My Oscar Predictions

I haven't done this in a few years but seeing how tomorrow the nominees for Best Picture of 2014 will be announced, I decided to toss up online my predictions of what will be nominated.  This is the second year that the Oscar nominees will be announced rather early.  I think it was an attempt to beat the Golden Globes by announcing before they had their award show.  So this year the Golden Globes got moved up earlier.

The rules were changed in 2009 to always have a minimum of five nominees but can go as high as ten provided that a film gets a minimum of five percent of the vote.  The last three years it has been nine but I think this year it could be less.

The following I am rather confident that they will get nominated for Best Picture:

American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
Interstellar
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Unbroken

The following may be nominated:

Fury
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel

Now if I am right about all of these then I am wrong about being less nominated films than previous years.  (Stupid logic!)  Of the ones that I am confident I have seen four of them so far, part of my master plan I started last year when I attempted to hedge my bets and saw a few of the nominated films before they were announced.

Boyhood is a lock for a best screenplay hands down.  It may be a front runner for director and picture too, but I don't think it will win any acting categories.  Interstellar will got a nod since the academy has been trying to toss in at least one good Sci-Fi film once in a while.  Unbroken may get some nominations but I have a feeling it will get snubbed.  Which is a shame because Takamasa Ishihara should be nominated for best supporting actor but I doubt it.  Then again if the world was fair Tilda Swinton would get a supporting actress nomination for Snowpiercer.  The Theory of Everything will win the music score and maybe a screenplay but I don't see much more than that.  Of the four I have seen in the confident category, Boyhood is the best so far.

The ones that I see on the bubble, I would love to see Fury nominated since it is one of the best modern WWII films since Saving Private Ryan.  It's not as good as it, but it is a great movie.  Gone Girl got a lot of buzz, but it wasn't that great.  Although Rosamund Pike is my front runner for best actress, she was incredible and carried that entire movie, in spite of Ben Affleck.  I haven't seen The Grand Budapest Hotel yet but I have it taped on the DVR so I will get to it soon.  It will definitely get a best screenplay nomination and maybe more.

So I'll check tomorrow at 5:30am when they announce them and see how right I am.  Or how wrong I am, there goes that stupid logic again.  I know, I know, logic is our friend...