Our Oscar coverage includes Chronicle Film Critic Mick LaSalle’s predictions, plus quizzes and more. (Image is Michael Keaton in “Birdman.”)
Expect new crop of winners to defy academy voters’ historical trends
This is a peculiar year for the Oscars, in that it seems pretty obvious who will win in all the major categories. If you want to win the Oscar pool this year, you’ll need to guess the winner of best sound effects editing, because everybody is going to get the first six categories right.
But this is a peculiar year for another reason. It looks as though the right movies and people are going to win, even in the face of historical trends that seem to be pointing away from them. Or to put it another way, we can usually tell what the academy is going to choose, based on what it has chosen before. But this year, the rules don’t seem to apply.
So, with your permission — do I have it? Thank you very much — I’m going to tell you who is going to win, and then I’m going to tell you who would win were Oscar voters following their usual pattern. Sometimes the rumor mill and history point to the same candidate. Sometimes they don’t.
Now let’s take a look:
Best picture
It’s going to be “Boyhood.” It should be “Boyhood.” Most indicators suggest it will be “Boyhood.” However, if it is “Boyhood,” it will be an unusual choice.
First, “Boyhood” really is the year’s best picture, but best picture is rarely given to the best movie of the year. It can happen (“The Godfather,” “Schindler’s List”), but most of the time an “Argo” or “Brave- heart” wins.
Second, “Boyhood” is actually an experimental film. It doesn’t seem like one —that might be why it’s in contention — but it breaks new ground.
Third, the academy likes to give best picture to expensive, grand-scale movies like, say, “American Sniper,” not inexpensive personal films.
Fourth, the academy loves movies that express liberal political sentiments — though only liberal sentiments that no one can possibly disagree with. That last point is all important. It’s why “Brokeback Mountain,” which was basically a veiled plea on behalf of gay marriage, lost in 2006 to “Crash,” which expressed the less-than-radical sentiment that everybody should get along. Last year, “12 Years a Slave” affirmed that slavery was a bad thing and won top honors.
“American Sniper” is perceived as a right-wing film — it’s anything but — and for that reason doesn’t stand a chance. That leaves “The Imitation Game” and “Selma” for expressing safely liberal sentiments. “The Imitation Game” goes on a limb and asserts that arresting and torturing gay people is wrong, and “Selma” says everybody has a right to vote. Because Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”) is nominated for best director and Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) isn’t, I’d say everything points to “The Imitation Game” this year.
But “Boyhood” is going to win anyway, and that’s a good thing.
Best director
This award usually goes to the director of the best picture winner. This doesn’t always happen, but it usually does. I have heard some talk that Alejandro González Iñárritu might win for “Birdman,” that people will split their ballot as a way of honoring both of the two best movies of the year. But it’s always a long shot to predict a split.
Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”) will win best director.
Best actress
In the acting categories, the rule is that chameleonic performances — those in which people completely transform — beat performances of an apotheosis nature, in which the performance is seen as the ultimate expression of that performer’s essence. That’s why Hilary Swank (“Million Dollar Baby”) beat Annette Bening (“Being Julia”) and why Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will
Be Blood”) beat George Clooney (“Michael Clayton”). Neither should have happened, but that’s how the academy votes.
Historically, best actress winners tend to be young (under 35) and to win the first time they’re nominated.
Now let’s look at the nominees. First, throw out Felicity Jones, who is the right age (31), but her performance in “Theory of Everything” isn’t chameleonic enough. Throw out Marion Cotillard (“Two Days, One Night”), whose nomination is a joke that emphasizes the lack of good roles for women in Hollywood. Throw out Reese Witherspoon, who has won before and is not especially chameleonic in “Wild.”
That leaves Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”), who is 54, and Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”), who is 36. They are both over the age 35 cutoff, but Pike has the youth advantage. She also has never been nominated for best actress, while this is Moore’s fifth Oscar nomination. Both Moore and Pike give chameleonic performances, Moore as an Alzheimer’s patient and Pike as a homicidal lunatic.
The data would seem to point subtly to Pike, but in recent years the illness card seems to trump everything. Between 2001 and 2014, seven Oscars have been given to actresses depicting either emotional or physical illness or injury — four out of four in the first years of this decade. So this time history and word of mouth are pointing in the same direction.
Julianne Moore will win best actress.
Best actor
Chameleonic performances always win best actor. But unlike the case with best actress, here it actually helps to be middle-aged (say between 38 and 60). And it also helps to have been nominated previ- ously.
By this measure, Bradley Cooper should have a good chance. He is 40. He has been previously nominated in this category. He transformed himself to star in “American Sniper” — he even gained weight, which the academy loves. By historical measures, he should be the front-runner.
He is up against three other chameleons: Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game”), Steve Carell (“Foxcatcher”) and Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) — who has the additional advantage of playing an illness, which the academy
likes even better than weight gain.
The remaining contender is Michael Keaton in “Birdman.” Keaton is 63 and has never been nominated. To make matters worse, he is playing a former superhero, someone we are meant to regard as someone like himself. This is a flat-out apotheosis role, and those kinds of roles always lose — and have been losing since 1929.
I think Keaton deserves to win, but every historical trend is against him. I think it would be wonderful if he did win, because it would break the chameleonic lock, which should be broken. But, rather pathetically, the academy seems to think that the highest pinnacle of acting is the physical imitation of illness. Something else to consider: Most (not all) people over 70 hate “Birdman,” and there are lots of seniors in the academy.
So everything points to Eddie Redmayne. But I root for the apotheosis performances the way Boston fans root for the Red Sox, and eventually those guys won. This might be our year. Also Redmayne is pretty horrible in “Jupiter Ascending” — fun and horrible, but still horrible — and anybody who sees that movie will not vote for him for anything.
Michael Keaton (“Birdman”) will win best actor.
Best supporting actress
There are no chameleons up for best actress, with the exception of Meryl Streep as the witch in “Into the Woods.” But Streep is subject to the Streep Exception to the chameleon rule: Perceived as being herself a chameleon, her transformations are perceived as expressions of her true nature, so they don’t count.
Justice will be done in this category: Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”) will win best supporting actress.
Best supporting actor
Robert Duvall plays a hardheaded old man in “The Judge”; Ethan Hawke plays an amiable slacker dad in “Boyhood,” and Edward Norton plays a full-ofhimself actor in “Birdman.” They’re great, but nobody is going to see those roles as a stretch. Mark Ruffalo has muscles and a receding hairline in “Foxcatcher,” but he is otherwise his usual self. Great, but not chameleonic.
J.K. Simmons has this category’s only chameleonic transformation in “Whiplash,” playing a sadistic music teacher. And he’s brilliant in it.
J.K. Simmons will win best supporting actor.