RT's 2014 Oscar Picks - Results

We did fairly well this year. How did you do?

by | March 3, 2014 | Comments

Oscar

The Academy Awards have come and gone, which means it’s time to check in on our own Oscar predictions and see which of them came true. We fared better than usual this year, successfully naming 20 of the 24 winners in last night’s ceremony. Take a look at the final tally below, and let us know how well you did.


95%

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave

Look, we know the Vegas odds tilt toward Gravity. And we know it’s been cleaning up this awards season. But here’s the thing: the Academy is still trying to overcome its image as a collection of stuffy white guys, and they won’t pass up the chance to honor 12 Years a Slave. Unfortunately, some might accuse the Academy of bowing to political correctness by giving its top prize to the most worthy film as opposed to the best film. There are a couple of problems with this. First, even the most crazed Oscar-watcher would admit that greatness doesn’t necessarily count for much in the end — just ask Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, or Pulp Fiction. Second, 12 Years a Slave is indeed a worthy film — and a great one. There’s no question that it’s often painful to sit through, but that’s as it should be: it depicts the horrors of slavery with unflinching directness, not least because it never loses sight of the human beings on both sides of the whip. For very different reasons, Gravity and 12 Years a Slave are monumental movie experiences, and they both deserve to win. But we think that the Academy will give the Oscar to 12 Years a Slave.

CORRECT


Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club

You know how sports leagues tend to give the MVP award to the best player on a playoff team even though they’re only supposed to factor in the regular season? That’s what’s happening with Matthew McConaughey right now: Dallas Buyers Club was the regular season, and True Detective is the playoffs. Academy voters shouldn’t consider anything but the movie at hand, but let’s face it: we’re in the midst of the McConassance.

CORRECT


Best Actress: Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine

This one isn’t even close. Ms. Blanchett is an absolute lock.

CORRECT


Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club

It’s too easy to say that Jared Leto is the favorite because he put on a wig and some makeup. He’s not just a movie star playing dress-up; Leto fully embodies a complex character with humor, joie du vivre, and pathos.

CORRECT


Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave

The train may have left the station for American Hustle — it looked like a Best Picture dark horse a few months back, before suffering something of a critical backlash. Jennifer Lawrence seemed like a sure thing for a while, but momentum has been building for Lupita Nyong’o and her searing, powerful work in 12 Years a Slave, and we think she’ll be the winner on Oscar night.

CORRECT


Gravity

96%

Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity

Regardless of whether Gravity wins Best Picture, the film was such a monumental technical undertaking that Alfonso Cuarón is virtually guaranteed the Oscar for Best Director.

CORRECT


95%

Original Screenplay: Her

This is the place where the Academy tends to get a little quirky, and Her is the movie that puts the “original” in Best Original Screenplay. At some point over the last few months, someone somewhere was saying the following: “So wait… you’re telling me it’s about a guy who falls in love with his computer’s operating system? And it’s great? Really?”

CORRECT


95%

Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave

Here’s the deal: if a movie wins Best Picture, it also wins a writing award. It’s as simple as that.

CORRECT


91%

Best Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the great Italian director Federico Fellini was Oscar’s favorite international director, winning Best Foreign Language Film a record four times. Four decades after Fellini’s last win (for Amarcord), along comes his fellow countryman Paolo Sorrentino with The Great Beauty, a funny, visually resplendent portrait of modern Rome with echoes of La Dolce Vita.

CORRECT


96%

Best Documentary: The Act of Killing

20 Feet From Stardom has generated some feel-good vibes lately, but we can’t see it beating The Act of Killing, an unclassifiable marvel that’s bizarre, farcical, visually stunning, and emotionally devastating.

INCORRECTThe Act of Killing had already taken home seven awards, including the BAFTA, but it seems we discounted the upbeat appeal of 20 Feet from Stardom, which, in fact, even sported a 99% Tomatometer score.


90%

Animated Feature: Frozen

It would be nice if the Academy gave some love to Hayao Miyazaki, who has said The Wind Rises will be his last film. However, Frozen has probably got this one in the bag, since it was both a critical fave and a commercial juggernaut.

CORRECT


96%

Best Cinematography: Gravity

Director of Photography Emmanuael Lubezki and Alfonso Cuarón have collaborated with each other their entire careers, from humble beginnings in Mexican indie cinema to their graduation to globe-spanning blockbusters. Gravity‘s consistent visual look and convincing you-are-here spectacle suggests Cuarón’s bold vision for this movie could’ve been simply unfilmable if his friend Lubezki wasn’t there every step of the way.

CORRECT


96%

Best Film Editing: Gravity

Gravity features an impressive yet subtle single take, which begins during the unflinching devastation of Sandra Bullock’s crew and continues into the moment she finds her interlude of peace, curling up in a fetal position to signify rebirth. The film then cuts, showing off a renewed Bullock as she explores the new spacecraft, marking the beginning of Act 2. This kind of deliberate, thoughtful editing is seen all throughout the film. Not surprising since Cuarón himself is credited as co-editor.

CORRECT


96%

Best Music – Original Score: Gravity

Steven Price’s haunting, otherworldly score contributed greatly to Gravity‘s immersive effect. We can’t see anyone else winning in this category.

CORRECT


90%

Best Music – Original Song: “Let It Go” from Frozen

For a category that historically honors schmaltzy snoozers (Three 6 Mafia excepted), the race for Best Original Song is pretty interesting this year. One long-shot entry was booted for violating Academy bylaws (“Alone Yet Not Alone,” from the little-seen film of the same name), leaving Academy voters to choose between a catchy slice of lite funk that inspired a viral dance craze (Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”), a song by a great band about a great man (U2’s “Ordinary Love”), and a dreamy acoustic ballad from a lady who once made a video in which a little kid got his hand chopped off with an axe (Karen O’s “The Moon Song”). Still, we think “Let It Go” from Frozen will clinch the nod — when a movie gets a sing-along theatrical re-release, you know the soundtrack’s a hit.

CORRECT


48%

Best Production Design: The Great Gatsby

Say what you will about Baz Luhrmann as a filmmaker (or, more specifically, as an interpreter of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work), but few would disagree that The Great Gatsby sported lavish, dazzling production design.

CORRECT


48%

Best Costume Design: The Great Gatsby

Snappy hats! Spangly dresses! Colorful ties! Expensive furs! If recent history is any indication, The Great Gatsby will win, because it’s both a period piece and a full-blown spectacle.

CORRECT


96%

Best Sound Editing: Gravity

You won’t find “Nuts, Bolts, and Space Debris Puncturing Holes in a Satellite” on any album of sound effects. For that noise, you’ll have to crank up the volume on Gravity, a movie whose sound bank of mechanic noises feels just “mundane” enough to be utterly terrifying when splattered against the backdrop of space.

CORRECT


75%

Best Sound Mixing: Lone Survivor

The soundscape of Lone Survivor is populated with noise we’ve all heard before: wind, gunfire, trudging feet, explosions, etc. Survivor‘s memorable mix puts all these layers into a harmonious yet chaotic whole, rising and falling with tension in perfect tune to the dramatic story.

INCORRECT – We mistakenly believed this category would signal an unexpected win for a dark horse candidate — there are usually a couple of those every year — but we should have known better than to bet against the technical juggernaut that was Gravity.


96%

Best Visual Effects: Gravity

Duh.

CORRECT


92%

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Dallas Buyers Club

We’d be delighted if this one went to Bad Grandpa. Seriously, wouldn’t it be awesome if the Academy bestowed an Oscar upon the folks that brought us wasabi snooters and a bee-filled limo? However, our heads say it’s Dallas Buyers Club. Academy voters will be considering it for other awards, so they’ll actually watch it, leaving the Jackass and Lone Ranger screeners to collect dust on coffee tables all over Los Angeles.

CORRECT


Best Short Film – Live Action: The Voorman Problem

Martin Freeman stars in this, the only nominee in English. Call us cynical, but we think that might be all it takes to win.

INCORRECT – The Academy picked this fantastical story of a dying child who takes solace in a self-created vision of the afterlife. It turns out the voters weren’t afraid of subtitles after all — tough break, The Voorman Problem.


Best Short Film – Animated: Get a Horse!

There’s a new Mickey Mouse cartoon? And it played in theaters before Frozen? Case closed.

INCORRECT – It appears we overestimated the return of Mickey Mouse; this French charmer about an egg-shaped man and his friendship with a robot dog ultimately won over Academy voters.


Best Documentary Short: The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

Forget winning your Oscar pool; if you want to make a killing, buy stock in hankie manufacturing companies. The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life is a documentary about Alice Herz-Sommer, a Holocaust survivor and concert pianist who died early this week at 110. If her story doesn’t put a lump in your throat, you’re made of sterner stuff than us.

CORRECT