Oscar Predictions 2014

T-minus 45 minutes until the "Gay Super Bowl" so I better hop to it.  I'm not gonna do the usual "who will win/who should win" format b/c I'm obviously late in posting this so time is of the essence (plus, I want no one questioning my credibility once I correctly predict all 21 categories) and considering I literally live blog my thoughts on each category as the show is on, posting that would've been redundant.  Believe me, I'm sure I will make it ABUNDANTLY clear who I'm rooting for (yayy Her!) and against (go fuck yourself, August: Osage County).  So in the inimitable words of Marvin Gaye, let's get it on.

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave
Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club
Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave
Best Original Screenplay: Her
Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
Best Animated Film: Frozen
Best Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty
Best Cinematography: Gravity
Best Editing: Gravity
Best Production Design: The Great Gatsby
Best Costume Design: The Great Gatsby
Best Makeup: Dallas Buyers Club
Best Score: Gravity
Best Original Song: Frozen - "Let It Go"
Best Sound Mixing: Gravity
Best Sound Editing: Gravity
Best Visual Effects: Gravity
Best Documentary: 20 Feet from Stardom

So there we go, I'm predicting Gravity to have a huge night in the tech categories along with its director award.  It's such an overwhelming visual accomplishment and ironically probably has the worst script of the Best Pic nominees.  I have a feeling it'll be like 2000 where the technical merits of The Matrix were so undeniable that it cleaned up in those categories.  I'm a little worried that I'm underestimating the coattailing for 12 Years a Slave and that it's gonna sneak away with something like Editing or Production Design, but oh well.

Right now, I'd say the categories I'm struggling with the most are Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Production Design, and the granddaddy of them all....Documentary.  We'll delve more into that later.

One final note before I kick off the actual live blog entry: while I am extremely pleased with the increasing diversity of the nominees and all are very deserving, I'm not pleased that I'm gonna have to spell Lupita Nyong'o, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Barkhad Abdi, and Emmanuel Lubezki all night.  Hell, I'm annoyed that I have to keep looking up how to spell McConaughey.