Film: Who can defy 'Gravity' at the Oscars?
Tomorrow night the great and the good of Hollywood will gather at the recently renamed Dolby Theatre for their annual orgy of mutual congratulation and backslapping. Ellen DeGeneres hosts for the second year running, a safe pair of hands if ever there was one and a worthy successor to Academy maestros like Billy Crystal and Bob Hope.
However vulgar and self-serving the Oscars can sometimes seem, it remains the world's premier entertainment industry awards ceremony and this year the competition for the big awards is likely to be especially fierce.
The Best Picture category was expanded to include up to 10 nominations a few years back and in 2014 boasts at least five nominees that might be favourites to win in any other year. Competition in the acting categories is equally fierce, which makes the job of predicting who'll win what even more of a fool's game than usual. So don't sue me if I get it all wrong, but here's my best guess at where the Oscars will land.
Best Picture
With all due respect to Stephen Frears and the makers of Philomena, it's a worthy rather than exceptional feature film and an unlikely contender in the best picture category. Spike Jonze's futuristic love story Her is probably too esoteric to stand a chance, as in all likelihood is Alexander Payne's fine black and white drama Nebraska. Though enjoyable, Martin Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street isn't actually a very good film, while Dallas Buyers Club is more likely to score in the acting categories.
That leaves the excellent Captain Philips, which doesn't seem to be winning anything this awards season, American Hustle, Gravity and 12 Years A Slave. When I saw Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave a few months back I was so blown away I thought it would sweep the boards come Oscar time. But now I'm not so sure, and I think Alfonso Cuaron's technically astonishing space drama Gravity will be the worthy winner of the 2014 Best Picture award. Odd, though, that Inside Llewyn Davis wasn't nominated at all.
Best Director
Though Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne are both nominated in this category for The Wolf of Wall Street and Nebraska respectively, neither is likely to win. David O Russell is also up for his raucous and outrageous 1970s crime drama American Hustle, which definitely has its fans. But again I think this award will be between Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity and Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave. I thought McQueen did a brilliant job of painstakingly evoking the horrors of slavery while restraining his usual arthouse flourishes, which might have seemed out of place given his subject matter. But I think the Academy voters will go for Cuaron - Gravity is the most vivid film made about space since Kubrick's 2001.
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio receives his fourth Oscar nomination this year for his fine performance in The Wolf of Wall Street. He'll win some day but not this time, and probably should have been nominated for his work on The Great Gatsby instead.
Christian Bale already has an Oscar: he was quite brilliant as a womanising hustler in American Hustle, but I'm not sure he'll get the nod here. I don't think Bruce Dern will either, though the 77-year-old star of Nebraska would be a very popular choice. Chiwetel Ejiofor was exceptional in 12 Years a Slave, but I've a feeling Matthew McConaughey will win for his portrayal of maverick Aids sufferer Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club.
Best Actress
It wouldn't be the Oscars if Meryl Streep wasn't nominated for something, and in 2014 she's up for her faintly overripe turn in the southern family drama August: Osage County.
She's joined by seven-times nominee Judi Dench, who really was exceptionally good as a brave survivor of the Magdalene Laundries in Philomena. Amy Adams gets the nod for her work in American Hustle, but Sandra Bullock stands a better chance with Gravity. She's nominated for her portrayal of an astronaut who faces oblivion when her shuttle is destroyed in Earth's outer orbit. But the standout performance by an actress this year was by Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, a riveting drama about a wealthy woman who struggles to cope when her marriage falls apart.
Best Supporting Actor
There's Irish interest in this award, as Michael Fassbender receives his first Oscar nomination for 12 Years a Slave. He was all too convincing as Edwin Epps, a sadistic plantation owner who makes his slaves' lives a living hell.
Also up are Somali actor Barkhad Abdi for his performance in Captain Phillips, Bradley Cooper, who played a swaggering '70s cop in American Hustle, and Jonah Hill for The Wolf of Wall Street. I think Fassbender stands a chance, but the smart money will be on Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club.
Best Supporting Actress
At just 23, Jennifer Lawrence is already a Hollywood player and this year she became the youngest actress ever to be nominated for three awards. She earned most of the laughs in American Hustle, playing Christian Bale's histrionic but compelling wife.
Also nominated in the best supporting actress category are Julia Roberts, who was very good as an embittered daughter in August: Osage County, June Squibb for Nebraska, Sally Hawkins for Blue Jasmine, and Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave. Nyong'o gave a very touching portrayal of an abused slave, but I reckon Jennifer Lawrence may win her second Oscar in 2014.
Best Screenplay
There are now two screenplay Oscars, one for best adapted screenplay, the other for best original script. That last award should be fought out between David O Russell and Woody Allen for American Hustle and Blue Jasmine, and I for one think Allen deserves to win. He now has a record 16 nominations for best screenplay.
12 Years a Slave and Richard Linklater's Before Midnight are the leading contenders in the best adapted screenplay category. I loved Before Midnight but I think 12 Years a Slave will probably win the Oscar.
Other awards
The best animated feature award seems to me a forgone conclusion in 2014. In a poor year for the genre, Disney's winning musical comedy Frozen stands head and shoulders above the rest and will surely get the nod.
The best documentary award has seen some outstanding entrants in recent years, and 2014 is no exception. Despite some strong competition, I think that Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing will win, and deservedly so. A riveting investigation of Sumatran death squad killings in the mid-1960s, it was probably the best film I saw in the last year.
Paolo Sorrentino's Great Beauty wasn't bad either. It's nominated in the best foreign language category, as is Thomas Vinterberg's intriguing psychological thriller The Hunt. But Sorrentino's film irresistibly evokes the sweep and grandeur of vintage Fellini and should prevail.
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