Strap on your leather chaps and pour yourself a festive cocktail because the gay Super Bowl is Sunday night and we’re calling the winners.

 

Host

Ellen DeGeneres

This might be the toughest gig in Hollywood. Everyone’s watching, the show lasts a million years and you gotta play it safe. Let’s face it, nobody’s safer than E to the DeG, which isn’t good for fans of things that are entertaining.

Will she say anything remotely funny? No. Will she do a huge over-the-top song and dance number that lasts 14 minutes too long? Yes. Will she be incredibly pleased with herself? Undoubtedly. Is she a huge phony that smiles for the camera, but ritualistically tortures her assistants for sport once the red light goes out? Seems likely.

Winner: Not the viewers. Jon Stewart hosted this show once. So did Chris Rock. This is the route the producers should take. Jimmy Kimmel would be great. So would Stephen Colbert. But instead they’ll probably keep digging up Billy Crystal, who my grandmother is still crazy about, but in her defense, she’s been dead since 2008.

 

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)

Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)

Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave)

Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

Toughest category of the evening. The Captain Phillips guy’s nomination (and hopefully a sandwich and good Hollywood veneers guy) is his victory. Bradley Cooper was solid but unremarkable. Fassbender was sadistic and creepy and awful and deserves to win, but alas he’s a relative newcomer and first time nominee. Add a dose of slave rape into the mix and unfortunately the best man doesn’t win.

It comes down to Jonah Hill working for scale and owning the screen under the masterful hand of one of the great auteurs of American cinema and Leto who may have out-AIDSed Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club. Leto probably deserves to win and may edge out Hill in the voting, but it’s tough to see the Academy awarding both AIDS performances.

Winner: Too close to call, but it’s Hill in a coin flip.

 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)

Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave)

Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)

June Squibb (Nebraska)

Another nearly impossible category to predict. Everybody Loves J-Law, and really what’s not to love? If American Hustle deserves an Academy Award, it should be for it’s only memorable performance. That said, she’s already got one and surely she’ll have opportunities for Oscars in future projects that aren’t utterly disposable.

No one saw August: Osage County, and the people that did didn’t say good things. Julia Roberts got her career service award more than a decade ago, and no one’s ever going to confuse her with Meryl Streep. No chance.

Sally Hawkins, Lupita Nyong’o and June Squibb are all equally deserving. Any of them could win and there’d be no quarrel, but Nyong’o’s riding a tremendous wave right now and her future will be even brighter once she’s decorated with Oscar for this brilliant performance.

Winner: Nyong’o.

 

Best Animated Feature

The Croods (Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco, Kristine Belson)

Despicable Me 2 (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, Chris Meledandri)

Ernest & Celestine (Benjamin Renner, Didier Brunner)

Frozen (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho)

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki)

Like all good parents we stare at our phones as a coping mechanism when forced to endure these tragedies.

Winner: No clue. Frozen?

 

Best Cinematography

The Grandmaster (Philippe Le Sourd)

Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)

Inside Llewyn Davis (Bruno Delbonnel)

Nebraska (Phedon Papamichael)

Prisoners (Roger A. Deakins)

 

Inside Llewyn Davis was widely considered this year’s big Oscar snub. People seemed at a loss as to why this film didn’t receive more nominations. Maybe those people neglected to consider this fact: Justin Timberlake is in it.

Gravity should, and will win. It’s a breathtaking visual triumph.

Winner: Gravity.

 

Best Visual Effects

Gravity (Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, Neil Corbould)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, Eric Reynolds)

Iron Man 3 (Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash, Dan Sudick)

The Lone Ranger (Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams, John Frazier)

Star Trek Into Darkness (Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann, Burt Dalton)

See above.

Winner: Gravity.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke)

Captain Phillips (Billy Ray)

Philomena (Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope)

12 Years a Slave (John Ridley)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Terence Winter)

We’d like to see Captain Phillips win just because the real-life crew says the real-life captain is a real-life liar. We definitely don’t want to see Ethan Hawke win because we still have douche chills from the time he sang that Violent Femmes Song in Reality Bites.

Winner (and soon-to-be juggernaut): 12 Years a Slave.

 

Best Original Screenplay

American Hustle (Eric Warren Singer, David O. Russell)

Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)

Dallas Buyers Club (Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack)

Her (Spike Jonze)

Nebraska (Bob Nelson)

Her should win. It probably won’t, but it should.

Winner: Her.

 

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Christian Bale (American Hustle)

Bruce Dern (Nebraska)

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave)

Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

Christian Bale is an Oscar winning actor and truly one of the best around. His reputation garnered this nom, but the material doesn’t deserve this or any other reward.

Leo was great, but the only way he wins is if Hollywood decides it’s time to say “thanks for making us rich” like they did for Julia Roberts and Sandy Bullock and he needs to turn 40 before that happens.

Chiwetel Ejiofor deserves to win but won’t. The Academy is still hungover from Jean Dujardin’s acceptance speech and isn’t looking to send another best actor trophy across the pond.

It’s criminal that Bruce Dern hasn’t won an Oscar. He was nominated for Coming Home, but lost to Christopher Walken playing Russian roulette in Michael Cimino’s chef-d’oeuvre, The Deer Hunter. It would be a bigger crime to award him for Nebraska. It just wasn’t that good a movie.

This period in Hollywood history will be remembered as the period that silenced the McConaugheyters (credit us for coining this term). We should all be thankful that he got off the beach, and out of the shitty Kate Hudson vehicle rut, and finally realized some of the potential we saw early on. Beginning with the surprisingly good Magic Mike, followed by the criminally underseen Mud, a riveting cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street and freaking everyone the fuck out Sunday nights in True Detective, we’re all existing in Matthew McConaughey’s time. Dallas Buyers Club isn’t great, but McConaughey’s performance is. The Academy loves performers that become emaciated and Hollywood really loves AIDS. There’s a chance he doesn’t win this award, but we can’t have that AIDS blood on our hands.

Winner: McConaughey.

 

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Amy Adams (American Hustle)

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Judi Dench (Philomena)

Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

Cate Blanchett and it’s not even close. This was a complex and conflicted character that simply could not have been trusted in the hands of a lesser talent. Blanchett is a generational talent and this may be her best work. Much has been made about whether or not she’ll thank Woody Allen in her acceptance speech. Look, Woody Allen is a creep and probably worse, but he directed Blanchett to an Oscar winning performance. There’s exactly zero chance she doesn’t acknowledge him from the stage. We just hope she also acknowledges her co-star, the Dice Man.

Winner (and lock of the evening): Special Cate.

 

Best Directing

American Hustle (David O. Russell)

Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón)

Nebraska (Alexander Payne)

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Every nominee, with the exception of McQueen has directed better movies. But no one flexed his nuts as a director this year quite like Cuarón. McQueen gets his taste when they announce Best Picture. Cuarón gets a deserved nod as director.

Winner: Gravity.

 

Best Picture

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers Club

Gravity

Her

Nebraska

Philomena

12 Years a Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

If this award were based solely on amazing wigs, American Hustle would win in a route. But let’s be honest, American Hustle is a popcorn movie that wasn’t near as good as the other popcorn movie in the category, The Wolf of Wall Street, which also won’t win.

The only thing more disturbing than Barkhad Abdi’s teeth is Tom Hanks’ accent in Captain Phillips.

Nebraska was duller than its namesake state.

Gravity looked really cool and will certainly win plenty of awards that aren’t this one.

Best picture is a race between the only two important films that were nominated, Her and 12 Years a Slave. While neither is a masterpiece, this should be a much closer race than it will turn out. The codgers that vote on these things didn’t see or understand Her and 12 Years a Slave has everything that Academy voters love: historical significance, terrific performances by talented performers (sit down, Brad Pitt) and a heaping helping of good old white guilt. Bet the plantation.

Winner: 12 Years a Slave.