2013-14

It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar! Oscar, Oscar! Who Will Win?

This is by far the tightest, most competitive Oscar year I've ever witnessed, so (and I know I say this every year, but this time I really mean it) I'm prepared for my predictive accuracy to take a real nosedive. Anyway, here are my guesses:

Best Picture ❌

Will & should win: Gravity

Could win: 12 Years a Slave (seriously though, toss a coin)

Should've been nominated: Before Midnight

Best Director ✅

Will & should win: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity

Could win: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave (but virtually a lock for Cuaron)

Should've been nominated: Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell

Best Actor ✅

Will & should win: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Could win: Leonardo Dicaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street (but don't be surprised by Ejiofor)

Should've been nominated: Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis

Best Actress ✅

Will & should win: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Could win: Amy Adams, American Hustle (but Blanchett's a lock)

Should've been nominated: Before Midnight

Best Supporting Actor ✅

Will win: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Could win: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips (but virtually a lock for Leto)

Should win: Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

Should've been nominated: Bradley Cooper, The Place Beyond the Pines

Best Supporting Actress ✅

Will & should win: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave

Could win: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle (toss a coin)

Should've been nominated: Scarlett Johansson, Her

Best Adapted Screenplay ✅

Will win: 12 Years a Slave

Could win: Philomena (a very possible upset)

Should win: Before Midnight

Should've been nominated:Short Term 12

Best Original Screenplay ❌

Will win: American Hustle

Could & should win: Her (with Nebraska as dark horse)

Should've been nominated:Inside Llewyn Davis

Best Animated Feature ✅

Will win: Frozen

Could win: The Wind Rises (but Frozen's a lock)

Should win:Ernest & Celestine

Should've been nominated:Epic

Best Documentary ✅

Will win: 20 Feet from Stardom

Could & should win: The Square (but don't be surprised by The Act of Killing)

Should've been nominated: Stories We Tell

Best Foreign Language Film ❌

Will & should win: The Hunt

Could win: The Great Beauty (with The Broken Circle Breakdown a dark horse)

Should've been nominated:Wadjda

Best Cinematography ✅

Will & should win: Gravity

Could win: Nebraska (but Gravity's a lock)

Should've been nominated: Rush

Best Editing ❌

Will & should win: Captain Phillips

Could win: Gravity (toss a coin)

Should've been nominated: The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Production Design ✅

Will & should win: The Great Gatsby

Could win: 12 Years a Slave (a very possible upset)

Should've been nominated: Elysium

Best Costume Design ✅

Will & should win: The Great Gatsby

Could win: American Hustle (but don't be surprised by 12 Years a Slave)

Should've been nominated: Inside Llewyn Davis

Best Original Score ✅

Will win: Gravity

Could win: Philomena (a very possible upset)

Should win: Her

Should've been nominated: Man of Steel

Best Original Song ✅

Will & should win: "Let It Go", Frozen

Could win: "Happy", Despicable Me 2 OR "Ordinary Love", Mandela (this category feels ripe for an upset)

Should've been nominated: "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", Frozen

Best Sound Mixing ✅

Will & should win: Gravity

Could win: Captain Phillips (but Gravity's a lock)

Should've been nominated: All Is Lost

Best Sound Editing ✅

Will win: Gravity

Could win: Captain Phillips (but Gravity's a lock)

Should win: All Is Lost

Should've been nominated: The Conjuring

Best Visual Effects ✅

Will & should win: Gravity

Could win: (HA! There may not even be a 2nd place. Gravity gets 100% of the votes!)

Should've been nominated: Pacific Rim

Best Makeup ✅

Will & should win: Dallas Buyers Club

Could win: Bad Grandpa (but seems unlikely)

Should've been nominated: Rush

Best Animated Short ❌

Will win: Get a Horse!

Could win: Mr. Hublot (hard to tell with the shorts)

Should win: Feral

Should've been nominated: Hollow Land

Best Live-Action Short ✅

Will win: Helium

Could win: The Voorman Problem (hard to tell with the shorts)

Should win: Avant Que De Tout Perdre

Should've been nominated: Record/Play

Best Documentary Short ✅

Will win: The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

Could win: Karama Has No Walls (hard to tell with the shorts)

Post-Oscars Analysis

Final score: 19/24, same as last year, but this is the best possible outcome. Hey look, Brad Pitt finally has an Oscar to put on the mantle beside Angie's!

Not one single surprise at this year's Oscars, but Best Picture was still a nail-biter to the very end. As much as I truly believe Gravity was the best of the year, it felt only appropriate that 12 Years a Slave should win. It was the only way to ensure both Cuaron and McQueen go home with Oscars, and that feels more fitting than for Gravity to have won an 8th statue (though it sure does suck to be David Heyman. Ouch, man). Still, a very respectable set of winners all around. Nothing to complain about except Foreign Film. And yes, Lubezki finally has his Oscar, so that's an enormous win. Now time to get work on handing one to Deakins, AMPAS.

Only Oscar with which I take issue last night was The Great Beauty. But one rotten win out of 24 is not likely to dominate my memory for long. On the whole, what strikes me most about this class of winners is just how damn good they all are. I agreed with the Academy's choices more than I have in years. Virtually every Oscar ended up going to one of my top two preferences in each category. The four acting champs: Superb. The directing and writing winners: Exemplary. The craft category victors: Sensational. And best of all, I can actually count on TWO hands the number of overdue artists who finally earned Academy Awards: Emmanuel Lubezki, Alfonso Cuaron, Spike Jonze, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Skip Lievsay, Tim Webber... These, along with most of the other richly deserving award recipients last night, may stand as my favourite list of Oscar winners for a long time to come.

After last year's show hosted by Seth McFarlane came under such harsh critical fire, the pressure was on returning producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to atone. They made all the safest possible choices, and it started with the selection of Ellen Degeneres to return as host after her first kick at the can seven years ago.

Her monologue, while certainly not as audacious as McFarlane's, was every so slightly more edgy than her status quo. And I do mean 'slightly'. Even her jabs at roast-able celebs in the room were mostly innocuous, whether it be about June Squibb's age or Jennifer Lawrence's red carpet clumsiness. “If you win tonight, I think we should bring you the Oscar.” (Haha!) Probably the most noteworthy of her one-liners is the one she closed with, in which she outlined two possible outcomes of the night: “Possibility number one: 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Possibility number two: You're all racists.” Sort of a daring way to conclude the opening monologue, but also brilliant.

The first big highlight of the night came when Pharrell (complete with hat and ruby-studded sneakers of awesomeness) brought the house down with one of the cutest, funnest, and... well, 'happiest' Best Original Song performances in a long time, which had stars Lupita Nyong'o, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams dancing in the aisles.

Another musical highlight arrived later in the form of Alicia Moore's (aka: Pink's) rendition of “Over the Rainbow” in tribute to The Wizard of Oz. The tribute was hardly necessary, but Moore's vocals were just gorgeous, and Stephen Oremus came up with the loveliest arrangement I've ever heard for this song. Alright, Zadan and Meron, I'll give you a pass on this, but only because it sounded so damn good. In concept, I still object to the idea of bloating the show for this kind of thing.

Sadly, not all the singers fared so well. No offence to the Divine Miss M., but that was not her best go at “Wind Beneath My Winds” (give me Roger Whitaker any day). I think they have to take these song performances out of the In Memoriam segments. It's run its course. No one's gonna top Babs' tear-jerking rendition of “The Way We Were” last year.

Oh boy, then THIS thing. This has quickly become the most mocked aspect of Sunday's show. How can it not be? You can even generate your own "Travolta-fied" name over at Slate. I could watch this bizarre mispronunciation on loop and split my sides every time. Every. Single. Time.

Unfortunately, Ms. Dazeem's performance was no laughing matter. Much as I love Idina Menzel -- and Lord knows she doesn't have to prove her talent to anybody at this point in her celebrated career -- I can't close my ears and pretend not to notice how nervous she sounded singing "Let It Go", which should have been the evening's musical high point. A rushed half-beat ahead, voice quivering (not in commanding vibrato way), and you can definitely hear it cracking at that last high note... Was she distracted by Travolta's dyslexic mispronunciation of her name (some cheeky tweeter has already created a Twitter account for stage legend Adele Dazeem), or was it the damp air from all that rain (maybe the cold does bother her anyway). But whatever. She's a stunning talent even on her off days.