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Oscars shapes up into a two-horse race

Let’s get the party started: Champagne is displayed at the food and decor preview on February for this year’s Governors Ball, the post-Oscar celebration, which follows the 87th Oscars ceremony on Sunday in Hollywood in the US

Michael Thurston (The Jakarta Post)
Hollywood, US
Sun, February 22, 2015

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Oscars shapes up into a two-horse race

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span class="inline inline-left">Let'€™s get the party started: Champagne is displayed at the food and decor preview on February for this year'€™s Governors Ball, the post-Oscar celebration, which follows the 87th Oscars ceremony on Sunday in Hollywood in the US. AFP/Robyn Beck

Hollywood is holding its breath ahead of the Oscars on Sunday, with dark comedy Birdman and coming-of-age drama Boyhood neck-and-neck in the awards season home stretch.

Tinseltown'€™s finest will be on the edge of their seats at the Dolby Theatre, waiting to finally learn who will win a coveted golden statuette '€” and who will walk away empty-handed.

Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and Britain'€™s Eddie Redmayne are among those widely tipped to take home acting prizes during the show, hosted by song-and-dance man Neil Patrick Harris.

But the race for the biggest prize of the night, the best picture Oscar, remains too close to call with only a couple of days to go.

Birdman, a fanciful yet dark tale of a washed-up superhero actor battling to revive his career on Broadway, has swept a string of prizes ahead of the Oscars including top prizes from the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America.

But Richard Linklater'€™s Boyhood '€” which was made over 12 years with the same actors aging with their characters '€” scooped up the biggest awards at last month'€™s Golden Globes, as well as Britain'€™s BAFTAs.

Some have even suggested that Clint Eastwood'€™s American Sniper could sneak up on the inside as a dark horse, boosted by the film'€™s box office success as the highest-grossing war movie of all time.

When nominations were announced last month, Birdman shared the most nods with Wes Anderson'€™s stylish crime caper The Grand Budapest Hotel, at nine each, followed by World War II thriller The Imitation Game with eight. Boyhood followed with six.

That fired the starting gun on the frenzied final weeks of frantic schmoozing and self-publicizing that defines Hollywood'€™s awards season, which gains momentum until the star-studded Oscars night.

Campaigning can no longer have any impact on the results, as the 6,124 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finished casting their ballots on Tuesday.

While the best picture race is on a knife-edge, several of the other key categories are seen as much easier to predict.

Veteran star Moore is almost universally expected to win best actress for playing a linguistics professor suffering from early-onset Alzheimer'€™s in Still Alice.

Arquette is the favorite for best supporting actress as the single mother raising two kids in Boyhood, while JK Simmons is widely expected to win best supporting actor honors for jazz drama Whiplash.

The best actor race is still seen as up for grabs '€” a two-man contest between Redmayne '€” as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything '€” and Birdman star Michael Keaton.

For best director, the frontrunners are Linklater and Mexico'€™s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the creative force behind Birdman.

This has led to speculation that the best picture and best director prizes could be shared.

'€œThat'€™s a possibility, that Inarritu wins best director and Boyhood best picture, or vice versa,'€ said Vincent Brook, a lecturer at the UCLA'€™s School of Theater, Film and Television.

A star-studded cast of presenters will hand out the prizes at Sunday'€™s show, including Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Eddie Murphy, Liam Neeson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey.

Harris will have the tough task of following last year'€™s widely-praised mistress of ceremonies, Ellen DeGeneres.

But the 41-year-old best known for TV show How I Met Your Mother should be up to it, having won four Emmys for hosting Broadway'€™s Tonys awards.

The show, which starts at 5:30 pm (0130 GMT Monday), will be preceded by the traditional red carpet parade, featuring a bevy of stars kitted out in their formal finest.

Security will be tight: on Thursday, a bomb scare briefly closed down the nearby Hollywood and Highland intersection, at the end of a stretch of Hollywood Boulevard that was sealed off for the week for the show.

Things to look out for on Oscars night

The Academy Awards have seen their fair share of '€œmoments'€ '€” both scripted and unscripted '€” over the years. Here are 10 things to look out for at the 87th Oscars on Sunday:

NEW HOST

All eyes will be on Neil Patrick Harris, who has the tough task of following widely-praised Ellen DeGeneres as Oscars host. The Emmy-winning 41-year-old is not short on talent '€” his past hosting duties include the Emmys and Broadway'€™s Tonys, and he can sing and dance with the best of them '€” but how will he make his Oscars mark? Watch for that opening monologue/set piece.

VIRAL MOMENT

Speaking of Ellen, the daytime talk-show hostess nearly broke the Internet with her famed selfie with Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep and a host of other stars at last year'€™s show. Can Harris '€” or anyone else '€” top that this year? Watch out for those smartphones.

FASHION ALERT

The parade of stars on the Oscars red carpet is, for some, almost as big a show as the Academy Awards themselves. Who will wear what? What colors will be in (and out)? Will anyone make a fashion statement on the scale of Bjork in her swan dress at the 2001 Oscars? Or Lady Gaga emerging from her egg at the 2011 Grammys? Watch out, Gaga is due to perform at this year'€™s Oscars.

MEXICAN REPEAT?


Can Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu repeat fellow Mexican Alfonso Cuaron'€™s best director triumph last year '€” and maybe go one better? Inarritu is frontrunner in the category for his dark comedy Birdman, which is also tipped for best picture honors. Cuaron won best director last year for Gravity, but missed out on the evening'€™s top prize.

FINALLY MOORE?

Veteran Julianne Moore, a self-declared '€œlate bloomer'€ at the age of 54, is hoping to make it fifth time lucky, after four previous Oscar nods. She is the frontrunner for best actress for her portrayal of a linguistics professor suffering from early-onset Alzheimer'€™s in Still Alice.

POLITICS?


Possible causes this year '€” the recent surge in police killings of African Americans? The lack of any black acting nominees? The Charlie Hebdo attacks? Watch those acceptance speeches.

SNOWDEN FLICK

Talking of politics, a movie about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden could generate some debate: Citizenfour by US filmmaker Laura Poitras is a frontrunner for best documentary. Watch out for her speech, if she wins. '€” AFP

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