New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Despite its smashing success at the box office, I also do not buy the theories that American Sniper could be a potential spoiler in this race. The movie was also a late-breaker like Selma, but ended up with a lot more nominations. To win you have to be a consensus pick, given the preferential balloting for Best Picture. Thus, while American Sniper’s success in ticket sales makes it a serious threat for the two Sound Oscars and maybe even Editing and Actor, I think it will be ranked very low by a lot of the Academy, dooming its chances.

Passion, too, propelled the Sundance hit Whiplash into the final list of eight. If you think about it, in fact, the Oscar race began all the way back last January, when that movie and Boyhood premiered in Utah. Whiplash was the staff favorite for Best Picture here at BOP, and it has a lot of strong support. Still, I have a hard time imagining that those who don’t think of it as their number one movie will rank it higher than Birdman and Boyhood, which is what Whiplash would need to walk away with a victory. Whiplash will surely take home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and, as I predicted before the BAFTAs did it, it has a good chance at Sound Mixing, Film Editing, and even Adapted Screenplay. But Best Picture will go elsewhere, despite the fact that all pundits report hearing a lot of Whiplash votes.

After winning the audience prize at Toronto, it seemed as if The Imitation Game, Weinstein’s horse in this year’s race, would be a force to be reckoned with. Indeed, the fact that it landed a Director nod shows it is respected. In a preferential ballot, if anyone is to be the spoiler it would be The Imitation Game because it is this year’s The King Speech: the movie is impossible to dislike. Still, while it recently won the Writers’ Guild of America award for best adapted screenplay, it failed to garner major prizes even in the friendly territory of BAFTA. I suppose this could pull through if it ranks higher than Boyhood and Birdman on most ballots, but I see no evidence of this happening and would be frankly shocked if it did.

What’s likely in a distant third place is The Grand Budapest Hotel, which premiered in March and managed to hold the Academy’s attention for nearly a year, becoming the earliest-released Best Picture nominee in nearly 15 years. Indeed, Grand Budapest led the nominations on that morning, tied with Birdman for nine. It’s also done respectably well with guilds, and won the Best Motion Picture Comedy Golden Globe. So, by default, this is your potential spoiler. But it’s a comedy, and those don’t generally do well in the Best Picture race. Still, Grand Budapest looks to score several Oscars, including a likely Best Original Screenplay nomination prize for Wes Anderson and probably Art Direction, Costumes, Make-up, and even Score. It could thus win the most Oscars on Sunday, but it is still a very long shot for Best Picture. The race boils down to the two names you’re by now well-acquainted with…

Continued:       1       2       3       4