anderson’s Budapest Hotel has brought him into the spotlight after being one of the U.S.’s more underappreciated directors, his work reduced to Facebook cover-photos and memes paired with Kanye West lyrics, but Alejandro Iñarritu’s movie, Birdman caters very craftily to Academy voters. The movie is about the artistic process, and movies in general, much like past winners Argo and The Artist, and on top of that it’ is reflexive, with painstaking detail put into everything from the editing and cinematography, to the casting and soundtrack.
Best Director: Richard Linklater. In a way, think of this category as Boyhood’s revenge for Best Picture. It does not matter how sleek Birdman is, the former may be uncomfortable to watch and require a bit more patience, but this particular category rewards blood, sweat and tears, which is pretty much Linklater’s bread and butter. Sacrificing one’s ego as well as the spotlight to dedicate a decade and then some to a single film takes courage and passion.
Best Actress: Julianne Moore. There was a lot to root for out of the gate this year, with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon (yes, I know she got an Oscar for Walk The Line) both trying to pull a McConaughey™, but fundamentally, it is a weak category this year. Sure, Felicity Jones had a great turn, but she ultimately played second fiddle to Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking, and while Gone Girl was an audience favorite, it did not require enough of Rosamund Pike to earn her a statue. Still Alice was a little film and went under the radar, but Julianne Moore’s portrayal of a woman with onset Alzheimer’s is moving and feels real. She deserves it the most.
Best Actor: Michael Keaton. Once again, each category is voted on by a group of their peers, in this case, old white men who probably have an ego problem or two of their own. Michael Keaton had to muster everything in his arsenal to portray an allegorical version of what pretty much every actor feels like at a certain age, and he does so honestly. Much like Birdman itself, Keaton’s performance is reflexive and ballsy considering his career has not been that different from Riggan Thompson’s (the title role). Sure, Redmayne’s Hawking was heartbreakingly good, and though David Oyelowo should have been nominated for Selma, it would not have mattered. Keaton is doing what his character can not, baring it all for the world to see, and there is no better audience than the hundreds of Riggan Thompson’s filling out their ballots from the comfort of their once-majestic mansions in the Hollywood Hills.
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette. Much like the Best Actress category, the pickings were slim this year. Nonetheless, the standout performances of Patricia Arquette in Boyhood and Emma Stone in Birdman were nothing short of awesome, and they made up for the fact that Meryl Streep’s nomination for the most pointless musical ever felt almost like a bad joke. Stone’s portrayal of drug-addled star-spawn is one of the more complex roles she’s had in her career. Nonetheless, when it comes down to brass tacks, Patty Arquette gave up much more and had a much larger hand in how her character was portrayed. She helped her role grow and has been playing her since 2002, without ever losing touch with the flawed, but very real mother she portrayed.
Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons. It is funny how often Supporting Actor and Actress categories mirror each other, and this year is no exception. Sure, Ed Norton played a character with the ego and balls we all wished we had, and Mark Ruffalo did a great job, but neither of them tried anything new or different. Ruffalo managed to allow himself to be typecast into the only lukewarm role in an endlessly edgy Foxcatcher, and Norton’s character in Birdman is fun. There were no sacrifices made by either of them. Instead, J.K. Simmons, perennially renowned as a character actor (you may remember him from the Toby Maguire Spiderman films), jumped off a ledge and managed to fly. Whiplash is a remarkably intense indie-darling and got that accolade in no small part thanks to Simmons, who plays a ruthless drumming instructor.
Best Original Screenplay: Grand Budapest Hotel. A reflection of the Best Picture nominees, this category is brimming with great, original storylines, but screenwriting is an art in and of itself, and some of these films fail to give it it’s due diligence. Boyhood was moving, but word got out quickly that some of it’s scenes were largely improvised, detracting from it’s credibility. Birdman may have been a great film, but the reflexive tropes it employed for cinematography (edited to a single take) and acting (Michael Keaton’s eerily similar trajectory with his Batman films), did not stretch into the realm of writing.. With both out of the picture, the road is prettily paved for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel to take home a statue. Complete with intricate storylines that weave in and out of each other as well as the sort of snappy dialogue an actor dreams of, it shines far above the rest of the category.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Whiplash. Grand Budapest would have had stiffer competition if Whiplash had made it into the Original category, but some offhanded comments by director and writer Damien Chazelle that the film was loosely based off of his experiences in the Princeton High School Studio band landed the film in the Best Adapted category. Sure, American Sniper’s script was part of what made it so popular, but unconventional structure and the fact that it was written by an actor whose only major writing credit is Spread (Ashton Kutcher as a Hollywood gigolo) forced it out of the running for most of awards season. This leaves Imitation Game and Theory of Everything as the only other major contenders, and though they have both accrued a substantial haul throughout the awards season, they are not as fresh and genre bending as Whiplash, if there is one category in this antiquated contest where people like to be different, it is screenwriting.