2014 Oscars Predictions and 10 Things You Might Not Know About Them

By Leslie Combemale aka Cinema Siren

OK movie lovers and Sirenauts, you have only two more days to squeeze in all the nominated movies if you want to offer informed and well researched opinions on the winners of the86th annual Academy Awards. 

The program airs live on ABC Sunday at 7 p.m. ET. Red carpet coverage begins on E! at 1:30 p.m. ET. See the full list of Oscar night presenters here.

Well it all comes down to this weekend for Hollywood studios, their releases and the actors and actresses who struggle to get to the top of the A list. The Academy Awards show, or the Super Bowl for movie geeks, is happening this Sunday, and millions of people around the world will be watching. 

I will be live tweeting with some movie critic friends and will be joined by movie geeks from around the world. I hope you’ll follow me (@artinsights) and join the party, which you can attend without the stress of sucking yourself into Yves St. Laurent, having visible panty lines or constantly checking to see if the $200k necklace from Harry Winston has slipped from your neck onto the red carpet.  
 
TEN THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT THE 2014 OSCARS:
1. There are 6,028 voters in the Academy who will decide Oscar winners in 2014.
2. More than 3,300 get to attend the event, which is the number of seats in the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, where the event has been held these last 12 years. 
3. The actual red carpet is more than 600 feet long and is laid down on Friday night. 
4. Every winner's card is produced four times for each of the categories in the show, but the non-winning cards are destroyed a few days before the Oscars so as to avoid confusion and unauthorized eBay auctions.  
5. Of the nine Best Picture nominees, six are based on real life: The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club, Philomena, 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle, and Captain Phillips. 
6. New sensations and snarky besties Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir will be opining on red carpet fashions for Access Hollywood.  
7. The producers of the 2014 show, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, served as executive producers for the 2002 Oscar-winning movieChicago.  They also worked on TV’s SMASH and the recent revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway, starring Dan Radcliffe. 
8. A married couple is nominated in different categories, Terence Winter was nominated for Best Original Screenplay (The Wolf of Wall Street) and his wife Rachel Winter, producer, for Best PictureDallas Buyers Club.  
9. John Williams, who is nominated for his The Book Thief score, has been nominated 49 times,  more than any other living person. 
10. The Oscars will be streaming live on the Internet Sunday night in some markets for the first time. The DC area isn't one of them. (For more about that, get the scoop from Variety.)

Please watch the show and give us your opinion. We’d love to hear from you!

Here are the Oscar nominees and some of my predictions (see asterisks and comments). You?

Best Picture
*12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
*Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street
Cinema Siren says: *This category is hotly contested, the biggest suspense of the Oscars. Will McQueen win director and Gravity win Best Picture? Or vice versa?)

Best Actor
Christian Bale (American Hustle)
Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)
Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)
*Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
Cinema Siren says: *Wish it were Ejiofor, my pick, but at the same time as the voting was happening, McConaughey was doing an amazing job in True Detective.  We’ll see...

Best Actress
Amy Adams (American Hustle)
*Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Sandra Bullock (Gravity)
Judi Dench (Philomena)
Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)
Cinema Siren says: *Blanchett has won everywhere.  Her only competition is Amy Adams.  Blanchett is a great part of a movie many don’t like…

Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)
Jonah Hill (Wolf of Wall Street)
*Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
Cinema Siren says: *Because he has won everything. 

Best Supporting Actress
*Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
*Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave)
Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)
June Squibb (Nebraska)
Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)
Cinema Siren says: *Two-person contest…  Cinema Siren loves Lawrence but wants Nyong’o to win.  

Best Director
Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street) 
David O. Russell (American Hustle)
*Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity)
Alexander Payne (Nebraska)
*Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
Cinema Siren says: *Likely one will win Best Director, the other will win Best Film. Here is an example of why it is IMPOSSIBLE to choose one film over the other when they are so different…

Best Adapted Screenplay
*John Ridley (12 Years a Slave)
Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, Richard Linklater (Before Midnight)
Terence Winter (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Billy Ray (Captain Phillips)
Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope (Philomena)

Best Original Screenplay
*David O. Russell and Eric Singer (American Hustle)
Bob Nelson (Nebraska)
Spike Jonze (Her)
Craig Borten & Melisa Wallack (Dallas Buyers Club)
Woody Allen (Blue Jasmine)

Best Foreign Film
Denmark, The Hunt
*Belgium, The Broken Circle Breakdown
Italy, The Great Beauty
Palestine, Omar
Cambodia, The Missing Picture
Cinema Siren says: I depart from the “known winners” for my favorite movie of the year. SEE IT.

Best Documentary Feature
*20 Feet from Stardom
The Act of Killing
Dirty Wars 
The Square 
Cutie and the Boxer

Best Animated Feature
The Wind Rises
*Frozen
Despicable Me 2
The Croods
Ernest & Celestine

Film Editing
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
*Gravity
12 Years a Slave

Best Song
"Alone Yet Not Alone" (Alone Yet Not Alone)
"Happy" (Despicable Me 2)
*”Let It Go" (Frozen)
"The Moon Song" (Her)
"Ordinary Love" (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)
Cinema Siren says: *Hardly seems fair.  Happy and Ordinary Love are amazing songs.  This is another example of pitting great songs that have little in common against each other…

Best Original Score
John Williams (The Book Thief)
*Steven Price (Gravity)
Alexandre Desplat (Philomena)
Thomas Newman (Saving Mr. Banks)
William Butler and Owen Pallett (Her)

Best Cinematography
Philippe Le Sourd (The Grandmaster)
*Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity)
Bruno Delbonnel (Inside Llewyn Davis)
Roger Deakins (Prisoners)
Phedon Papamichael (Nebraska)
Cinema Siren says: *Love Prisoners, which should have gotten far more attention, but Gravity is the behemoth on the block.  

Costume Design
American Hustle
The Grandmaster
*The Great Gatsby
The Invisible Woman
12 Years A Slave
Cinema Siren says: *The artistry of The Great Gatsby…gorgeous.  Catherine Martin deserves the win. 

Makeup and Hairstyling
The Lone Ranger
*Dallas Buyers Club
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
Production Design
American Hustle
*Gravity
The Great Gatsby
Her
12 Years a Slave

Sound Editing
All is Lost
Captain Phillips
*Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lone Survivor

Sound Mixing
Captain Phillips
*Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lone Survivor
Inside Llewyn Davis

Visual Effects
*Gravity
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Iron Man 3
The Lone Ranger
Star Trek Into Darkness

Short Film, Live Action
Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me)
Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything)
Helium
Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)
The Voorman Problem 
(no opinion from Cinema Siren…)

Short Film, Animated
Feral
*Get a Horse!
Mr. Hublot
Possessions
Room on the Broom

Documentary Short Subject
CaveDigger
Facing Fear
Karama Has No Walls
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall

About this column: Leslie Combemale, "Cinema Siren," is a movie lover and aficionado who aspires to get more people back into the beautiful alternate worlds offered in the dark at movie houses across the country, and is owner of ArtInsights Animation and Film Art Gallery.  She interviews actors, directors, and production artists from all over the world, and often is invited to present at conventions such as the San Diego Comic Con, where she has been a panelist and host for The Art of the Hollywood Movie Poster, Classic Film History, Disney & Harry Potter Fandom discussions. Visit her art gallery for great art from film at www.artinsights.com and see more of her reviews and interviews on www.artinsightsmagazine.com.