They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don’t They?
Post-Mortem
By J. Don Birnam
March 3, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Lupita's brother is totally stealing her spotlight.
Well, that happened. Welcome to the completely predictable and unsurprising Oscars. The Academy has shown that it basically goes online to check who everyone thinks they’re picking, and then pick that. Pretty remarkable.

I have been asked by some the meaning of the title of my movie column. Older people may see in it the name of a now-forgotten movie from 1969 starring Jane Fonda, called “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” The movie is brilliant, in my view, because it captures the anxiety and ennui of the lower middle class in America at the time it was produced, a message that resonates clearly in the shrinking middle class world of today. Minor spoiler alert: as the movie and its characters dive deeper into their despair, one person commits an unthinkable act. When asked to explain his actions, he deadpans with the title of the movie - explaining that one shoots horses when they are in pain, out of pity.

So too, if you will allow me the hyperbolic drama, is the life of an Oscar prognosticator. One can study and read tea leaves all one wants, but in the end predicting the collective consciousness of these 6,000 odd wildly different individuals across 24 wildly different categories is a thankless and despairing endeavor. There are always surprises, and after six months of awards season, one feels like throwing one’s hands up in the air and asking for a pity execution, horse in pain style.

Okay, that was a bit much, but you get the drift. So here is a list of winners as they were announced, with some thoughts here and there. I will do full post-mortem of what it all means for movies, Hollywood, the meaning of life, etc., later this week.

Best Supporting Actor. Jared Leto. Not a surprise and a completely deserving win. Probably the best speech I have heard in several Oscars.

Best Costume Design. The Great Gatsby. The Academy again showed that it does not like more modern fare like American Hustle, as I had thought, and that being a Best Picture nominee does not necessarily matter. Gatsby is a deserving winner and my first miss of the night. Early on, it makes me wonder whether American Hustle is going to go home empty-handed?

Best Original Make-up. Dallas Buyers Club. Another deserved gimme.

Best Animated Short Film. Mr. Hublot. The deserving winner and my second miss of the night. Goes to show that opening the voting to everyone will not necessarily change the outcome of the race in these shorts - most people probably didn’t see them and abstained.

Best Animated Feature. Frozen. Deserved and expected. A nice win for one of my favorite movies of the year.

Best Visual Effects. Gravity. What, you were expecting The Hobbit?

Best Live Action Short. Helium. The emotional aspect probably pushed this over the top. Miss three and it’s early. This is when I started getting worried.

Best Documentary Short. The Lady in Number 6. Deserved, and may she rest in peace.

Best Documentary Feature. 20 Feet From Stardom. I saw this one coming because it was the feel good one, like last year’s Searching for Sugarman. Count on more winners like these in the future.

Best Sound Mixing. Gravity. *Silence* (Get it?)

Best Sound Editing. Gravity - Even if it is not always the case that the same movie wins both sound awards, it was pretty expected that it would happen this year.

Best Supporting Actress. Lupita Nyong'o. Amazing win and amazing speech. And 12 Years a Slave has its first win of the night.

(Meanwhile Twitter is down apparently, after Ellen’s picture tweet?)

Best Cinematography. Gravity. Emmanuel Lubezki wins a deserved Oscar after losing for his amazing work in Children of Men and The Tree of Life. I am very pleased.

Best Film Editing. Gravity. I should have gone with the technical sweep; alas, I was hoping they would reward the more deserving piece. At this point in the night I am thinking Gravity could actually pull of the Best Picture win. Five Oscars so far. If it does not win, it is definitely on its way to become the next Cabaret with at least six if not seven Oscars.

Best Production Design. The Great Gatsby. A new Oscar trivia from 2014 if Cuarón wins Best Director: who are the two people to win more than one Oscar at the 2014 Academy Awards?

Best Original Score. Gravity. An expected win, but I have to go a bit against the grain here and say that it was my third or fourth favorite of the nominated scores. Still, Gravity is on a huge roll.

Best Original Song. "Let It Go" from Frozen. A sweated a bit that my favorite would fall to U2, but it prevailed, making the Lopez pair the 12th EGOT winner in history (Robert Lopez).

So far in these Oscars there have been zero actual surprises, I would argue. Some categories were unclear (would it be Lupita or Jennifer?) but in the categories with expected winners it has all panned out. Bo-ring?

Best Adapted Screenplay. 12 Years of Slave. 12 Years a Slave is well on its way to a Best Picture win, in my opinion.

Best Original Screenplay. Her. I thought American Hustle could steal this, but it does seem like it’s going home empty-handed at this point.

Best Director. Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity. Deserved, expected, and magnificent to see the Academy recognizing technical achievement.

Best Actress. Cate Blanchett. The expected winner and, again, the deserving one. The Academy has made good picks, and the Woody Allen controversy did not derail her. And a graceful but muted call out to Woody Allen himself, which received tepid applause.

Best Actor. Matthew McConaughey. I still want Leo to win one, but Matthew gave an incredible performance.

Best Picture. 12 Years a Slave, as expected, repeating results at the Globes, the BAFTA, the Critics Choice, etc. Begging the question: Do we even need the Oscars anymore?

My final score: 20/24. Actually a good year overall, but with a lot of expected winners panning out, I expect a lot of people did very well. I had a 23 out of 24 winner at my Oscar party, which is a record for us.

How did you do?