The official The Media By Us Oscar prediction showdown between TJ and David. Posted here for posterity, TJ and David talk through every single category for the February 26th ceremony:
BEST SHORT: ANIMATED / LIVE ACTION / DOCUMENTARY
TJ: So, let’s start with the shorts. I’ve only seen one. But I’m picking it to win Best Animated Short. Piper was adorable.
David: Piper should be the leading candidate. It has also been awhile since Pixar has one in Best Animated Short – a lot of upsets.
TJ: And with Pixar not having a nomination in the feature category, this could be a decent secondary prize for the studio.
David: Poor Pixar. I hope the billions help. I have not seen nor will see any short for this year. So I’ll take your word.
TJ: It was good. I’ll watch them before the ceremony, I hope. I’m taking Joe’s Violin and Ennemis Interieurs for Doc Short and Live Action Short respectively. Those two categories seem a lot closer than Animated Short.
David: I like to go with the saddest sounding ones, not knowing a lot about them. Give me La Femme et la TGV (film), Blind Vasha (animated) and 4.1 Miles (doc) as some wild cards. Shorts are typically ballot bloodbaths – separating ties and declaring winners
TJ: Nice. I picked Joe’s Violin in hopes that it’s just 5 minutes of my old friend Joe holding a violin. I’d vote for that.
David: Joe seems like a good guy. Good for him.
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE
TJ: What’s your take on Best Foreign Language Film?
David: The big momentum early was on Toni Erdmann. But after the shortlist was narrowed down, it seems like people are shying away from three-hour cringe worthy German comedy. Go figure. Current swing is for The Salesman, which may benefit from Trumpland opposition, and his proposed Muslim Ban, with Farhadi (the director) boycotting.
TJ: Instead opting for the Iranian version of Death of a Salesman, the feel-good movie of the year.
David: Farhadi is a previous winner for 2011’s A Separation (also a feel-good comedy)
TJ: I’m taking The Salesman.
David: I got a weird feeling about A Man Called Ove. It’s not often that foreign movies get external nominations – and it has Best Makeup. Same team that got a surprise nomination for Best Makeup last year for “The 100-year old man who went over a hill and came down a mountain” (not real title). Also reminds me of when foreign films get screenplay noms (like A Separation), directing noms (like Amour) or cinematography (like Ida) – they end up winning foreign. My first crazy pick – A Man Called Ove for Foreign – they say it’s like the Swedish Gran Torino… which is… good?
TJ: Fair enough.
BEST DOCUMENTARY
TJ: Documentary Feature time – I know it’s starting to fall off some due to the running time being a tad too long, but I think O.J.: Made in America holds on here. That ‘movie’ is literally eight hours long. W.T.H.
David: I do too – it may infuriate the purists (and our own writer, Chris) – but the documentary portion of the academy put it in there, and now it’s up to the whole group to vote. It’s probably the only one some of them have heard of. My sentimental favorite would be Life, Animated though.
TJ: Yeah, we’ll get into that on the special Oscar podcast due out a few days before the ceremony.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
TJ: Animated Feature?
David: I think this is a slam dunk, which is a shame. Forget the thing I said about external nominations (that would have me picking the worthy Kubo) – Zootopia seems like it’s a lock at this point for me.
TJ: It would be a major upset. Kubo is the only one with a shot, but Zootopia has this one locked, I think.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
TJ: Visual Effects is a fun category this year. No horrible movies. The long time front runner has been The Jungle Book and I’ll stick with them here. Too many different films chasing the top spot to matter.
David: If I can guild out here – the Visual Effects Society had its awards already and Jungle Book came away with five awards, beating out some fellow nominees – Kubo is a wild card though, it beat Disney’s 19-year streak of best animated special effects. I’ll still go with the good ol’ J-Book for this. So there’s that.
TJ: Nice. Guilding out is the new cool thing.
BEST SOUND EDITING / MIXING
TJ: What do you think takes home the sound awards?
David: There’s a saying with these awards – no one knows the difference. The other saying is that Editing is for explosions and Mixing is music.
TJ: Welp…
David: We start the La La Land juggernaut here – there’s a good chance it takes both, but I’ll say LLL takes Mixing, and explosion-y Hacksaw Ridge takes Editing. Going chalk again with the favorites.
TJ: Same for me. And as far as both those movies sounding good? They…sounded…good, I guess. The gunshots in Hacksaw did not sound like a slide whistle…winner…
David: Nice – and there goes our only chance to award Michael Bay – 13 Hours apparently has a person (Greg Russell) who’s been nominated 17 times for sound categories and never won.
TJ: Welcome to Club Med, Greg Russell.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG / SCORE
TJ: Song and Score time! The La La Land curb stomp continues here with a music sweep. Big shocker. I honestly think the biggest upset brewing here is that the other song from La La Land could beat out the slightly better song from La La Land. I’m sticking with City of Stars though. La La Land takes Score too.
David: In score, I don’t think it has a competitor, as the only composer who’s been nominated before is Thomas Newman for the surprise Passengers nom. A real Gary Russell, this guy – 14 nominations, no win. LLL for score.
TJ: GAAAaaaAAARRYYYYY.
David: And I feel like people were really excited to give Lin-Manuel Miranda an EGOT before even hearing Moana, but you’re right, I don’t think anything else has a chance. I’ll say City of Stars and try to get it out of my head for the rest of the day.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
TJ: Production Design?
David: From the ADG (Art Direction Guild) awards, LLL won for Contemporary film and Passengers won for Fantasy. You normally don’t see contemporary production design win (last time I can remember is 2013’s Her, which is sliiiightly futuristic). For the ending jazzamatazz, I’ll continue with LLL.
TJ: Same. And to add a dash of opinion, La La deserves this award.
David: Just a dash.
BEST MAKEUP / HAIRSTYLING
TJ: Makeup and Hair? Star Trek. Next Question.
David: BUT WAIT.
TJ: DAMMIT
David: Y’all forgot about A Man Called Ove, though!
TJ: Is that a royal y’all? If it wins here I think it wins Foreign Film, and I don’t want that. And I refuse to ever hear the words “Academy Award Winning Suicide Squad.” And Star Trek was cool. They gave that pretty girl zebra face.
David: Very A Beautiful Mind of you – game theory it out. Despite my protestations, I think Star Trek will get it – same team won for the 2009 reboot.
TJ: Side note – Did anybody ever call the second new Star Trek “Star Wreck?” Because if not, I should have gotten in this movie website game a LONG time ago…
David: Star Wreck ‘em, I barely knew ’em.
TJ: nope.
David: Just saying, I just think AMCO deserves wild card status (in a category of three, I got dibs on 67%).
BEST EDITING
TJ: Film Editing?
David: Heart versus Brain – LLL won the ACE Eddie award for editors (so cute, calling the award the Eddie). Heart would be Arrival for pulling off what it did. But my money (and brain) are with LLL.
TJ: Yeah, Arrival showed off here in a big way. As did Moonlight. La La Land just did a good job as well. And I just feel like we are going to have one of those years with this movie. It’s going to CLEAN UP. I’m also taking La La Land.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
TJ: Costume Design is interesting. Period Pieces tend to clean up in this category, but La La Land is the only one that isn’t a period piece and is yet again the front runner. I could see Jackie taking it down, and it was super well done, but I’m going to keep riding that La La train.
David: I’m going to split with the juggernaut and go with Jackie – the film has the challenge of matching clothes with the period, and for actual people. First denial – Costume Design.
TJ: FINALLY. I was getting nervous.
David: Plus, the category is Costume DESIGN, not Costume buy-online.
TJ: Jesus…
David: Came out a bit harsh, I understand. That’s the problem with 14 nominations of a beloved movie – there will be costume designers that won’t get any recognition because LLL is so admired – costume is one of the weakest aspects to me.
TJ: Yea. We’ll hash that out later.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
TJ: Guild wise, this is a fun category, break down the Cinematography happenings.
David: WELL. The cinematography guild is ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) – the favorite was Linus Sandgren for LLL. However, Greig Fraser pulled off a stunner for winning for Lion. Both are first-time nominees for Oscar.
TJ: So? You can tell my theme. I’m sticking with La La.
David: However, in the guild’s 31 year history, the Oscar winner only matched 13 times.
TJ: Interesting.
David: As much as I’d love to see some love for Arrival or Moonlight here especially – the cinematography in LLL is gorgeous. So I’ll join back in.
BEST ORIGINAL & ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
TJ: Getting to the good stuff…Screenplays, what’s history told us with what we know so far?
David: History has told us that we will have both an Adapted and Original screenplay winner. 100% of the time that’s happened
TJ: HA. David tell us more numbers that nobody cares about. I want a GIF of you and your abacus. I take it back. You had me at Adapted Screenplay.
David: It also tells us that a sweep year is likely to come away with screenplay too – like Birdman from 2014 which won some top awards, also upset in the screenplay category against favorites. We’re also a tad early for the guilds to tell us something here (WGA announces 2/19)
TJ: Moonlight is in the Original Category there, right?
David: That’s right – Moonlight is original for WGA where it’ll be up against both La La Land and Manchester. Tough category
TJ: I’m getting off the La La train for a couple of hours here. I need a corndog. Maybe a soda. Maybe the kid behind me keeps kicking my seat. Anyway, Manchester by the Sea for Original and Moonlight for Adapted.
David: I’m with you for Moonlight – moving to Adapted seems like a surefire win for it. I’ll take your ticket to ride from you – it’s head vs heart again, but I think La La Land gets Original Screenplay in an upset.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
TJ: Acting awards are up next. Dev Patel has picked up some speed of late for Lion. It’s happening at the right time with only about a week left of voting. Any chance he catches Ali in the Supporting Actor category?
David: Dev grabbed BAFTA recently for Lion – but they tend to get weird about supporting their own Brits – they went 4/4 in the acting categories last two years, but did have Ejiofor over McConaughey in 2013 and a love fest for Geoffrey Rush and H. B. Carter in 2010 for The King’s Speech (winning 3/4th of acting that year). I think Ali is still in the lead and my pick – only chance to lose is if they hate Moonlight, but it’s got 8 nominations across the board, so i think that win still stands.
TJ: Agreed. Ali for the dubs. He’s also been great behind the podium this season. Just like Viola Davis. AND THAT’S HOW YOU SEGUE FOLKS…
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
TJ: This might be the most slam dunkiest of the categories. Any chance at all of an upset in your mind?
David: Sometimes the slam dunks make you feel down… This is straight up… to the hoop? Davis is a lock – and I’m in favor, after wanting her to win for both Doubt and The Help.
TJ: OMG Doubt…I damn near fell in love with her as an actress then. Yea. It’s Davis.
David: If she can’t win for this, then she can’t win.
TJ: No kidding.
BEST LEAD ACTOR
TJ: The Lead Acting categories are both two-horse races. What are your thought’s the Actor category. Is it just Affleck vs Washington?
David: Typically, you have more real people in these lead categories. People playing real people – biopics slay. Only Garfield is playing a real person, and he is in two nominated movies… But no. He has no chance – it’s Affleck and Washington only.
TJ: I think Affleck holds on. The SAG award was to make up for the guild not rewarding Washington in the past. I can see a lot of SAG members voting Washington in the SAG Awards and Affleck in the AA’s.
David: Stole my pick – it’s happened 8 times in the last 10 years at SAG, where a winner doesn’t win at the big stage. I think the fact that Denzel has two awards already reduces the impetus to award him. Plus, only in screenplay and here does Manchester have a shot, and I think that is a well-liked film.
TJ: Both taking Affleck, interesting.
BEST LEAD ACTRESS
TJ: So I called the Actress category a two-horse race, but Isabelle Huppert is making a push, although it seems like the hype has stopped a little bit. I still feel like Portman has the best chance to catch Stone, but does Huppert have more of a shot than I’m giving her?
David: Sometimes you play “Which one of these is not like the other?” – and that gives Huppert an edge. She’s one of the people who get the label of an actor’s actor, and has been acting in foreign language and English films for forever before finally getting a nom. My thought is it’s Stone/Huppert, with Portman dropping out – Portman hasn’t won anything, and her idiosyncratic performance has been divisive. Even Huppert got a Golden Globe (for all that’s worth) – and she was very grateful in her acceptance speech, which goes a long way.
TJ: Sounds like you’re dodging the upset though. Staying with Emma?
David: In another year against a different actress, Huppert would be running away with this – but the deluge continues (deservedly here) and it’ll be sweet to see Jules from Superbad get an Oscar.
TJ: Nice.
BEST DIRECTOR
TJ: Best Director. “Franken” Barry Jenkins vs Damien “666” Chazelle?
David: God. I love these puns. Let’s go back to the guild, 666 won the DGA – only five times has a DGA winner not won against another DGA nominee. Five times since 1948. That percentage is like negative billion.
TJ: Seems low.
David: My pick is Damien. How can you award all the craftwork and artistry throughout the movie without celebrating the main person in charge? I’d love to see FrankenBarry come back from the dead to win this one, but it’s LLL for sure.
TJ: Agreed. That movie is his and his alone. I also heard it was originally going to be cast with Andrew Garfield and Emma Watson in the lead roles. He should be awarded for not letting that happen.
David: Hermione for the win.
BEST PICTURE
TJ: Entertain me here. Explain how the voting for best picture works and then give me what you think will be the most common ballot, 1-9. DANCE DAVID
David: When you vote, you don’t vote for your favorite movie, but rank everything. The ballots are sorted into piles based on first choice. If one film accumulates more than 50 percent of the vote, that film is the winner. If not, the film that received the lowest number of #1 votes is removed from contention, and all its ballots are redistributed to their second choices. This process is repeated until a film has more than 50% of the vote, at which point a winner is declared.
TJ: So just like Wheel of Fortune. Got it.
David: This would be my best guess: 1. La La Land 2. Moonlight 3. Manchester 4. Hidden Figures 5. Arrival 6. Lion 7. Fences 8. Hacksaw Ridge 9. Hell or High Water.
TJ: I think the top two are clear. Manchester and Hidden Figures are interesting. I could see them in either spot. I’m confident in those being the most common movies in the top four.
David: I think so too – I can’t see a big percentage of 5-9 being people’s #1 choice.
TJ: Maybe Arrival?
David: Possibly, it scratches a different itch that most of the other movies – I figure that’s what David Fincher is voting for, for example.
TJ: Lol. I feel like if David Fincher got an itch he wouldn’t scratch it so he could experience it more. Like a less intense Werner Herzog.
David: Haha!
TJ: Anything else to look for come the 26th?
David: Well, if my accounting is correct, and my picks are right, LLL will go away with 10 Oscars, one painful award short of tying the record. With a huge front runner movie and so many locks already, any upset picks would be fun. Besides that… speeches should be fun. And they’re performing all the songs. John Legend is tackling both LLL songs in a medley, apparently.
TJ: I was just hoping the Rock would sing them all. David and I have our predictions posted here. Aside from our weekly podcast, Talkie Talk, we are going to have two Oscar Specials, Part 1, where we debate and decide what we want to win, which should post on the Friday before the Academy Awards. and Part 2, the recap show will go up shortly after the Awards. One more bet, David. Who presents Best Picture?
David: HACKSAW
TJ: Hacksaw Ridge plays a mean banjo. My pick is Martin Scorsese. Or Barack Obama.
David: Spoiler alert – they already announced it.
TJ: Well my real pick is Kevin Spacey as the cat from that awful movie. Whatever you say is wrong, unless it’s that.
David: Apparently, it’s Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, on the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde coming out. And both are voicing cat cartoons? YOU HAPPY?
TJ: YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
