Oscars 2014: how to be just cynical enough to pick the winners

A giant statue of Oscar. Photograph: Joe Klemar/AFP/Getty Images

Each week before the Oscars, which take place on Sunday, Guardian film reviewer Tom Shone has been breaking down the likely winners at this year's Academy Awards. Today, his final take on how the ground has shifted beneath favoured nominees.

It doesn't pay to be too cynical at the Oscars. Nevertheless, as voting drew to a close on Tuesday, the campaigns went into overdrive, with stars carpet-bombing the late night chat shows - Lupita on Letterman! Jonah on Conan! McConaughey on Kimmel!

Then came news that Harvey Weinstein was shipping the remaining members of the Mandela family to the ceremony on Sunday to witness U2's performance of their Oscar-nominated song Ordinary Love from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. In the annals of campaign-and-shame chutzpah, this has to win some kind of prize. I'm still going with the frontrunner, Let it Go from Frozen, on the possibly unreasonable grounds that Ordinary Love is one of U2's more unhummable numbers, but the prospect of a guilt-inducing glare from the Mandela family haunts me, as it must all members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as they prepare their glad rags for Sunday.

Never count Harvey out. If the night brings any surprises, they are most likely to be his work. 'The Weinstein Co's talent has shown up everywhere,' noted The Hollywood Reporter earlier in the week, as the Weinstein company lobbied for upsets in best original song (U2), best original score (Alexandre Desplat) and best adapted screenplay (Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope).

Will the gravity of 12 Years a Slave beat Gravity? Photograph: Jaap Buitendijk/AP

Upsets are a hard thing to define these days, with the Oscar-race as micro-analysed on the internet as it is; the idea of a Crash-sized upset that hasn't been predicted, prognosticated and intimately parsed by half-a-dozen members of the Oscar bloggerati several weeks or even months ahead of time seems rather quaint. Wins and losses alike are landed with the precision of aircraft.

That said, certain categories feel harder to call than others, and they include, in ascending order of difficulty: best production design (where Gatsby is a lukewarm frontrunner, for lack of a best picture nomination, and could lose to either Gravity or Her); best editing (where Chris Rouse's stunning work on Captain Phillips could best Gravity); best original screenplay (where the nine-times nominated American Hustle carries the last hopes of David O Russell for a win against Spike Jonze's precursor-vanquishing, but possibly-too-hip, Her).

And finally there's best supporting actress, where, according to Entertainment Weekly, Lupita Nyongo'o has only a 2% edge over Jennifer Lawrence after Lawrence's win at the Baftas. This is a tough one, to be sure. Every time that clip plays showing Nyong'o begging for soap, I feel the old geezers mentally channel-flicking back to golden-hued, potty-mouthed Lawrence lip-syncing to Live and Let Die in American Hustle. She's everything they love in human form.

Or will Gravity push 12 Years a Slave Down? Photograph: Warner Bros/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

The biggie, of course, would be if Gravity took best picture. The theory goes that in a highly contested year, the film getting the most second and third place votes - ie the least divisive - will win. But that theory works equally well in Slave's favor: I can see many people who didn't give it first place because of its brutality nevertheless putting it second or third because they feel it is 'important'.

I'm not so sure brutality is such a deal-breaker with the Academy anymore - maybe in the era of Gandhi, but not after The Departed and No Country for Old Men redecorated the Dolby theatre with brain tissue. The 'morning after' rule should come into play here: imagine 12 Years A Slave going home empty-handed and what that would feel like. It may be a contentious winner but it would be an even more contentious loser.

With Gravity missing best picture, there's no reason for it to sweep, except in categories where it is undeniable, which loosens up editing for Rouse to win. This category has peeled off in some interesting directions of late - see last year's win for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Both Captain Phillips and Gravity are thrillers, which this category favours, but on the 'most, not best' theory, Captain Phillips's jitterbug editing style could beat Gravity's long, sinuous, single takes.

For production design I'm going to stick with Gatsby, but secretly root for Her, particularly since I am less certain that it can prevail over American Hustle for original script. Russell's film is much loved in Hollywood, and very much the dark horse of these Oscars. Her is the hipper script, but nobody ever went broke betting against the hipness of the Academy.

Like a torturer sizing up bone strength, probing my Oscar picks for weaknesses has led me to one other glaring instance of possible ballot catastrophe: live action short. I had favored Mark Gill and Baldwin Li's The Voorman Problem, about a psychologist and a patient claiming to be God. It's funny and has Martin Freeman in it, but Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson's Helium, a Danish fairytale about a dying kid and the hospital orderly who bring tales of afterlife called Helium, is the more moving entry, even if some wags have dubbed it the 'Danish Patch Adams'. Like I said, it doesn't pay too be too cynical at the Oscars.

Good luck. You'll find me on Twitter on Sunday, dodging the baleful glare of the Mandelas.

Tom's final picks:

Best picture: 12 Years A Slave

Best director: Alfonso Cuaron

Best actress: Cate Blanchett

Best actor: Matthew McConaughey

Best supporting actor: Jared Leto

Best supporting actress: Jennifer Lawrence (see below)

Best original screenplay: American Hustle (see below)

Best adapted screenplay: 12 Years A Slave

Best editing: Captain Phillips

Best visual effects: Gravity

Best sound editing: Gravity

Best score: Gravity

Best cinematography: Gravity

Best foreign film: The Great Beauty

Best documentary: 20 Feet From Stardom

Best costume design: The Great Gatsby

Best production design: The Great Gatsby

Best make-up and hairstyling: Dallas Buyer's Club

Best animated feature: Frozen

Best animated short: Get a Horse!

Best original song: Let it Go

Note - 1 March: After careful consideration, Tom has decided to change two of his picks. You wonder how many Oscars voters wish they could do that. The two changes are: Best original screenplay: Her (not American Hustle) Best supporting actress: Lupita Nyong'o (not Jennifer Lawrence)

Best documentary short: The Lady in Number 6

Best live action short: Helium

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