My (Hopefully Not So) Dark Horse Oscar Picks

So here we are, the day of the big show. Here are a few things I’d like to see tonight – from predicted wins to hopeful snubs. Be sure to share your last minute predictions in the comments. Have a great Oscar day everyone!

I hope 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Not only would that be the first time in a long time that my favorite Best Picture nominee actually won, but that film – that important, heartbreaking, truthful film – deserves the final award of the night. It really does.

I hope there’s a surprise winner in Best Actor, Best Actress or Best Supporting Actor. Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett and Jared Leto are all (seemingly) locks in their respective categories. And while they all deserve to win, where’s the fun in assuming so many forgone conclusions? Throw in one surprise in a major category, and the night instantly becomes pleasantly diverse from so many other prior Oscar telecasts.

Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine

Should McConaughey and Leto win, I hope their speeches are better than ones they’ve given so far. Last night, both McConaughey and Leto won Independent Spirit Awards and both gave awful speeches. As Leto took the stage for his Best Supporting Actor win, he pulled out several sheets of paper and began mechanically listing off names of people (and things) that he wanted to thank. At some point, he even thanked his favorite brand of vegan butter (no… really), before pasting a half ass dedication to AIDS victims at the end of his speech. The speech was clearly edited for time (the Spirit Awards don’t air live), and proved to be one of the worst speeches I’ve ever seen anyone give after they’ve won an award. In McConaughey’s speech, the actor went on and on (and on and on) about life, acting, dirt roads, who the hell knows what else. Look, I LOVE the McConaissance, but there’s a certain level of shameful entitlement that both he and Leto have brought to their Oscar campaigns (this includes McConaughey literally practicing his Oscar speech on the Jimmy Kimmel show last week). Should they win tonight, I hope they exercise some humility.

I hope Lupita Nyong’o wins Best Supporting Actress. Nothing against Jennifer Lawrence, but two wins in two years is excessive, especially when you have such strong contenders like Nyong’o vying for the prize.

I hope The Broken Circle Breakdown (or better still, The Hunt) wins Best Foreign Language Film. Those films had power, and I would adore it if either of them won. But something tells me it will be the Fellini-esque The Great Beauty.

The Broken Circle Breakdown

I hope Her wins Best Original Screenplay. Spike Jonze, Oscar winner, has such a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Although I must admit how pleased I am that the Original Screenplay category is a deadlocked four-way race. Makes it fun. (Woody Allen, and all the controversy surrounding him, is really the only dark horse of the category.)

I hope anything but Philomena wins Best Adapted Screenplay. Remember that hilarious, self-effacing moment in The Trip when Steve Coogan said he’d allow his child to have an illness if it meant Coogan could win an Oscar? Well, I’m looking out for Coogan’s best interest by saying I hope he loses tonight. But in all seriousness, the other four nominees (Before Midnight, Captain Phillips, 12 Years a Slave, and The Wolf of Wall Street) are all great films that deserve to win.

I hope U2 wins Best Original Song. U2’s “Ordinary Love,” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, is far from one of U2’s best tracks, but it’s U2. Come on, that’d be awesome. (Still, Frozen’s “Let It Go” is nearly a lock here.)

I. Hope. Emmanuel. Lubezki. Wins. Best. Cinematography. Seriously, no more fucking around. One of our finest living cinematographers should already have (at least) two Oscars by now. His unparalleled work for Gravity simply cannot be denied. Give the man an Oscar, finally.

Emmanuel Lubezki

I hope Win Butler wins Best Original Score. Arcade Fire’s slow brooding tunes for Her were as much a character of the film as Scarlett Johansson. This is another pick of mine that’s unlikely (Steven Price’s score for Gravity will probably pull through), but I’d love for Win Butler to have some Oscar cred.

And, as always, I hope the show is anything but dull. Because let’s be honest, it so often is. Keep the montages brief (or altogether absent), keep the speeches heartfelt, keep the jokes edgy, and keep the show moving.

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