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Best Film Editing

And last but certainly not least it has come down to this - the Best Picture of the technical categories. One would expect that given Gravity’s dominance of most of the other technical races it would handily win this award, but I am not convinced.

This year, the five nominees are the three Best Picture frontrunners, plus Dallas Buyers Club and Captain Phillips. Dallas is probably just happy to be there, but it is a somewhat surprising pick for such a “small” movie, to the expense of Thelma Schoonmaker, who edited the three-hour long Wolf of Wall Street. American Hustle is, in my view, the weakest of the remaining nominees. I simply see no degree of difficulty or particularly impressive dialogue cut scenes to justify the nomination, let alone the award. Although the filmmakers attempt to use editing in Hustle to create tension, it falls flat, in my opinion, and I just cannot see it winning here on Oscar night. If it does, however, then I would see it as a sign that its chances of Best Picture are high.

Gravity could also pull it off in a technical sweep and has masterful editing in its main action sequences. Unlike for Hustle, however, a win for Gravity would not necessarily mean it's set to win Best Picture, given that Gravity is strong in all technical categories. Still, based on merit, I would not go for Gravity for the win here.

Only if 12 Years a Slave wins this Oscar early in the night would I read something into the win - the movie seems to be one of the weakest in this category, and a win could signify strength within the Academy. But I don’t see that happening either, even if 12 Years does win the ultimate prize - the best choice for this category is too obvious for people to ignore.

Captain Phillips, arguably, is the best edited of the other four nominees, as its fast-paced action shots from different perspectives are a key to building tension and reaching the pivotal climax towards the movie’s end. Indeed, the last act of the movie is masterfully edited between the different players in the tension-filled stand-off between the Somali pirates and the U.S. forces. Although Captain Phillips’ increasingly slowing momentum could really hurt its chances here, this would not be a bad place for the Academy to award a sort of consolation prize to the movie. Thus, barring a Gravity full out sweep, I expect Phillips to win this Oscar by a nose.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don’t They?”, when I will take a look at some of the other film races, including Best Animated Feature Film, Best Foreign Language Film, and hopefully some of the shorts.

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