‘Birdman,’ ‘Boyhood’ to battle it out for top Oscar, pundits say

Los Angeles—Ahead of the 87th Academy Awards on Sunday night (Monday morning in Manila), Associated Press film writers Jake Coyle and Lindsey Bahr share their predictions for a glittering ceremony that could be a nail-biter.

Best Picture: American Sniper; Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); Boyhood; The Grand Budapest Hotel; The Imitation Game; Selma; The Theory of Everything; and Whiplash.

Coyle. Will win: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s Birdman comes home to roost, despite the landmark accomplishment of Boyhood. As a celebration of showbiz, it’s the Shakespeare in Love of its time. Should win: Boyhood marries film and time in a uniquely powerful way, but it’s also worth making a case for Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, the most relentlessly fun and inventive film of the year.

Bahr. Will win: While Birdman’s formal ambitions and extraordinary cast are impressive, the earnest 12-year experiment that spawned a compelling film in Boyhood is just too good a narrative to ignore. Should win: Boyhood, but not because of dedication. A lot of people toil for years on their dream projects. Boyhood is a great and deeply humane film that celebrates the ordinariness of the everyday and is destined to be a classic.

Best Actor: Steve Carell, Foxcatcher; Bradley Cooper, American Sniper; Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game; Michael Keaton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); and Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything.

Bahr. Will win: In one of the most hotly contested categories of the entire race, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Academy went with the comparatively elder statesman Michael Keaton for the comeback performance of a lifetime. Eddie Redmayne will get another shot. Should win: Keaton. We shouldn’t really care about the artistic endeavors of a past-his-prime megalomaniac, but Keaton was able to make Riggan Thomson at turns sympathetic, wholly unlikable and desperately sad.

Coyle. Will win: Redmayne. The freckled one appears to be the favorite for his technically impressive performance. Should win: Keaton. Redmayne is a talented young actor, but he’s a little precious for a physicist. Keaton has been an electric live-wire for decades.

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night; Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything; Julianne Moore, Still Alice; Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl; and Reese Witherspoon, Wild.

Coyle. Will win: Julianne Moore. A great actress overdue for an Oscar, although the film is…forgettable. Should win: Marion Cotillard. The French actress deserved nods for both this unadorned performance and for the unfairly overlooked The Immigrant.

Bahr. Will win: Five-time nominee Moore is long overdue for an Oscar and her nuanced portrayal of an accomplished woman deteriorating at the hands of early-onset Alzheimer’s in an otherwise mediocre movie is her golden ticket. Should win: Moore for any other performance? But if we have to count this year’s contenders: Felicity Jones. The Theory of Everything is Jane Hawking’s story, and Jones’s self-possessed take on a woman in an incredibly difficult situation has been upstaged by the flashier performance in the film.

Best Supporting Actor: Robert Duvall, The Judge; Ethan Hawke, Boyhood; Edward Norton, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher; and J.K. Simmons, Whiplash.

Bahr. Will win: J.K. Simmons’s performance as a maniacal jazz instructor has been the top choice since Whiplash premiered at the Sundance Film Festival over a ye0ar ago. Should win: Simmons, and it’ll be extremely disappointing if he doesn’t lose it at the Oscar orchestra when they try to play him off.

Coyle. Will win: Simmons so blows away all other candidates, it’s not even close. Get out of his class! Should win: Simmons. A career character actor takes a well-deserved bow.

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood; Laura Dern, Wild; Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game; Emma Stone, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); and Meryl Streep, Into the Woods.

Coyle. Will, and should, win: Patricia Arquette. The best, most tender scene in Boyhood is when Arquette’s character, having raised her kids and watched their “series of milestones” unfold wonders what’s next for her. “I just thought there would be more,” she laments. It’s an unforgettable moment.

Bahr. Will win: Funny that some of us once thought Arquette’s deeply felt portrayal of a mother and a woman coming into her own would go unnoticed by the Academy. Now, the award’s in the bag. Should win: Arquette, and we should all be thrilled that a subtle performance in an original film is the undisputed frontrunner.

Best Director: Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel; Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); Richard Linklater, Boyhood; Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher; and Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game.

Bahr. Will win: The formal ambitions that probably won’t be enough to secure a Best Picture win for Birdman will likely be acknowledged with a Best Director win for Iñárritu. Should win: The scrappy one-week-a-year shooting schedule and lack of a fully realized script might make Linklater easier to overlook in this category, but that would be mistake.

Coyle. Will win: Like Best Picture, this comes down to the showy elan of Iñárritu’s Birdman against the patient humanism of Linklater. I suspect Birdman takes picture, leaving director to the Texan. Should win: It’s hard to match the brio of Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, the culmination of a trio of top-notch releases for the director, following Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom.

Best Original Screenplay: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); Boyhood; Foxcatcher; The Grand Budapest Hotel; and Nightcrawler.

Bahr. Will win: With two co-written screenplay nominations to his name, the Academy has already flirted with Anderson’s idiosyncratic dialogue and storytelling, and it looks like they’ll finally embrace it with a statue for the mainstream hit The Grand Budapest Hotel, which he co-wrote with Hugo Guinness. Should win: Anderson is expert at juxtaposing whimsy with the extremely dark and cynical, and The Grand Budapest Hotel is exemplary of his (and Guinness’s) unique talent for creating compelling, yet unconventional stories.

Coyle. Will win: This is likely the biggest award the Academy will bestow on The Grand Budapest Hotel, which comes in with nine nods, yet, strangely, not one for Ralph Fiennes. Should win: Anderson deserves it, but a case could also be made for Dan Gilroy’s wonderfully whacked-out Nightcrawler.

Best Adapted Screenplay: American Sniper; The Imitation Game; Inherent Vice; The Theory of Everything; and Whiplash.

Coyle. Will win: Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (only “adapted” because he first made a Whiplash short film) is taut and full of something that great scripts have: snappy, quotable lines. It should go with the Academy’s tempo. Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice deserves a medal just for trying to adapt Thomas Pynchon and not losing his mind in the process.

Bahr. Will win: Chazelle’s pulsating Whiplash, presents a portrait of an artist on the edge of greatness like we’ve never seen before. Should win: Whiplash, even though it’s still a little baffling why it’s considered an adapted screenplay. AP

The live telecast of the 87th Academy Awards ceremony will begin at 9:30 a.m. on February 23 (Manila time) on HBO (SkyCable Channel 54), with a repeat at 9 p.m. the same day.