Best Animated Short
Feral
Get a Horse!
Mr. Hublot
Possessions
Room on the Broom

What will win: Everyone seems to think that Get a Horse! will make Disney a double Animation category winner tonight. It's tough to argue for or against that, having not seen any of its competition and having had my viewing of Horse! spoiled by a terrified child at my Frozen screening. It's interesting that eight Mickey Mouse shorts have competed for this award and lost, including Mickey and the Seal, Mickey's Christmas Carol, and Runaway Brain. While Mickey did appear briefly in Lend a Paw, his own series of shorts has unconscionably never taken home this prize.

Best Animated Feature
The Croods (Blu-ray 3D review)
Despicable Me 2
Ernest and Celestine
Frozen (Film review)
The Wind Rises

What will win: Frozen is expected to score an overdue win for the by far oldest animation studio out there, Disney. Had Wreck-It Ralph won last year (as it should have), they could be repeating.

What should have been nominated: I preferred Monsters University, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Epic to The Croods and Despicable Me 2. Monsters' omission seems especially rash, given the amount of thought, effort and technical excellence Pixar poured into what might have just been a cash-in prequel. Pixar has dominated this category and their lead over the competition is narrowing, so maybe the snub can motivate them. Their film is clearly superior to Croods and Despicable. I haven't seen Ernest, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't fall in line with past head-scratcher foreign nominees, like The Triplets of Belleville, The Secret of Kells, and Chico and Rita.

Best Sound Editing:
All Is Lost
Captain Phillips (DVD review)
Gravity (Blu-ray 3D review)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Lone Survivor

Best Sound Mixing:
Captain Phillips (DVD review)
Gravity (Blu-ray 3D review)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Inside Llewyn Davis
Lone Survivor

I have little confidence in predicting these two awards. Most expect Gravity to win both and it very easily could. But I think it's vulnerable, especially in Sound Mixing, which focuses on the recording of sounds, which Gravity largely avoids by keeping space, as it is in real life, void of sound. I can easily imagine each of these awards going to any of the other nominees. Well, probably not Hobbit, but the others have their passionate fans and little to no chance of winning anything bigger than this.

Best Costume Design
American Hustle (Film review)
The Grandmaster
The Great Gatsby (Blu-ray review)
The Invisible Woman
12 Years a Slave

What will win: The Great Gatsby or American Hustle

With its flashy '20s threads, Great Gatsby is the logical choice, but voters didn't seem all that crazy for the movie and certainly not to the extent they liked American Hustle. They're awarding best costume design, though, and that honor has been given to middling films or worse in the recent past.

Best Make-up and Hairstyling
Dallas Buyers Club (Blu-ray review)
Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa (Blu-ray review)
The Lone Ranger (Blu-ray review)

What will win: Dallas Buyers Club

What should have been nominated: American Hustle

Hustle's snub here is a genuine head-scratcher after it found a way into almost every other category it could. I can't see the Academy picking Bad Grandpa, but then who wasn't surprised by its nomination even after making the short list? Lone Ranger seems like a viable compromise between the extensive make-up in lowbrow fare and the fairly subdued work in a real Oscar-worthy drama. Its Visual Effects nomination may suggest people liked it more than you'd think. Still, my gut tells me that Dallas gets the win, bringing its trophy count to three, which could easily be the second most number of wins behind Gravity.

Best Visual Effects
Gravity (Blu-ray 3D review)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Iron Man 3 (Blu-ray review)
The Lone Ranger (Blu-ray review)
Star Trek Into Darkness (Blu-ray 3D review)

What will win: Gravity

What should win: Gravity

What should have been nominated: Elysium

This is one Oscar category whose outcome isn't the slightest bit in doubt. Gravity has the others handily beat.

Best Cinematography
The Grandmaster
Gravity (Blu-ray 3D review)
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska (Blu-ray review)
Prisoners (Blu-ray review)

What will win: Gravity

There are those who balk at a win for Gravity, since it is so thoroughly aided by CGI. If I was voting, I'd probably pick Nebraska, but I don't expect a consensus to share my view, especially after some were surprised/disappointed it even got nominated. The only opportunity to reward Prisoners is also the latest chance to promote Roger Deakins from perennial bridesmaid to full-fledged bride. Perhaps he's hoping the eleventh time's the charm, but I doubt it. The Coen brothers' regular DP, Deakins interestingly competes against his Inside Llewyn Davis replacement, Bruno Delbonnel, here.

Best Live-Action Short
Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn't Me)
Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just Before Losing Everything)
Helium
Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?)
The Voorman Problem

You're as qualified to predict this category as me, which is to say not at all. I haven't seen any of these. If I was going just by titles, I'd expect Aquel no era yo (That wasn't me) to take it, but Voorman Problem stars Martin Freeman, so it gets my vote and that of some Hobbit fans.

Best Documentary Short
CaveDigger
Facing Fear
Karama Has No Walls
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall

What will win: The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

The death of its titular subject, 110-year-old Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer, may be too recent to affect the voting, but this already seemed to be the favorite. I haven't seen any of these.

Best Documentary Feature
The Act of Killing
Cutie and the Boxer (Blu-ray review)
Dirty Wars
The Square
20 Feet from Stardom (Blu-ray review)

What will win: 20 Feet from Stardom seems to have the most crowd-pleasing Academy appeal, although critics have heralded The Act of Killing.

What should win: Cutie and the Boxer is narrowly my favorite of the five and I found Dirty Wars quite powerful.

What should have been nominated: I'm surprised but not tremendously disappointed that Blackfish and Stories We Tell missed the cut. This is one of the harder categories to make sense of and predict.

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