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Mr. Turner would be your more classic winner here, featuring 19th century costumes, a staple in the Academy. However, I think the movie is too low-profile to pull it off.

Two other nominees - Into the Woods and Maleficent - are deserving of a spot and maybe even a win, but the Academy hasn’t ever gone for fantasy in this realm, and that’s what both movies represent. Moreover, the work in Maleficent is arguably the easiest of the lot as the costumes were just adapted from the classic Sleeping Beauty cartoon.

To me, the deserving and likely winner is the costumes of The Grand Budapest Hotel, weaving through different time periods (from the 1930s to the 1980s) and representing a key component of the visual stimuli of this movie. If Grand Budapest does pull out the victory, this would be the fourth Oscar in this race for the legendary Milena Canonero, who designed the costumes in A Clockwork Orange and won for Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire, and Marie Antoinette - wow. This would take her out of the five way tie and into sole possession of third place in this category, behind the legendary costume designer Edith Head (winner of eight Oscars in this race), and the lesser known Irene Sharaff (winner of five Oscars in this race, West Side Story and An American In Paris among them).

Best Art Direction

My favorite of the tech branches, because it involves the entire construction of the movie sets, Best Art Direction tends to be a companion to Best Costumes because period piece normally signifies both artsy sets and adornments. This year, many of the same nominees as in Costume Design are indeed duking it out, and I expect the same outcome as in the Costume Design race (another not uncommon experience). The guild awarded one of the nominees, which I expect to repeat on Oscar night.

Of the nominees, I was of course happiest to see Interstellar make the cut for the complex design of the planetary sets in the movie. From the mostly-water world to the ice-world, to the Elysium-like planet outside of Saturn, most of these were actual sets and/or location shoots, and not just visual effects. However, that subtlety is likely lost on the wider membership, but good on the branch for recognizing it. Many thought Interstellar really had a shot at the art directors’ guild win for this, but it fell to the likely Oscar frontrunner.

The Imitation Game also made a surprise appearance here. Yes, it is a period piece, but the sets don’t seem particularly striking to me. Perhaps its nomination is simply a sign of its strength with some fields. If anything, the schizophrenic sets of Birdman were a more deserving contestant but, regardless, this will not be an Imitation Game prize.

Mr. Turner is one of the Costume Design/Art Direction crossovers. Again, however, I fear Mr. Turner will have to yield to a more well-known movie. Any other year I would have expected it to pull a Great Gatsby or Alice in Wonderland double-win, but those movies were simply more “prestige” than the lesser-known Mike Leigh vehicle. An upset wouldn’t surprise me, but I think the headwinds against it are too strong.

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