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FrauBlucher wrote:Results from tonights BAFTA awards

Very touching to see Paolo Sorrentino dedicate his award for The Great Beauty to the late director Carlo Mazzacurati.

Oscars are this weekend, which means it's now or never for predictions:

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave
Due to preferential balloting, this is pretty much a lock

Best Director: Steve McQueen
My predicted big "upset": do you think the same Academy that gave Tom Hooper an award for his mediocre Best Pic is going to miss the opportunity to make more history with a black director at the same time as rewarding the most "important" film of the year? Do I hope I'm wrong? Absolutely

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey
Has no real legit competition. DiCaprio probably deserves it, but I don't think the Academy's going to reward him for such a controversial performance

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett
Maybe Amy Adams had a chance, but the whole Woody Allen thing means the Academy's gonna want to vote some confidence, and an already likely winner becomes a lock

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto
Could be an upset with the nonprofessional from Captain Phillips, but given how much the Academy liked Dallas Buyers Club, I would say Leto's still a safe bet

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o
Hits every checklist box the Academy loves in this category. Lock of the night. If it doesn't happen, sit back and enjoy a crazy-ass Oscars

Original Screenplay: American Hustle
Consolation prize over the more deserved weirdo Her

Adapted Screenplay: Philomena
Only true toss-up category of the night. I give the edge here thanks to the Academy's British membership

Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave
Preferential voting definitely makes this seem like more of a guarantee than it should be, but more than that the Academy probably wants to highlight that it is down and this is the most peacocking choice.

Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón
I suppose McQueen has a good chance, but Gravity is definitely too big a critical success to relegate to the technical awards section and this is the only one where it has a serious chance.

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett
To be honest I'm hoping for Adams to win for a number of reasons, but mostly because her performance is one of the best this year regardless of gender. That said my taste isn't what is determining things and Blanchett is just on such an insane roll and is so respected and loved that it would be crazy to not vote for her.

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey
To be honest for this specific performance McConaughey is probably the least deserving of the nominated (like in all categories I'm for AH), but this is definitely a career oscar with, I'm sure, his success on True Detective only further cements his win and in that respect he has earned his win.

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence
I'm really hoping Nyong'o doesn't win and while I'd prefer Hawkins J-Law is the only person I see committing this upset.

Best Supporting Actor: Jonah Hill
I highly doubt Leto is going to win, because there is no way presently the academy is going to reward gay through gay especially when they can feel comfortable with the McConaughey support. In that case I suppose Fassbender is a good bet to win, but at the same time I don't get the sense of support for him. Plus Hill has the weird hair/ accent factor going for him.

Best Original Screenplay: American Hustle
I don't have strong opinions here with a few nominees looking like potential winners. This might be an apology for a weak turn out in the acting categories though.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Captain Phillips
Eh, the Weinsteins might push the Frears to the fore, but I think they'll flop this year and instead attempt to poorly go theme.

Best Cinematography: Gravity
The academy doesn't understand cinematography at all so this might as well be renamed the animated live action award.

Best Picture
I think will win: 12 Years a Slave
I want to win: I've only seen seven of them (haven't seen Nebraska or Philomena), but I'd go for The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Actor
ITWW: Matthew McConaughey
IWTW: Leonardo DiCaprio

Best Actress
ITWW: Cate Blanchett
IWTW: Of the three I've seen, none particularly appeal.

Best Supporting Actor
ITWW: Jared Leto
IWTW: Barkhad Abdi

Best Supporting Actress
ITWW: Lupita Nyong'o (esp. if Ejiofor doesn't win)
IWTW: Sally Hawkins (leading the pack by a long way)

Best Director
ITWW: Alfonso Cuaron
IWTW: Martin Scorsese

Best Foreign Language Film
ITWW: The Broken Circle Breakdown
IWTW: Of the two I've seen, The Hunt at a push

Best Adapted Screenplay
ITWW: 12 Years a Slave - John Ridley
IWTW: The Wolf of Wall Street - Terence Winter

Best Original Screenplay
ITWW: American Hustle - Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
IWTW: Her - Spike Jonze

Best Cinematography
ITWW: Gravity – Emmanuel Lubezki
IWTW: Inside Llewyn Davis – Bruno Delbonnel

Best Film Editing
ITWW: Gravity – Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger
IWTW: Gravity – Alfonso Cuarón and Mark Sanger

Best Original Score
ITWW: Saving Mr. Banks – Thomas Newman
IWTW: N/A

Best Animated Feature Film
ITWW: Frozen
IWTW: N/A

Picture - 12 Years a Slave
Director - Alfonso Cuarón
Actor - Matthew McConaughey
Actress - Cate Blanchett
Sup Actor - Jared Leto
Sup Actress - Lupita Nyong'o
Orig Screenplay - American Hustle
Adap Screenplay - 12 Years a Slave
Foreign Film - Great Beauty

I'm calling Bad Grandpa for Best Makeup and "Happy" from Despicable Me 2 for Best Original Song.

"Let It Go" will win Best Song

I'm assuming Friedkin again.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Oscar Voter Reveals Brutally Honest Ballot

aka "I really liked American Hustle, let me find 7 different ways to tell you about how much better it is than everything else in the field"

I'm pretty sure the only people who remember Bandits enough to praise it were in Bandits or made Bandits

(I like it)

For some reason, I'm reminded of this.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Oscar Voter Reveals Brutally Honest Ballot

His labeling of Omar -- which I will be seeing tomorrow -- as "anti-semitic swine" is interesting, considering the director's previous film, Paradise Now, was about as non-anti-semitic as a Palestinian film about the occupation could be.

So we're pretty certain this is Barry Levinson, right?

That ballot write-up is a good excuse to just not allow anyone to vote for anything ever again

mfunk9786 wrote:So we're pretty certain this is Barry Levinson, right?

Nah, I'm betting they just went back to Friedkin though it's hard to tell with cranky old Jews.

I don't think it's Friedkin again. Doesn't read the same as last year.

Valid, but at the same time I don't think the mention of Bandits fits with it being Levinson.

Everyone seems to get awards! Location Managers Guild of America Awards

domino harvey wrote:That ballot write-up is a good excuse to just not allow anyone to vote for anything ever again

Indeed. Practically everything he said is the opposite of my thoughts. It'd be depressing if it actually mattered all that much.

Also, the sound department member really didn't care for Willamina.

Also, I can't be the only one that reads that and sees something amiss with the lack of attempts to know the names of the black actors with slightly non-traditional Western names. Lupita Nyong'o deserves to be known by name regardless of voting or not voting for her rather than as "the 12 Years a Slave woman".

It'll be really funny to read all the phoned-in writeups of the Oscar ceremony where no matter what wins, it will be declared to have gone "as predicted" and have "no big surprises"-- this is literally the first year in a while where there's any suspense about what will take home Best Picture and where most categories have strong favorites but also more than a couple equally strong contenders for upsets

Is that true? I don't remember Argo being a lock by any means last year. Even with that I feel that 12 Years A Slave is more of a lock for best picture than Argo was.

According to Kristopher Tapley, a lot more voters have told him they picked June Squibb than expected, and she has a legitimate chance to upset the field in Supporting Actress. Should be interesting to watch that play out.

Please don't tease me on that account. I'm for Hawkins, but Squibb would be a delight.