Scarecrow's Oscar Picks - 2015 Edition

Hey!  I just realized that the Oscars are less than a week away, and I haven't blogged my usual list of Oscar picks yet!

This is a proud tradition, going back to the early days of my website, and my college radio show.  See, I do my Oscar picks a little bit differently than anyone else.  Every other Oscar preview show you watch, they'll be telling you about the Best Picture predictions, and the Best Actor & Actress predictions, but not me.  I'm only going to give you my picks in the categories that I have good track record in predicting the winner:  Best Visual Effects, Best Original Song, and Best Animated Film.  So, let's get to it!

Best Visual Effects

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Interstellar
• X-Men: Days of Future Past 

My Thoughts:  So many good ones, here!  And such a battle royale between Marvel movies!  As much as I loved Interstellar, the vast outer space vistas is something that's been done.  Same with Captain America and X-Men.  We've all seen the giant airship battles and giant robots and superheroes whizzing about.  The category, I think, is going to come down to character work, and making lovable, believable characters out of computer animation.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has more spectacular performance capture work, and Guardians of the Galaxy had the oh-so-lovable talking tree and racoon with a machine gun.  Dancing baby Groot FTW.

My Prediction:  Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Original Song

Everything is Awesome from The Lego Movie

 

Glory from Selma



Grateful from Beyond the Lights



I'm Not Gonna Miss You from Glen Campbell...I'll Be Me



Lost Stars from Begin Again



My Thoughts:  First, let's talk about I'm Not Gonna Miss You, because I work in a country music station, and the buzz that song generated around the office when it came out was phenomenal.  Glen Campbell, a legendary country music singer who had a lot of hits in the 60s and 70s.  The documentary I'll Be Me chronicles his current struggles with Alzheimer's.  Written and recorded on his good days, and billed as Campbell's last song ever, I'm Not Gonna Miss You is all about his struggles with the disease.  My morning guy says every time he plays it, he starts crying. 

That being said, let me also shake my tiny fist of rage with all the others at The Lego Movie not scoring a Best Animated Film nomination.  It would be nice to see Everything is Awesome win as a just reward.  But, Glory also just won the Golden Globe in this category, and with many also shaking tiny fists of rage at Selma being shut out of the big nominations, many would see Glory winning it as a just reward as well. 

My Prediction:  Glory from Selma. 

Best Animated Film

• Big Hero 6
• The Boxtrolls
• How to Train Your Dragon 2
• Song of the Sea
• The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

My Thoughts:  Once again, argh!  How dare The Lego Movie not be nominated!  It was so funny and so good, when it came out a year ago, everyone thought it'd be a lock.  So that leads us to the dark horses...what are these two foreign animated films that no one heard of that scored nominations?  Song of the Sea comes to us from Ireland, and is from most of the same creative team behind 2009's nominee The Secret of Kells.   It's based on the Celtic myth of the Selkie.  The Tale of the Princess Kaguya comes to us from Japan, and the legendary Studio Ghibli.  The final film of Studio Ghibli's other visionary director, Isao Takahata, and based on the Japanese folk tale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.  But for more mainstream choices, How to Train Your Dragon 2 got a lot of critical love when it came out, and since the first one was denied 4 years ago, the Academy might think it's time to give the franchise its due.

My Prediction:  How to Train Your Dragon 2

And, because I have to do one mainstream category

Best Picture

• American Sniper
• Birdman
• Boyhood
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The Imitation Game
• Selma
• The Theory of Everything
• Whiplash

My Thoughts:  As I've been saying ever since they started this, I really don't like that they opened up Best Picture to more than 5 nominees.  Well, at least, I have heard of most of the movies on this list this year.  Let's be honest, Boyhood has been sweeping all the critics choices this year, so the smart money's on Boyhood.

My Prediction:  Boyhood.

The Oscars are on Sunday, February 22.