Oscar Predictions

Now that football is far enough in the rear-view mirror, it's time for me to turn my attention to the Super Bowl of movies, aka The Oscars. Once again, I'll be making predictions for every category except the Shorts. Yes, I know, there are theaters which show them (all 5 nominees in a category bundled as a single showtime), but most don't care about them, and frankly, cutting them out of the telecast and awarding them beforehand would do wonders for pace. I'll gladly pick them in someone else's pool, but not here. Last year, I scored 14/21, which is a decent total but nowhere near good enough to win anyone's pool. I'm feeling a little more confident in my choices this time around, but I suppose everyone else says the same thing about theirs.

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave-- Ever since this movie's big win at the Toronto International Film Festival, I've held firm in my prediction that it would go on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. When the nominations came out, I feared American Hustle might give it a run for its money, but that threat is now thankfully, mercifully gone. If an upset is brewing, it will happen at the hands of Gravity, but I'm still reasonably confident McQueen's film will prevail.

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyer's Club)-- Chiwetel Ejiofor began as the early favorite before McConaughey started raking in the awards and taking the lead. The former just captured the BAFTA in this category, but I feel the latter will still win here because it makes for an interesting "career turnaround" story. Remember those episodes of Family Guy that made fun of him? Sure seems like an eternity ago.

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)-- From the day Woody Allen's latest movie debuted in the middle of the summer, Blanchett took the lead in this category and has only lapped the field in the months since. She's so far ahead, in fact, that any anti-momentum from the latest Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow controversy can't catch up.

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyer's Club)-- Like Blanchett, Leto has bulldozed his way to win after win in the "minor" award shows. One of the most impressive things an actor can accomplish is to bring an underwritten character to life, which he does marvelously in Dallas Buyer's Club.

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)-- Jennifer Lawrence captured the Golden Globe and the backlash rightfully, deservedly began. I going to be an idiot and trust the Academy will do the right thing here; Nyong'o's role is not only more complex than Lawrence's cartoonish ditz of a character, but required far more bravery of the actress. If AMPAS follows the Globes' lead, I'll be mad. Hulk-Smash-mad. Packers-over-Bears mad.

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)-- The winner of the Director's Guild award wins the Oscar in this category 95% of the time. In this case, that's Cuaron. In a lot of ways, Gravity is the ultimate director's movie; the setup and story are so simple that the largest burden of success/failure lies with him.

Best Original Screenplay: Her-- This movie ran roughshod in this category through the minor awards, including the Writer's Guild, and virtually everyone (including yours truly) has praised Spike Jonze's film for its originality. Once again, if American Hustle scores an upset, I'll be pissed.

Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave-- Solomon Northrup's story is truly remarkable, and I feel the Academy thinks so too.

Best Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty-- Unlike last year, where Amour lapped the field ten times over, this race is a little tighter. But The Great Beauty has done well enough in the awards circuit that I crown it the favorite here. Never mind that this category is a joke because of the absence of Blue is the Warmest Color.....

Best Animated Film: Frozen-- Last year, the race was neck-and-neck between Brave and Wreck-it-Ralph, with the former coming out on top. This time, it won't be close. Despicable Me 2 has monster box-office numbers and The Wind Rises has the critical acclaim, but Frozen has the magic combo of both. Put this one on ice.

Best Cinematography: Gravity-- This movie will dominate most, if not all, of the technical categories. Some have argued (and I agree with them) that since the visual style of Gravity was mostly accomplished on a computer, this doesn't truly count as cinematography. Apparently AMPAS doesn't care. Whatever. Next!

Best Film Editing: Captain Phillips-- Time for one of my two upset picks where Gravity is favored. Captain Phillips is close enough to according to various Oscar betting odds sites that I feel okay going out on a bit of limb and picking it.

Best Costume Design: The Great Gatsby-- On the one hand, it pains me to see something as mediocre as this movie walk away with even one minor Oscar when plenty of great films miss out on the awards circuit entirely. But hey, Baz Luhrman's films have a flair for the flashy. It is a pleasing movie to the eye, so perhaps this is an okay award for it to win after all.

Best Production Design: American Hustle-- AMPAS will want to give O. Russell's film something because 0-for-10 would be an embarrassment. I wouldn't be surprised at all if The Great Gatsby took this, but I'm picking a mild upset here.

Best Makeup: Dallas Buyer's Club-- I consider this pure process-of-elimination. The Lone Ranger has achieved legendary status for its beached whale of a box-office flop. And can you imagine the words "...and the Oscar goes to... Bad Grandpa!" coming out of a presenter's mouth? Me neither. Dallas Buyer's Club wins by default.

Best Score: Philomena-- Here is upset pick No. 2. Highbrow period pieces tend to do well here, so I'm taking this over the safer bet of Gravity.

Best Original Song: "Let it Go" (Frozen)-- Take the number of links to this incredibly addictive song you see in social media and compare it to the other nominees. That should tell you all you need to know about its popularity. AMPAS will want to reward the Animated Musical sub-genre for striking back with a vengeance.

Best Documentary: The Act of Killing-- Most of these nominees are actually available on Netflix streaming. I haven't seen any of them as of this writing, but this movie has generated more discussion on my favorite internet forum, reelviews.net, than the others.

Best Sound Mixing: Gravity-- Careful selection of sound was a huge part of Gravity, one of the few movies (alongside 2001 of course) that helpfully reminded us that sound waves cannot travel through a vacuum.

Best Sound Editing: Gravity-- Ditto.

Best Visual Effects: Gravity-- This category is always one of the easiest to predict. Historically, of all the movie which use special effects, the Oscar has always gone to the most critically-acclaimed of the bunch. Check out the last two winners: Life of Pi and Hugo. Superhero flicks don't stand a chance here. Score another for Gravity.

Review of The Lego Movie

Foiling expectations and breaking new ground. That's what The Lego Movie is about. Sometimes, a movie doesn't deliver what the ads promise, but instead something funnier, richer, and more creative. That's an especially good thing in this case because some of the trailers make The Lego Movie look like one of the worst excuses for a potential franchise (animated or otherwise) to come along in more than a decade. Couple that with a February release date and a lack of enthusiasm for all things LEGOs by yours truly (I never played with them much as a kid and I'm certainly not nuts about them today), and it's easy to see why I furrowed my brow so heavily at the mere thought of this movie. Fortunately, co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (who also helmed the big-screen adaptations of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street) have struck down my fears with the force of lightning. This is top-tier entertainment for viewers of all ages.

The Lego Movie transpires in, yes, you guessed it, a world made completely of Legos. After a quick prologue where Lord Business (voice of Will Ferrell) seizes a secret weapon of sorts for his master plan, we shift scenes and meet Emmett (voice of Chris Pratt), an ordinary construction worker with a constantly cheery disposition. He desperately wants to fit in with everyone else, and that includes jamming along to a (purposefully) inane radio hit called "Everything is Awesome." One day, Emmett accidentally uncovers a mystical red block that a prophecy deems "The Piece of Resistance." When he wakes up after being knocked out, he's being tortured by Lord Business' henchman, Bad Cop (voice of Liam Neeson.... yes, Liam Neeson) and later finds himself on the run with a member of a rebel faction named Wildstyle (voice of Elizabeth Banks). The rebels' plan to thwart Lord Business' megalomaniacal plans, but there's a problem: the "chosen one" must be a Master Builder (witness how they build virtually anything with any Lego pieces lying around), and Emmett doesn't have a creative thought in his brain.

The first thing any viewer will take note of with The Lego Movie is the film's look. This isn't like something out of Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks, where the technological "ooh and aah" factor shoots through the roof. Instead, the film literally looks like computer animated Lego characters come to life. Even waves of water and fire are represented by blocky textures. This also allows action sequences, which are just as lively as any PG-13 superhero film, to let the movie get away with just a PG since the only "violence" involves blowing Lego pieces apart. There's a very, very important reason for The Lego Movie to look this way, and that will be made abundantly clear near the end of the story.

Ultimately, as is the case with any great animated film, The Lego Movie's greatest strength lies in scripting. The skin-and-bones of this story is a familiar trope, that of an unexpected "Chosen One" fulfilling a prophecy and stomping out the bad guys, but this movie transcends it with relentless satire and a surprisingly effective message. Kids will absolutely be entertained by the high energy and creative action set-pieces, but the best lines and flourishes (and there are dozens of them) will fly over their heads and straight to the funny bone of teenagers and adults. What 9-to-5 worker wouldn't laugh, for example, at some of Lord Business' orders? ("I demand perfection! Bring in the micro-manager!") What franchise-loving movie-goer wouldn't get a kick out of the hilarious ways the filmmakers satirize Batman (voice of Will Arnett), Superman, and Green Lantern (among others)? Some shots may even remind viewers of the animated segments from..... wait for it..... Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

It's hard to believe a movie about Legos could have thematic depth, but, well, here I am writing that a Lego movie brings just that. Emmett represents that guy I'm sure a lot of us know (or might even be), that person who wants so desperately to be liked by everyone and be "normal" that he loses all sense of uniqueness. Everyone in the audience knows he's going to unlock his true potential as a Master Builder and save the world, but the ultimate twist in how he achieves that is arguably the film's masterstroke (another animated movie tried something similar a few years ago, but I won't reveal the title since that may constitute a spoiler). Calling The Lego Movie a "family film" is accurate; this movie provides some genuinely wise, teachable moments about creativity and thinking outside the box, and parents will be thrilled to have their children experience them. None of this is preachy; the movie makes its point through wit and keeps sentimentality at a low ebb.

Adapting a line of toys into a movie is nothing new for Hollywood, but when filmmakers embark on such projects, I hope more of them use The Lego Movie as a template instead of the dumbed-down approach of Transformers, GI Joe, and Battleship. Yes, this movie leaves the door wide open for a sequel, but the means by which it does so is not only organic to this one's story, but yet another brilliant gag that will put a grin on even the most jaded viewer's face. Will this movie convert someone in my position into a Lego collector? No, but I doubt that's what Lord and Miller had in mind when they directed this. Put The Lego Movie alongside Disney's Wreck-it-Ralph as superior, subversive examples of big-name toys/games-turned feature films.

Rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)