Sunday Top Ten: Pet peeves and highlights of the 2013-14 Oscar season

The big show is coming up on being only a week old, but it feels like ages ago, so I think it's high time for me to finally put the season to bed. 2014 is now here, with its own slate of hotly anticipated Oscar hopefuls in the pipeline, and it's time to get to work on scoping out those, but not before capping off the awards derby that was with my annual list of highs and lows.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 1: The results

I ended the year with the same numbers I did last year: 19 out of 24 categories correct. That may be just slightly below the average being scored by most pundits this year (who are mostly 20 or higher), but I'm satisfied with it. Let's take a look at just a few of the winners (and losers, but we'll try not to be too mean about it!) after the cut:

My Award winners for 2013!

Terrific year for film. Some of the movies that only won a single category are so good they could have swept in a weaker year. Anyway, click below to find out who took homes my prestigious honours!

My Award nominees for 2013 year in film

Here there are, all in one place for your perusal. Leading the way with nine nominations apiece are 12 Years a Slave and Gravity. At a distant second is Before Midnight with six, followed by Short Term 12, Her, and Inside Llewyn Davis each with five. Winners go up tomorrow.

Best Picture

12 Years a Slave -- S. McQueen, B. Pitt, D. Gardner, B. Pohlad, A. Katagas, J. Kleiner, A. Milchan

Before Midnight -- R. Linklater, Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, Sara Woodhatch

Gravity -- Alfonso Cuaron, David Heyman

Short Term 12 -- Maren Olson, Ron Najer, Joshua Astrachan, Asher Goldstein

Stories We Tell -- Anita Lee

One Category at a Time: Best Picture

It's that time of year: This is the point of the season at which we are practically begging for the Oscars to finally be over and done with, as the preordained winner of the Best Picture Oscar waits impatiently (but none too nervously) to hear its title called after more than three long months of rigorous campaigning and precursor award victories. At least, that's what usually happens at this point of the season. This year, however, is unlike any I've observed before. The standard three-month march towards inevitability has been replaced by a three-month build of suspense, as this Best Picture derby has boiled down to a true crap shoot, and one at which multiple contenders (not just the two presumed frontrunners) have a plausible chance of winning.

It all started with the critics. While the highest profile groups went their own way -- New York anointing American Hustle and L.A. ending in an unprecedented tie between Her and Gravity -- it was ultimately 12 Years a Slave that settled in as the favourite with regional critics groups across America. The Golden Globes, though not hugely influential in their own right, shook things up by proving that the harrowing slavery drama could win the top prize on prestige alone, even if not genuinely loved enough to claim any categorized prizes. SAG gave a boost to mainstream option American Hustle, causing reasonable suspicion that it could be the one to beat, but then came the TSN turning point of the season: The Producers Guild of America, heretofore the unblemished harbinger of Oscar, split the decision between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave... with a preferential ballot to boot! (And I thought the LAFCA tie was a shocker!)

Last minute question marks and wishlist

Ballots have been in for two days now, and there's nothing left to do but wait for the final results to be unveiled on Sunday night. Most pundits have settled on their predictions after weeks of deliberation, but for me, these dwindling days are often when my initially settled predictions suddenly become unsettled! There are some huge question marks that'll have me waffling on this category or that from now until their envelopes are opened. Here are some lingering uncertainties I have heading into the big show, accompanied by a small wishlist that would be oh so satisfying to see happen:

My Award nominations: Picture

*(In hopes of catching one or two more foreign films imminently, I am holding off on that category for just a few more days, but I won't wait any longer to declare my fav five of the year.)

And so we finally reach the big daddy of them all. I've already waxed philosophical at length on how 'connected' I felt to the best films of the year, but the time has come to be a little less general and a little more specific. Without further ado, I present my five candidates for Best Picture of 2013 (plus my five runner-ups, so for all intents and purposes consider this my Top Ten article):

Gravity and 12 Years a Slave take final guild honours

The last two guilds to hand out hardware this season (the Cinema Audio Society and the Costume Designers Guild) did so last night, making winners out of leading Best Picture contenders Gravity and 12 Years a Slave.

One Category at a Time: Sound Editing

As it is in Best Sound Mixing, the competition for the Best Sound Editing trophy seems to be pretty well sewn up. Even though a 4/5 overlap with the former category makes a separate analysis of the latter somewhat redundant, let's take a look at the nominees anyhow. After all, last year saw the first time ever that the two sound awards were split between three films, so clearly the Academy doesn't always lump the two together -- often, but not always.

IFMCA winners

The International Film Music Critics Association has unveiled their winners for 2013. If you assume they're the sort of group that always attempts to align themselves with the Academy's tastes, then you may be surprised by their selections. But if you are more familiar with this organization's modus operandi, then you'll find them expectedly bemusing. Not a single one of their winners was recognized by AMPAS' music branch this year, not even Oscar favourite Steven Price who had reaped four nominations for his Gravity score. Instead, the big winner was Abel Korzeniowski, who took home three honours including Film Score of the Year for Romeo and Juliet, a film which has otherwise been completely off the awards radar.

Peruse the film category winners after the cut.

One Category at a Time: Film Editing

As I mentioned about a week ago in my ACE Eddies recap, this is one of those categories on which the jury is out. The BAFTAs failed to clarify the issue, and traditional logic tells us that we should predict one of the ACE winners to take the Oscar as well (only three times in the last 23 years did the Oscar go to a film that did not win the Eddie), but it would be foolish to ignore the potential sweep that could make an Oscar winner out of an Eddie loser.

MPSE honours Gravity, Captain Phillips

The Motion Picture Sound Editors spread the wealth last night, handing no more than one award to any film in contention, but the main prize of Best Sound Effects and Foley (which correlates most closely to the Academy's Sound Editing award) went to Gravity. Captain Phillips picked up a win as well for its ADR, but none of the other prize winners are up for the Oscar. Read the list after the cut.

One Category at a Time: Production Design

The Academy has thrown me for a loop in this category more often than any other craft category in recent years. When I predicted the weathered frontier recreations of There Will Be Blood they went with the stylized gothic environs of Sweeney Todd. When I predicted the refined set decoration of The King's Speech they went with the gaudy excess of Alice in Wonderland. So last year, I thought I'd get wise by predicting the lavish stylings of Anna Karenina to rule the day, and what do they do? They give it to the immaculate minutia of Lincoln! Suffice it to say I don't know how that win ever happened (not that it was in any way unworthy), but I'm willing to assume that it's more the exception than the rule. Typically, excess is what wins out in this category, even if it's against Best Picture nominated films.

BAFTA winners do little to clarify Oscar race

With the Winter Olympics pushing the Oscar voting window back a couple of weeks, all eyes this were on the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs) to indicate any late-breaking momentum for this contender or that during this crucial final phase of the season. However, it seems that the Brits are about as indecisive as American awards groups have been this year, as they too ended up splitting their decision between the leading runners in the race.

In eerily similar fashion to the way the Golden Globes went down, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave managed to claim the Best Film prize at the BAFTAs, but only after it had been nearly shut out all night long. Losing categories in which it is believed to be the Oscar favourite (Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay) must have been cause for excruciating nervousness, but then it reared its head at the last minute with a victory for lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (in the absence of Oscar frontrunner Matthew McConaughey) and ultimately Best Picture.

But Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity led the total trophy haul with six, including Best British Film. Ironically, many would argue that the actual Best Film winner 12 Years a Slave is more British than the Mexican director's U.S.-financed space adventure. Keeping its own Oscar fires stoked with three wins was David O. Russell's American Hustle.

Check out the winners below for more commentary on individual categories, and how the winners here might affect the Oscar outcome.

My Award nominations: Sound Editing

Last year my nominees for Best Sound Editing were five completely different films than my nominees for Best Sound Mixing, but as much as I do wish I could similarly spread the wealth this year, there were a couple of films whose sound elements simply could not be denied recognition in both categories.

VES winners

I completely forgot that the Visual Effects Society awards were being handed out last night, but can you blame me? This Oscar category is so locked down that it's hard to drum up much interest in it. Yes, Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity was the big winner of the night, claiming prizes in all but one of the individual categories in which it was nominated for a total of six. The one film that was able to defeat it: The Hobbit for Best Animated Character. Hard to dispute that one, and honestly, I wish there was a little more of that wealth spreading going on. Gravity may have the Academy Award sewn up but there were lots of other brilliant fx jobs this year that deserved recognition.

The sweep effect also factored into the Feature Animation races as Frozen won all four of those categories. That isn't so uncommon. For four consecutive years now it's been one toon winning all of the prizes for effects in animated films (How to Train Your Dragon, Rango, Brave, and now Frozen), which is really a shame, as it can't help but reflect a certain laziness in membership voting.

Check out the full list of motion picture winners below.

One Category at a Time: Actress

All of the acting categories seem more or less set in stone at this point in the season, but none more so than Best Actress, which features a career-best performance from a previous Oscar winner who is all but assured of winning her second. It's somewhat a shame that this race is such a done deal, considering how exciting it could have been. Think about it: Four previous Oscar winners and a beloved five-time nominee hungry for her first win, among whom three Best Picture nominees are represented... sounds on paper like it should be a nail-biter, but instead it's one of the biggest locks in the top categories. But we can really bellyache so much when the winning performance is this good? I don't think so.

One Category at a Time: Original Score

There are all sorts of theories on how the Academy votes for Best Original Score, arguably the most subjective of the craft categories. Appraisal of music is so prone to personal tastes that just when you think you've got the Academy pegged, they go and do something unpredictably awful (like award Gustavo Santaolalla a second consecutive Oscar for a score that makes liberal use of pre-existing compositions) or go and do something unpredictably cool (like give Trent Reznor an Oscar for an extremely atypical electronic soundtrack).

IFMCA nominees

A few days ago the International Film Music Critics Association very quietly announced their nominees for 2013 (I don't know if they even issued a press release, as I haven't seen the news published anywhere but their official website). Since composers don't have a guild or trade society of their own, this is the closest we get to a precursor award just for movie music, but it doesn't always align with the Academy's taste.

This year, for instance, the top category of 'Film Score of the Year' is a real head-scratcher, featuring only one of the five Oscar nominees (probable winner Stephen Price for Gravity). Rounding it out is Howard Shore's swollen Hobbit score and three other soundtracks that I doubt were on anyone's award radar!

It looks like this might be Price's to lose, but he isn't the composer with the most nominations from this group. That distinction goes to Abel Korzeniowski, who has multiple scores recognized.

Check out the eclectic group of nominees after the cut.

ADG winners

The Art Directors Guild (who should maybe following the Academy's suit and change their name to the Production Designers Guild?) handed out their seasonal hardware last night, and all three of the feature film winners are in the running for the Oscar. But will it mean all that much at the end of the day, or does this group's less-than-stellar predictive history suggest that a completely different film could win the big one?

For Best Period Production Design the ADG went for Catherine Martin's opulent Jazz Age decadence in The Great Gatsby, besting Best Picture heavyweights 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle. She would be an unsurprising Oscar winner, both in this category and Best Costume Design, but last year's shocking victory for the refined minutia of Lincoln suggests that maybe those aforementioned Best Picture contenders still have more than a reasonable shot.