86th Oscar Animated Feature Updates (2013-2014 Awards Season) (11/19/2013)

The Animated Feature race is always fascinating to me, not least of which because half of the submission list comes from international entries. Personally, I think that every category should be that way, since there are, after all, a whole world worth of actors, directors, costume designers and all out there.

This year the top competition comes from Disney’s yet to be released Frozen and Hayao Miyazaki’s final work The Wind Rises, with Pixar’s Monsters University feeling like a close third. I’ll be closely following Frozen’s reception and box office when it opens during the U.S.’s Thanksgiving weekend, but for now I’m thinking that the sentimental vote will propel Miyazaki’s swan song to the win.

1. Hayao Miyazaki for The Wind Rises (Predicted Winner)

2. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee for Frozen

3. Dan Scanlon for Monsters University

4. Stephanie Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner for Ernest & Celestine

5. Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders for The Croods

Alternates:

6. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud for Despicable Me 2

7. Hiroyuki Okiura for A Letter To Momo

8. Chris Wedge for Epic

9. Fernando Cortizo for The Apostle

10. Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn for Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2

11. Luiz Bolognesi for Rio 2069: A Story Of Love And Fury

12. Nancy Florence Savard for The Legend Of Sarila

13. David Soren for Turbo

14. Sang-ho Yeon for The Fake

15. Jimmy Hayward for Free Birds

16. Anthony Silverston for Khumba

17. Klay Hall for Planes

18. Yukihiro Miyamoto and Akiyuki Shinbo for Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 3: Rebellion

19. Raja Gosnell for The Smurfs 2

As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!    

See Animated Feature predictions for other years HERE.

If you’re really into animation, check out the Animated Shorts also.

See predictions for other categories at the 86th Oscars HERE.

Switch to another year:  87th,  88th,  89th  

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86th Oscar Adapted Screenplay Updates (2013-2014 Awards Season) (11/17/2013)

One of the things that Oscar watchers have to explain to the general public each year is that the Adapted Screenplay race includes not only adaptations from books, television and older movies, but also any sequel whose characters are based on an earlier work, and even some films that are very loosely based on a news or magazine article. This year, however, several studios seem to be attempting to change that trend, by campaigning their movies in the original screenplay category instead.

In most cases this isn’t going to matter anyway: The films that are challenging their presumptive categorization made my long list but don’t show up in my top five in either this category or my previously published Original Screenplay predictions. But it does make me wonder what the writers -- and their studios -- are up to. Might they be paving the way toward a new delineation of the categories and a future rules change? Or are they simply trying to position themselves so that the films will be noticed in other places (or at other award shows)?

1. John Ridley for Twelve Years A Slave (Predicted Winner)

2. Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke for Before Midnight

3. Terence Winter for The Wolf Of Wall Street

4. Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope for Philomena

5. Billy Ray for Captain Phillips

Alternates:

6. Tracy Letts for August: Osage County

7. Abdellatif Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix for Blue Is The Warmest Color

8. Jason Reitman for Labor Day

9. Destin Cretton for Short Term 12

10. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber for The Spectacular Now

11. Danny Strong for Lee Daniels’ The Butler (if voters don’t accept the “original” campaign)

12. Michael Petroni for The Book Thief

13. Peter Berg for Lone Survivor

14. Steve Conrad for The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

15. Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce for The Great Gatsby

16. Carl Joos and Felix Van Groeningen for The Broken Circle Breakdown

17. Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck and Shane Morris for Frozen (if voters don’t accept the “original” campaign)

18. William Nicholson for Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom

19. Hayao Miyazaki for The Wind Rises

20. Joss Whedon for Much Ado About Nothing

21. Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

22. Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson and Dan Scanlon for Monsters University (if voters don’t accept the “original” campaign)

23. Mark Protosevich for Oldboy

24. Daniel Pennac for Ernest & Celestine

25. Abi Morgan for The Invisible Woman

26. Kasi Lemmons for Black Nativity

27. Francois Ozon for In The House

28. Gilles Bourdos and Jerome Tonnerre for Renoir

29. Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof for Star Trek Into Darkness

30. Josh Singer for The Fifth Estate

31. Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

32. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster for The Motel Life

33. David Nicholls for Great Expectations

34. Lem Dobbs for The Company You Keep

35. Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson for The Sapphires

36. Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire for Oz: The Great And Powerful

37. Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof and J. Michael Straczynski for World War Z

38. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg for This Is The End

39. Tom Bradby for Shadow Dancer

40. David Gordon Green for Prince Avalanche

41. Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio for The Lone Ranger

42. William Wheeler, Mohsin Hamid and Ami Boghani for The Reluctant Fundamentalist

43. Carroll Cartwright and Nancy Doyne for What Maisie Knew

44. Morgan Land and Ariel Vromen for The Iceman

45. David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan for Man Of Steel

46. Chris Morgan, Hossein Amini and Walter Hamada for 47 Ronin

47. Drew Pearce and Shane Black for Iron Man 3

48. Malcolm D. Lee for The Best Man Holiday

49. Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt for Oblivion

50. Gavin Hood for Ender’s Game

As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!    

See Adapted Screenplay predictions for other years HERE.

Or check out the Original Screenplay predictions.

See predictions for other categories at the 86th Oscars HERE.

Switch to another year:  87th,  88th,  89th  

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86th Oscar Original Screenplay Updates (2013-2014 Awards Season) (11/11/2013)

As the big studios focus on sequels and franchises, the original stories of the film world are coming more and more from the independent directors, some of whom have become institutions in their own right. My current thinking is that the Academy will stick largely to their historical favorites, with Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station filling the newcomer slot. But several studio based films can be found in my top ten, and a successful push from any of them could easily land them a nod here.

1. David O. Russell and Eric Singer for American Hustle (Predicted Winner)

2. Woody Allen for Blue Jasmine

3. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for Inside Llewyn Davis

4. Spike Jonze for Her

5. Ryan Coogler for Fruitvale Station

Alternates:

6. Bob Nelson for Nebraska

7. Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron for Gravity

8. Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith for Saving Mr. Banks

9. Danny Strong for Lee Daniel’s The Butler

10. Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack fro Dallas Buyers Club

11. Nicole Holofcener for Enough Said

12. Asghar Farhadi and Massoumeh Lahidji for The Past

13. Jeff Nichols for Mud

14. Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig for Frances Ha

15. J.C. Chandor for All Is Lost

16. Derek Cianfrance, Bob Coccio and Darius Marder for The Place Beyond The Pines

17. Aaron Guzikowski for Prisoners

18. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash for The Way Way Back

19. Tobias Lindholm and Thomas Vinterberg for The Hunt

20. Peter Morgan for Rush

21. Scott Cooper and Brad Inglesby for Out Of The Furnace

22. David Lowery for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

23. Austin Bunn and John Krokidas for Kill Your Darlings

24. Sebastian Lelio and Gonzalo Maza for Gloria

25. Sofia Coppola for The Bling Ring

26. Haifaa Al-Mansour for Wadjda

27. Sarah Polley and Michael Polley for Stories We Tell

28. Cormac McCarthy for The Counselor

29. Kim Mordaunt for The Rocket

30. Stacie Passon for Concussion

31. Yuval Adler and Ali Wakad for Bethlehem

32. Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Don Jon

33. Paolo Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello for The Great Beauty

34. Pedro Almodovar for I’m So Excited

35. Laurie Collyer for Sunlight Jr.

36. Harmony Korine for Spring Breakers

37. Shane Carruth for Upstream Color

38. Brian Helgeland for 42

39. Zhangke Jia for A Touch Of Sin

40. Terrence Malick for To The Wonder

41. Alain Guiraude for Stranger By The Lake

42. Lake Bell for In A World…

43. Neill Blomkamp for Elysium

44. Travis Beacham and Guillermo Del Toro for Pacific Rim

45. Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright for The World’s End

46. Wong Kar Wai, Jingzhi Zou and Haofeng Xu for The Grandmaster

47. Adam Leon for Gimme The Loot

48. R.F.I. Porto for Blue Caprice

49. Giuseppe Tornatore for The Best Offer

50. Nicolas Winding Refn for Only God Forgives

As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories.

See Original Screenplay predictions for other years HERE.

Or check out the Adapted Screenplay predictions.

See predictions for other categories at the 86th Oscars HERE.

Switch to another year:  87th,  88th,  89th  

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