Last time, my cynical calculator has predicted the 87th Academy Awards winners for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography. This is all in an effort to help you win a giant TV in our Oscars Picks Competition.
So let’s see the calculator’s predictions for Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress.
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall (The Judge), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), Edward Norton (Birdman), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher), JK Simmons (Whiplash)
Duvall is a screen legend who was great in The Judge. Tommy Lee Jones is also a screen legend who was great in Lincoln. So is Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech), Alan Arkin (Argo) and Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook). But these finely experienced actors are all in the camp of ‘a salute with no cigar’.
Hawke, Norton and Ruffalo are also undeniably great in their respective roles, but to win this one, the cynical calculator reckons you need to be the actor that either shares your lead’s Best Actor accolade or rises above them in a performance that owns the movie (Christopher Plummer in Beginners, Christian Bale in The Fighter, Christoph Waltz in both Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, Jarvier Bardem in No Country for Old Men).
Thus, JK Simmons will win for his performance that personified brutality – a dominant feeling evoked by the film Whiplash.
Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), Laura Dern (Wild), Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game), Emma Stone (Birdman), Meryl Streep (Into the Woods)
This category runs similar to Best Supporting Actor where the winner typically shines with or outshines the lead of the film. If you give a great supporting performance that is eclipsed by the lead performance, you’re basically out of the running. This means no dice for Dern (who’s in the shadow of Reese Witherspoon), Knightley (in the shadow of Cumberbatch) and Stone (in the shadow of Keaton).
This leaves Arquette and Streep. I’m pretty sure Auntie Meryl is under some sort of contractual obligation to be nominated for anything she stars in nowadays, so her Into the Woods nom is just a simple legal matter that can be brushed aside.
The cynical calculator says Patricia Arquette will win for playing a God-damn superhero in Boyhood.
Best Lead Actor
In the running: Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper), Michael Keaton (Birdman), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
There are some outstanding patterns that can be derived from previous years’ Best Lead Actor winners, implying that the Academy love their acting veterans and portrayals of real-life figures (Colin Firth for The King’s Speech, Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart, Sean Penn for Milk, Daniel Day-Lewis for pretty much everything). This means that EVERYONE in the running for this year’s Best Lead Actor has a decent shot.
But who fits both moulds? Young bucks like Cumberbatch, Cooper and Redmayne still have some years to go to be considered ‘Oscar veterans’ and Carell has hardly ever touched on drama as hardcore as Foxcatcher.
This leaves Michael Keaton, the only veteran to not be portraying a real-life figure. But this is just a technicality, for almost any critic will tell you that Keaton’s character Riggan is based on a wink-wink nudge-nudge version of himself. Though the only similarity that Keaton and Riggan share is of the caped variety, that’s a novelty the Academy are likely to embrace.
Michael Keaton will win for Birdman.
Best Lead Actress
Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night), Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Reese Witherspoon (Wild)
This is the toughest category to gauge a cynical prediction on, for no obvious pattern emerges within the last 15 years of Academy Awards. However, if we make the focus more discrete (say, four years) something interesting emerges. Here are the previous Best Lead Actress winners:
2011: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
2012: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
2013: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
2014: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Can you spot the trend? In each of these performances, the Best Lead Actress winner deals with a character descending to, or ascending from, complete madness. Simply put, the Academy are impressed by female basket cases.
Sorry Jones, but this rules you right out of the running. (I still love you though, Like Crazy.)
The other four nominees still have a shot, for each of them deals significantly with one form of ‘crazy’ or another: Cotillard portrayed chronic depression like the master she is; Pike was the perfect psychopath to Ben Affleck’s sleaze; Witherspoon went through walking rehab. Either one of these performances would suit the award.
However, given how 86% of the Academy are 50 years old or over, there’s one mental illness they’re going to attach themselves more than any other: Alzheimer’s disease. Judging by these cynical calculations, Julianne More will win for Still Alice.
Check back shortly to see the cynical calculator’s final predictions: Best Documentary, Best Foreign Language Feature, Best Animated Film and Best Picture.
