Countdown to the Oscars: Best Sound Editing

The Martian is a great example of solid, nuts-and-bolts filmmaking, including its Oscar-nominated sound editing.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Sound Editing

The nominees are:

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Sicario

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Just to revisit this quickly, yesterday, we covered sound mixing, which refers to the balancing of all the different sonic elements of a film. Today, we will talk about sound editing, which refers mostly to the creation of sound effects and the general sonic landscape of a movie. If you hear a rippling stream or leaves rustling or a distant coyote howling, those noises were created in the sound editing process. If you have ever seen Albert Brooks’ 1981 comedy Modern Romance – which you really should anyway – then you have a better understanding of this process than most.

As opposed to Best Sound Mixing, in which there is a fairly even split between rewarding musicals and action movies, Best Sound Editing is almost exclusively the domain of action movies when it comes to winners. War films in particular have done well throughout the years. Since 1990, this award has gone to an action-adventure movie or a war film every year but two – Hugo in 2011 and Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992. This year will not add a third title to that list as every nominee could be categorized somewhat broadly as either action or adventure or both.

The sound categories are tied pretty closely together – which adds to the confusion of what each means individually – and often share many of the same nominees. The differences highlight the biases in each. For instance, over the last three years, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing have shared four nominees. In 2013, Inside Llewyn Davis (musical) was nominated for Sound Mixing, while All Is Lost (adventure drama) took its place in Sound Editing.

In 2014, Whiplash (musical) was nominated and won for Sound Mixing, while The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (action-adventure) was cited instead in Sound Editing. This year, Bridge of Spies (legal drama) hit in Sound Mixing, while Sicario (action thriller) made it into the five for Sound Editing. When searching for a winner in this category then, it pays to look for the most critically acclaimed action film. So, that is where we will start.

Mad Max: Fury Road – This is the eighth and final crafts category we will cover in which Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant are pitted against each other. I said in my first Countdown to the Oscars piece this year that the most likely scenario would be for one or the other to run the table, winning a majority of the crafts awards and leaving the other relatively unrewarded. I have not exactly predicted things that way. By the end of this piece, I will have predicted The Revenant to take four crafts awards, Mad Max: Fury Road to win three, and neither to win Best Costume Design. It is just that close of a year.

The funny thing about it is these two films could not be more different or, some would say, incomparable. George Miller has created a loud, in-you-face action extravaganza with Mad Max: Fury Road, while Alejandro González Iñárritu has crafted a quiet, meditative western saga with The Revenant. When it comes to these crafts categories, it will be a matter of whether voters prefer the work to be more overt or subtler. It would be hard for them to go wrong in either direction.

Supervising sound editor Mark A. Mangini is a four-time nominee who has never won, and his last nomination came in 1997 for The Fifth Element. Sound designer David White has received his first nomination for his first narrative feature film credit, though he has worked on a number of documentaries, as well as the television series Farscape. Mangini and White have tapped into the same gonzo energy that informs the rest of Mad Max: Fury Road and produced a soundscape that incorporates elements of a post-apocalyptic future and an ancient-seeming desert that was here long before we first drove our war rigs through its sands.

The Revenant – The architects of The Revenant’s magnificent soundscape are supervising sound editor Martín Hernández and sound designer Lon Bender. Their task was to take viewers back to a time before anything we know now existed, a natural world that had yet to be destroyed by human contact. The work is a triumph, bringing together the chirps and cries of the animal kingdom, the crunch of the snow and the crackle of a fire, and the ever-present wind howling across a pristine landscape. With your eyes closed, you could get lost in the sonic environment Hernández and Bender cultivate.

Hernández earned his first nomination last year for the backstage cacophony he helped create on Iñárritu’s Birdman, while Bender is a four-time nominee who won his only Oscar in 1995 for Braveheart. Their work on The Revenant speaks for itself in its complexity and beauty, and whether it wins will likely come down to how willing Academy members are to listen to the artistry on display. If they really listen and hear it, I do not see how they could choose anything else.

The Martian – I touched on this briefly yesterday, but The Martian really is an interesting case this year. When compared against The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road, it has neither the artistry nor the ambition of either. Against the other popular sci-fi film in the lineup, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it does not have the same sense of scope or operatic grandeur. The Martian is a fine movie, solid, nuts-and-bolts filmmaking that the Academy obviously warmed to, but it just cannot stand out in this crowd.

Sound designer and supervising sound editor Oliver Tarney earned his only previous nomination two years ago for Captain Phillips, another piece of solid, nuts-and-bolts filmmaking. His work on The Martian is terrific as he brings to life a world we could scarcely imagine, turning the Martian landscape into a tangible reality for both Mark Watney (Matt Damon) and the audience. In any other year, this would be winning work, but in this field, it simply cannot compete.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – For otherworldly sound design, voters might be more likely to look to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It is the showier of the two sci-fi films in this group and probably constitutes the showiest film of the five. The sound design feat of any Star Wars film is to create an immersive sonic experience out of essentially never-before-heard sounds. The droids and alien creatures, as well as the space crafts and weaponry, of course do not exist. The sound team must invent it all, and the remarkable thing about a Star Wars movie, particularly from the original trilogy and The Force Awakens, is that the audience gets so caught up in spectacle that we never once question the reality.

Supervising sound editor Matthew Wood served in the same position on all three prequel films in the Star Wars series and has previously been nominated for There Will Be Blood and the outstanding sound design of Wall-E, still among the best sonic achievements in recent cinema history. This is the first nomination for David Accord, also a supervising sound editor on the film. Star Wars: The Force Awakens would certainly be a deserving winner, and to a certain kind of voter, it might make the most sense here. It will be a matter of whether the prestige of the rest of the field trumps the spectacle of this nominee.

Sicario – Director Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario is a taut thriller with a number of outstanding elements, though the whole is more conventional than I think its staunchest supporters will admit. One thing it has going for it is an incredibly virtuosic climax, featuring a nighttime raid through a system of drug-smuggling tunnels. We covered Roger Deakins’ stellar night-vision cinematography already, but the sound design has just as much to do with making this scene work as every heavy step, crumbling rock, or clicking gun could spell doom for our heroes.

Supervising sound editor Alan Robert Murray has received eight nominations in this category, second only to the legendary Richard Hymns. Murray has won twice, including just last year for his work on Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper. His other win came for Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima in 2006. Both of those were more traditional winners than Sicario would make. Sicario feels smaller and more intimate, which is perfect thematically but not exactly helpful in terms of awards.

The final analysis

The way the crafts categories go will be a big indicator in terms of what kind of night it is going to be. If The Revenant starts picking up award after award, we could be headed for a history-making sweep for Iñárritu and his film. If Mad Max: Fury Road takes a few, it will leave the top categories more open-ended. I think if the Academy really wants to reward the best achievements in filmmaking, though, and not just the flashiest, The Revenant will end up with the majority of these awards.

Will win: The Revenant

Should win: The Revenant

Should have been here: Anomalisa

Tomorrow: Best Adapted Screenplay

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Sound Mixing

Tom Hanks stars in Bridge of Spies, nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Sound Mixing.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Sound Mixing

The nominees are:

Bridge of Spies

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Today and tomorrow, we are going to cover the sound categories – Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. I gave a thorough explanation of each last year in a combined piece on both categories, which you can read here. Quickly, sound mixing refers to the levels of sound such as the score, dialogue, effects, etc., and sound editing refers to the creation of a film’s soundscape, essentially creating the sound effects.

When you talk about sound mixing, what you are really talking about is balance and mood as in finding the right levels for each element of a film’s sonic environment while also using disparities in those levels to help the story forward without intruding on its telling. Should the music be louder, should the dialogue be crisper, should the background noise come up, etc.? These are the types of questions the sound mixing team seeks to answer.

Loud films tend to do well with the Academy in this category since the contribution of the mixers is easier to discern, though the sound branch tends to nominate talky dramas nearly as often as action epics. The dramas rarely win, however. Most of the time, you are looking for a musical or a popular action film for the victory here. This year, we have no musicals nominated but four big action or adventure movies.

The Revenant – Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s western saga is such a unique and stunning visual achievement that it is easy to get lost in its imagery, but the world the sound team creates makes the film as remarkable to hear as it is to see. The mixers have done an incredible job in this film of pulling together a thousand tiny elements into a cohesive whole that carries viewers through the narrative. The ominous, droning score, the nature sound effects, and the minimal dialogue blend together with the non-diegetic sounds that seem to come from inside the characters’ heads to turn The Revenant into a film that you experience viscerally, as well as intellectually and emotionally.

Supervising sound designer Randy Thom is a legend in the field with 15 nominations and two wins to his credit. Re-recording mixers Frank A. Montaño and Jon Taylor were both double nominees last year for Unbroken and Iñárritu’s Birdman. This is Taylor’s third nomination overall, while Montaño has eight total nominations and has never won. This is production sound mixer Chris Duesterdiek’s first nomination. The Revenant is a quieter film than tends to win in this category, but its overall popularity may carry this team to a well deserved Oscar win for its mammoth achievement.

Mad Max: Fury Road – For all the strangeness of seeing George Miller’s epic chase film nominated at the Oscars, the sound categories would seem like an obvious place for the film to show up even if it were not so popular. This is the kind of aggressive sound work the branch usually does cartwheels over. Just finding the levels for all the vehicles in this film would be an insane task, let alone the sandstorm sequence, the citadel scenes, and the quiet moments with nothing but the wind whipping across the desert.

Re-recording mixers Chris Jenkins and Gregg Rudloff each have a pair Oscar wins. Jenkins’ has five previous nominations, while Rudloff has seven, including last year for American Sniper. This is production sound mixer Ben Osmo’s first nomination. While the work is unimpeachable, for this team to come away with the win will likely require Mad Max: Fury Road to be a juggernaut across the crafts categories with Academy members checking off boxes for this film left and right.

The Martian – I will not have been the first person to point this out, but in terms of plot and technical achievement, Ridley Scott’s space castaway movie bears a striking resemblance to Apollo 13. They have even followed a somewhat similar path at the Oscars, each racking up a healthy haul of nominations (The Martian with 7; Apollo 13 with 9) but missing out in the Best Director category. Ultimately, Apollo 13 won just two awards in what turned out to be the year of Braveheart. One of those awards, however, was for Best Sound Mixing.

Space films tend to do well in this category when it comes to nominations because of the scale and variety of elements featured, from rocket ships and big explosions to extraterrestrial landscapes. The Martian has it all. Re-recording mixers Paul Massey and Mark Taylor are both multiple nominees who have never won, while this is production sound mixer Mac Ruth’s first nomination. As with every other place it is nominated alongside The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian is probably running third or further back in this category. It is a case of too many accomplished epics and too few awards.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The other thing likely drawing votes away from The Martian is the other space epic in the category, the $2 billion box-office smash Star Wars: The Force Awakens. For what seem like obvious reasons, Star Wars films have always done well in this category. A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back each won the award, while Return of the Jedi and even The Phantom Menace came away with nominations.

Re-recording mixer Andy Nelson is a double nominee this year, along with his work on Bridge of Spies, the 19th and 20th nominations in his career. Re-recording mixer Christopher Scarabosio is a two-time nominee, and production sound mixer Stuart Wilson has been nominated three times now. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a slick, rollicking space adventure, but it may not have the prestige to compete against the rest of the nominees in this category, especially given the other four are all Best Picture nominees as well.

Bridge of Spies – At first glance, this seems like a game of “one of these things is not like the other things,” with the talky legal drama Bridge of Spies pitted against four films painted on a much grander canvas. In reality though, such an assessment sells Steven Spielberg’s film short, and it would be just as accurate to think of it as a globetrotting spy thriller. For me, the most impressive aspects of this mix are the background elements – such as the far-off gunfire and sirens – that make James Donovan’s (Tom Hanks) experience so unsettling. There is nothing overt about the danger in Bridge of Spies, but the sound mix helps keep the sense of harm always lurking around the corner.

As I said, Nelson is now a 20-time nominee, and six of those nominations have come for Spielberg films. His two wins in the category have come for Saving Private Ryan and Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables. Re-recording mixer Gary Rydstrom has 18 nominations to his name and seven victories, four for Best Sound Mixing and three for Best Sound Editing. Sound mixer Drew Kunin has two nominations, notably fewer than either of his co-nominees but two more than most of us will ever have. It will be difficult for Bridge of Spies, however, to stand out among these nominees, so the nomination will most likely be the reward for this team.

The final analysis

Once again, it comes down to the two nominations leaders. The Revenant features the more subtle and some would say more artistic work this year, while Mad Max: Fury Road is the kind of bold statement that is just begging for recognition. Star Wars: The Force Awakens could be the spoiler here, but I am guessing The Revenant’s overall popularity will put it over the top.

Will win: The Revenant

Should win: The Revenant

Should have been here: Love and Mercy

Tomorrow: Best Sound Editing

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Original Score

Ennio Morricone's score for The Hateful Eight is the frontrunner at the Academy Awards for Best Original Score.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Original Score

The nominees are:

Bridge of Spies

Carol

The Hateful Eight

Sicario

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So, I spent a lot of words yesterday tearing down the music branch for its uninspired nominations for Best Original Song. Last year, I used this space to gripe about the exclusion of the year’s best score due to the branch’s seemingly arbitrary rules. The entire system for determining eligibility and nominees in both music categories needs an overhaul.

However, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and though these may not be the five nominees I would have chosen, the music nominated for Best Original Score this year is fantastic across the board. A few of the best composers working today are nominated alongside two of the best film composers of all time, and their work covers a broad spectrum from big and bombastic adventure music to subtle and subdued drama.

Unusually for this category, only one nominated film is also nominated for Best Picture. The last time that happened was in 2003 with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which went on to win the award. In fact, a Best Picture nominee has won this award every year since 2003, though interestingly only three Best Picture winners in that 12-year span have also won Best Original Score. Either way, the run of Best Picture dominance in this category seems set to end this year as the Academy may finally be ready to reward one of the giants of the craft.

The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone is among the most famous composers in the world, and his compositions have been repurposed in countless ways across a wide variety of mediums. The main title theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly might be one of the two or three most recognizable pieces of film score ever written. He has been nominated for six Oscars and received an honorary Academy Award in 2007 for his contributions to cinema.

Morricone had consciously avoided scoring westerns recently to avoid being thought of as only a western composer, and it took Quentin Tarantino to convince the Italian master to return to the genre that launched his career. The funny thing is – and Tarantino has acknowledged this in numerous interviews – Morricone pretty much avoided writing a western score. The music in The Hateful Eight sounds like it belongs in a horror movie more than a talky western.

Every element of the score oozes dread. From the sinister pounding of the drums to the whining and pulsing strings layered over it to the low-register lead, Morricone has perfectly tapped into the drawing-room mystery aspects of Tarantino’s script while bringing an unhinged energy that ultimately makes the music the best part of the film. The Hateful Eight is well liked enough by Academy members, and the season appears headed in the direction of awarding Morricone his first competitive Oscar. It would be a well-deserved and fitting honor.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The man who could stand in Morricone’s way, though, has been here before – more times than almost anybody. John Williams’ 50 Academy Award nominations are second only to Walt Disney for most nominations for an individual. His compositions for Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark are part of the cultural heritage, and the American Film Institute named the theme to Star Wars the greatest score of all time. It does not get much more iconic than that.

If Morricone returning to the western genre is exciting, then Williams returning to the Star Wars universe is on another level. The 84-year-old Williams has reduced his work load significantly in recent years, but there is only one man for the job of composing a Star Wars soundtrack. His music for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is everything we have come to expect from Williams – big horns, driving strings, and dynamic tension between the quiet and the loud that signals adventure and mystery.

Williams has been nominated 19 times since his last win for Schindler’s List in 1993. Not among those 19 nominations are any of the Star Wars prequels, though he was nominated for each film in the original trilogy and won for A New Hope. Williams is a legend, and every single member of the Academy knows it, and it is possible that respect will carry him to a sixth Oscar.

Bridge of Spies – While Williams went off to compose the score for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Thomas Newman stepped in to fill the musical void for director Steven Spielberg on the Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies. This is the first Spielberg film in 30 years not conducted by Williams, but Newman does an admirable job of getting on Spielberg’s wavelength and finding the right tones for an old-school story of heroism in the face of insurmountable odds.

The horns and military-style drums immediately stand out, and some of the main themes feel like a throwback to some of James Horner’s early 1990s compositions for films such as Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Apollo 13. Newman has been nominated 12 times for Best Original Score and once for Best Original Song, but he has never won.

Newman’s compositions throughout his career have tended to be more idiosyncratic than the Academy usually likes, and his more classical work on Bridge of Spies could be right up members’ alley. That, coupled with the Best Picture nomination for the film, would make him a threat for the win in most years, but with Williams and Morricone in the picture, Newman will likely be relegated to bridesmaid status once again.

Carol – A little more than six years ago on this site, I called Carter Burwell the best composer working in Hollywood. That feels even truer today than it did then. He is my personal favorite music composer of any kind, film or not. His scores for Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, In Bruges, A Serious Man, and Where the Wild Things Are rank among my favorite albums of all time. He is best known probably for his work with the Coen Brothers – or perhaps among certain people for his Twilight scores – but his recent collaborations with director Todd Haynes on the Mildred Pierce miniseries and Carol have been equally fruitful.

For Carol, Burwell is working firmly within his favorite subgenre – off-kilter dramas about descent into darkness. The way his strings swirl around the listener while the piano holds the center together just spells gloom and madness, but it is never overbearing, which is key for a film as subtle and restrained as Carol. Burwell also introduces themes of romanticism into the score that he rarely uses but that perfectly complement the film’s thematic intent.

I am ecstatic that Burwell has received his first Oscar nomination. It is long overdue. He is unlikely to win and is probably running third or fourth in the category this year, but now that he is in the club, expect to see Burwell pop up as a perennial nominee. He will win one eventually, and when Burwell accepts his Oscar someday, that will be one of the happiest moments of my Oscar-watching life.

Sicario – Kudos to the music branch – how often do I say that? – for nominating something as strange and unsettling as Jóhann Jóhannsson’s work on Sicario. Jóhannsson earned his first Oscar nomination last year for his far more traditional score for The Theory of Everything. I had him pegged for the win last year as well, but he lost out to the overwhelming popularity of The Grand Budapest Hotel. This time, I would be shocked if Jóhannsson found himself onstage, not because the work is not deserving but because the Academy rarely goes for something this unusual in the category.

The driving percussion and punishing strings remind of Hans Zimmer’s iconic work on Inception but set in a world without hope. Amid the brutality and carnage of the U.S.-Mexico border wars, the music makes the characters’ sense of dread palpable for the audience. Deep feelings of disquiet creep into viewers minds thanks in large part to the way Jóhannsson’s score penetrates the narrative. You do not so much hear the music as feel it in your gut. That does not make it a good bet to win an Oscar, but it does make it a great score.

The final analysis

Morricone has the inside track here. Along with a Golden Globe win and general industry love, he is overdue for this honor, and voters know it. Williams could get in on sentiment, but much of the same sentiment that would drive him to a victory also holds true for Morricone. The other nominated scores are great and would be deserving winners, but a win for Morricone would be history-making, and that temptation might be too much to pass up for the Academy.

Will win: The Hateful Eight

Should win: The Hateful Eight

Should have been here: It Follows

Tomorrow: Best Sound Mixing

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Editing

The Big Short is among the frontrunners in a number of categories this year, including Best Editing.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Editing

The nominees are:

The Big Short

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Revenant

Spotlight

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The four films with the best chance of winning Best Picture are matched against each other in only three categories – Best Picture, Best Director, and here in Best Editing. It is a fitting trio of nominations for these films. If these are the four best films of the year, it stands to reason they are also the best directed, but once the director’s job on set is finished, the editor’s work begins. None of the hard work of getting the film in the can means anything if the editor cannot piece it together into a coherent whole.

The Academy of course is well aware of this, which is why Best Editing is so strongly tied to Best Picture at the Oscars. Since 2000, seven of 15 Best Editing winners have won Best Picture, while 12 of 15 have been nominated in the top category. Even more striking, since the Best Picture lineup expanded beyond five nominees in 2009, only two films have been nominated for Best Editing without a corresponding Best Picture nod – surprise Best Editing winner The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2011 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens this year.

All of this means we are probably looking at a four-way race for the award this year with Star Wars: The Force Awakens on the outside looking in. One thing that has been consistent through the years is that voters tend to like their editing big and flashy. They want to be able to see the cuts working on screen, which gives a leg up to the first nominee below.

Mad Max: Fury Road – Starting in the 1980s, action pictures have actually done quite well in this category, even without earning a larger stamp of approval from the Academy. The editors have seen fit to nominate films such as Aliens, Top Gun, Die Hard, Speed, and eventual winner The Bourne Ultimatum. Not one of those was nominated for Best Picture. Well, Mad Max: Fury Road has gotten a tremendous stamp of approval from the Academy, and its editing is the boldest of the bunch.

First-time nominee Margaret Sixel is tasked with assembling a linear narrative from essentially a series of action set pieces. She does so and more as the film’s rambunctious style and propulsive energy owes a great deal to Sixel’s machine-gun editing. It is no easy task to begin with, but keeping in mind this is just Sixel’s third feature film, it seems utterly impossible. All of those films have been for her husband, director George Miller, and based on the work they have produced together, it might be fair to say they bring out the best in each other.

The Big Short – Director Adam McKay’s Wall Street satire jumps around constantly from character to character and storyline to storyline with a whole bunch of stops in between. While the plot is straightforward, McKay turns the film into a wandering exploration of modern greed in all its terrible incarnations. The only reason the whole enterprise does not spin out of control is because editor Hank Corwin is perfectly tuned into the machine. He knows what every part does and where it fits, and as a result, what appears clunky and cumbersome on the page runs smoothly and effortlessly on screen.

Corwin is another first-time nominee, but he started his career as an assistant editor on Oliver Stone’s JFK, which won Best Editing. More than two decades later, Corwin is still wrangling wide-ranging tales of governmental conspiracy, except this time, instead of the assassination of a president, it is the assassination of the world’s economy. If The Big Short works for you, it is because Corwin was able to tie all the loose threads McKay was intent on following into one, tightly tied knot.

Spotlight – This is the subtlest work in the lineup and, therefore, a surprising and welcome nominee. Spotlight is a film about people doing work, slowly and laboriously. The characters dig and prod and dig some more. Little by little, they uncover the depths of corruption in the Catholic Church. There is no big “gotcha” moment, no climactic chase sequence, or anything like that. Director Tom McCarthy’s film relies on the cumulative effect of the reporters’ investigation for its power, and editor Tom McArdle displays tremendous patience and skill in allowing all the elements of the story to build on top of each other until the result is simply overwhelming.

McArdle, who has been at this game for nearly 25 years, has mostly spent his career in independent film, including editing all five features directed by McCarthy. Spotlight, McArdle’s first Oscar nomination, is of a piece with the rest of his career and follows the rhythms of an indie drama much more closely than the big-budget legal thrillers with which it also shares DNA. McArdle never forces false drama or artificially raises the stakes. The story is important enough, and McArdle is content to ensure it plays out the best way it can.

The Revenant – Alejandro González Iñárritu’s slow-burn western plays like a cinematic riff on the quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic trumpeted by musicians such as Kurt Cobain. It alternates seamlessly between long stretches of meditative silence and wild bursts of extreme violence. The action only works because of the contrast, the moments when the world seems to stop so the rest of us can listen. Then, when we are deepest in our reveries, everything comes crashing down around us and snaps us back to the present.

Stephen Mirrione is the only previous nominee on this list. He won an Oscar for Traffic and earned another nomination for Iñárritu’s 2006 drama Babel. Mirrione’s career highlights, which also include the Ocean’s 11 trilogy, Good Night and Good Luck, and Birdman, mostly revolve around large ensembles and sprawling stories, and he has shown a tremendous facility for balancing disparate elements within a narrative. Here, he adapts his style to help tell the perilous journey of one man, and rather than be constrained by the narrower focus, Mirrione seems freed by the opportunity to step outside the narrative and explore the thematic wilderness of The Revenant.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – This is just the second Star Wars film to be nominated for Best Editing after the original film in 1977, which ultimately took home the award. The difference is that original film was also nominated for Best Picture, while Star Wars: The Force Awakens could not find any traction outside the crafts categories. Still, you will not find many ready to argue against its inclusion here. It is a critically acclaimed adventure spectacle that benefits greatly from fight scenes and action sequences that audiences can actually comprehend in real time, unlike so much other action fare.

Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey have edited each of director JJ Abrams’ feature films, including Mission Impossible III and the two most recent Star Trek pictures. Their collaboration on those Star Trek films seems to have come in particularly handy as the team does an excellent job of balancing the desire to pay homage to a beloved property while also establishing a unique identity. Brandon and Markey never allow the tributes and nods to the original trilogy (and the prequel trilogy, too, I guess) interrupt the flow of the story or distract from the clockwork pacing of the plot.

The final analysis

The American Cinema Editors handed out top awards last week to Mad Max: Fury Road for dramatic feature and The Big Short for comedy, making those the two frontrunners here. However, The Big Short is probably little more than a red herring as this seems to belong to Mad Max: Fury Road through and through. It is big, flashy, and popular, a combination that almost always spells victory, regardless of other factors.

Will win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Should win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Should have been here: 99 Homes

Tomorrow: Best Production Design

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Visual Effects

JJ Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens is nominated for Best Visual Effects at this year's Academy Awards.

Welcome to Last Cinema Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, our daily look at this year’s Academy Awards race. Be sure to check back every day this month for analysis of each of the Academy’s 24 categories.

Best Visual Effects

The nominees are:

Ex Machina

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

The Revenant

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

What a strange and refreshing category this year. Normally the domain of big-budget action spectacles, the Academy has given over Best Visual Effects to some of the most critically acclaimed films of the year. It would be hard to overstate just how unusual this lineup is in terms of the recent history of this category, but let’s take it step by step. The history of Best Visual Effects at the Oscars is a little hard to pin down, but we will start in 1963, when it basically took the shape it is in now – give or take a few changes over the years.

In the entire history of the category, only four times has the Academy nominated more than one film in both Best Picture and Best Visual Effects (1995, 2003, 2009, and 2015). This year, there are three – Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, and The Revenant – which is a first. The difference in those three previous instances is that there were only two or three nominees in the category each time. In 2010, the Academy changed the rule to allow for five nominees in Best Visual Effects.

Since that change, last year was the only year in which no Best Picture nominee was nominated for Best Visual Effects. In every other year, a Best Picture nominee won this category over four non-nominees, while last year, Interstellar won Best Visual Effects and was the only nominee cited in more than one other category. This is a long way of saying: Having mind-blowing effects is great, but if you want to win, the Academy better embrace your film in a much bigger way.

Circling back around to this year, in addition to the three Best Picture nominees, we also have the new Star Wars film and Ex Machina, one of the lowest budgeted films nominated in this category in at least the last 20 years. So, I say again – how strange and how refreshing. The two most likely winners – and you will hear this a lot throughout this series, so get used to it – are Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant, but with voting split among five clearly popular films, anything could happen.

Mad Max: Fury Road – A visual feast in every way imaginable, the most remarkable thing about writer-director George Miller’s action extravaganza is how its effects work is both awe-inspiring and seamless. Of course, the stunts are the big draw, but the way those stunts are incorporated into the almost impossible world of the story is breathtaking. The film also features the kind of big, showy set piece that craftspeople appreciate in its sandstorm sequence.

The nominees are Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver, and Andy Williams, who are all sharing their first Oscar nomination, though Williams was a technician on the Best Visual Effects winner Hugo. What they all have in common is extensive work in the action genre, each having contributed to numerous films that blend the fantastic and the real in ways that engage the audience rather than distract.

The Revenant – Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s gritty western is the least fantastical of these nominees but also the most impressionistic. It takes us to a place and time we never knew but have long imagined, before our westward expansion drained the natural world of much of its beauty. Like Mad Max: Fury Road, it also contains a bravura effects sequence remembered even outside the context of the film in its horrific bear attack.

Richard McBride, Matt Shumway, and Jason Smith are all first-time nominees, while Cameron Waldbauer is a two-time nominee, having earned recognition last year for his work on X-Men: Days of Future Past. McBride, Shumway, and Smith, however, have all worked in the effects department on previous winners in this category. Most notable perhaps is Shumway’s work on Life of Pi and The Golden Compass, both of which prominently feature computer-generated animals that are stunning in their realism.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The most conventional nominee this year is of course the big-budget sci-fi space adventure that features alien planets, alien spacecraft, and, well, aliens. JJ Abrams’ blockbuster is wall-to-wall effects with an admirable blend of CGI and miniature work likely to appeal to more traditional members of the Academy. In another year, this would be a good threat for the win. Of the seven Star Wars franchise films, six have been nominated for Best Visual Effects, and three have won. Working against it is the fact that all three of those wins came for the original trilogy.

This is a veteran group with 11 nominations and four wins among them. Chris Corbould is a three-time nominee who previously won for Inception. Neal Scanlan won for his only previous nomination, Babe (directed by Mad Max: Fury Road helmer Miller). Roger Guyett is a four-time nominee, and three of his nominations now have come for Abrams films – Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek. Pat Tubach’s previous nomination also came for Star Trek Into Darkness. It would be foolish to underestimate the Academy’s willingness in the crafts categories to vote for people it has voted for in the past.

The Martian – The other Best Picture nominee in this category, The Martian is also the other sci-fi movie here, along with the next nominee below. The Academy clearly loves this movie, evidenced by its seven nominations, third-most behind The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road. However, it is neither as beloved as those two films nor as adventurous as Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The effects are grand but probably not grand enough to win in this field this year.

Chris Lawrence is a previous winner for Gravity, Richard Stammers has been nominated three times, and Anders Langlands and Steven Warner are each enjoying their first nomination. No one would dispute the quality of their work on this film, but in a year with such a rich list of nominees, The Martian probably will not be a factor for the win.

Ex Machina – This is my favorite of these nominees and unfortunately the least likely to win, but for integration in the film and importance to the story, the effects in writer-director Alex Garland’s Ex Machina have no equal. Every shot with Ava (Alicia Vikander) is an effects shot, but none of them seems that way because the effects – and Vikander’s incomparable performance – make us feel as though we are watching just another human. This to me is the goal of great visual effects.

Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Sara Bennett, and Mark Williams Ardington are all first-time nominees, but despite the recognition for their subtle, self-contained work on Ex Machina, all have worked in departments on major blockbusters. Whitehurst, Bennett, and Williams helped bring various films in the Harry Potter franchise to life, while just this year, Ardington also worked as a character technical director on Ant-Man and Spectre.

The final analysis

There are three ways this category could go this year. The Academy could be head over heels in love with nominations leader The Revenant, and the bear sequence will stick in voters’ minds as reason enough to reward it; Mad Max: Fury Road will be a crafts juggernaut and sweep up Best Visual Effects along with a number of other below-the-line awards; Star Wars: The Force Awakens will earn the award for the sheer scope of its effects work, while also benefiting from those other two likely splitting votes. For now, I am guessing option No. 1 will rule the day.

Will win: The Revenant

Should win: Ex Machina

Should have been here: Everest

Tomorrow: Best Cinematography

Academy Awards nominations announced

The Academy has spoken, and their words say Spotlight remains the film to beat. Writer-director Tom McCarthy’s investigative journalism drama had been seen as weak coming into nominations morning, but that assessment always felt a little off base. While The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road may have been called out in seemingly every category (actually it was 12 for The Revenant and 10 for Mad Max: Fury Road), the big winner was Spotlight, which showed up everywhere it conceivably could have with nominations for Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Editing.

That said, after its triumph at the Golden Globes, many will see director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Western revenge saga The Revenant as the likely frontrunner now that it is also the nominations leader. While Spotlight is sitting pretty above the line, it looks like The Revenant and George Miller’s post-apocalyptic action epic Mad Max: Fury Road will battle for supremacy in the below-the-line categories. Both were nominated in the same 10 categories – Picture, Director, Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Costumes – while The Revenant also picked up acting nominations for Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.

In addition to Spotlight, The Revenant, and Mad Max: Fury Road, the other films nominated for Best Picture are The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Martian, and Room. The biggest surprise of the morning was the overall strength of Room, which also earned nods for Brie Larson in Lead Actress, Emma Donoghue for Adapted Screenplay, and Lenny Abrahamson’s direction. The Martian had a strong showing with seven nominations, while Bridge of Spies earned six and The Big Short came away with five. Brooklyn pulled up the rear in terms of Best Picture nominees with just three nominations, failing to score in either Production Design (rightly) or Costumes (unfortunately).

Carol (six) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (five) led the way among films not nominated for Best Picture but took very different routes to get there. Carol came away with nominations for Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, and Score, while Star Wars: The Force Awakens showed strength in the crafts categories with nominations for Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, and Score.

Regarding those acting categories we were all so curious about, the Academy went the easy way with tough decisions and listened to the campaigners. As a result, Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) and Rooney Mara (Carol) both showed up in Supporting Actress for their co-lead performances, probably shutting Vikander out of Supporting Actress for Ex Machina. On the other hand, the Academy avoided the question of Paul Dano in Love and Mercy by not nominating him at all. Sylvester Stallone did make it into Supporting Actor for Creed – to tremendous applause in the room – along with Hardy’s surprise nomination.

As far as my personal reaction, I could not be happier for Charlotte Rampling’s Best Actress nomination for 45 Years, my favorite performance of the year, and Mustang’s recognition in the Best Foreign Language Film category is a wonderful delight, though not wholly unexpected. As a huge fan of Abrahamson’s career and of Room, I was excited to see him show up in Best Director, and despite Vikander missing out in Supporting Actress for Ex Machina, I was thrilled to see that film show up in Original Screenplay and Visual Effects.

Snubs? Well, I will leave that to others. Many of my favorite films showed surprising strength this morning or showed up in categories where they had only slim hope, so I had a great morning. Others will grip and grouse, and that is their right. You are more than welcome to do so as well. Let me just say, though, people like to complain about the Academy Awards nominations every year, but in my experience – more than a decade now of following this race – the Academy gets it right more often than it gets it wrong. Take that for what it is worth.

The ceremony is still more than six weeks away, and there is a lot of room for movement in this race. From where I am sitting, it is still Spotlight out in front with The Big Short, The Revenant, and Mad Max: Fury Road not far behind. It should be a fun race all the way to the end with almost no category already decided, although DiCaprio should probably start working on his speech, just in case. As with last year, check in here at Last Cinema Standing throughout the next month and a half for analysis and predictions in all 24 categories as we make our way to the red carpet and Oscar night.

Click here for a full list of nominees.

Waiting game: 2015 Oscar nominations predictions

The critics’ awards are pretty much behind us, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association handed out its honors on Sunday, and with the announcement today of the Directors Guild nominations, the most important industry groups have had their say. All that is left is for the Academy to announce its nominations, which it will do bright and early Thursday morning. Before that, let’s take a look at which films have dominated the awards season thus far and what we might expect from the Academy.

We discussed the critics’ groups around this time last month, when it seemed like writer-director Tom McCarthy’s journalism drama Spotlight would be the runaway champion. With the critics, anyway, that trend held true as Spotlight was awarded best film by group after group across the country, with a stray mention for George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road here and there.

Tom Hanks in Bridge of Spies.

As the industry started to chime in, though, the ground started to shift. The craftspeople such as the cinematographers, the art directors, the sound designers, etc., flocked to films such as Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant, while Spotlight has been left in the dust. This was to be expected since Spotlight is not exactly the kind of flashy film that draws a lot of appreciation for its technical achievements. However, Spotlight has hit with the four industry groups that matter most – Screen Actors Guild, Producers Guild, Directors Guild, and to a lesser extent, the Writers Guild.

Even after its shutout at the Golden Globes, Spotlight is still sitting pretty. The same goes for The Big Short, which was also shut out Sunday but has done fine with the guilds. The Revenant has obviously been a technical juggernaut, and its triumph with the HFPA certainly gives it some momentum. Remember, though, that the Academy nominations were submitted before the Golden Globes, so that momentum only means something if the Academy has already gone for The Revenant in a big way.

So, let’s take a look at what the guilds have given us to work with:

Producers: The Big Short; Bridge of Spies; Brooklyn; Ex Machina; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Martian; The Revenant; Sicario; Spotlight; Straight Outta Compton

Directors: Adam McKay (The Big Short); Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road); Ridley Scott (The Martian); Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant); McCarthy (Spotlight)

Actors: Best ensemble – Beasts of No Nation; The Big Short; Spotlight; Straight Outta Compton; Trumbo

Writers: Best original screenplay – Bridge of Spies; Sicario; Spotlight; Straight Outta Compton; Trainwreck. Best adapted screenplay – The Big Short; Carol; The Martian; Steve Jobs; Trumbo

For good measure, let’s throw in the British Academy nominations, which came out late last week:

BAFTA: The Big Short; Bridge of Spies; Carol; The Revenant; Spotlight

If you look closely, the only two films to show up on all five lists are The Big Short and Spotlight. No other movie shows up more than three times. Regardless of anything else you here, those are your frontrunners right now for Best Picture at the Oscars. The Revenant is close behind, though the likelihood of Iñárritu winning Best Picture and Best Director the year after winning both for Birdman is slim. Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, and even Straight Outta Compton look strong based on what we know now.

Still, what we know now does not amount to much. Everything could change – or nothing could, admittedly – with the Academy’s announcement Thursday. So, let’s make some guesses as to how the top categories might shake out.

Best Picture

My reasoning in this category is pretty much outlined above, so I will not go over it too deeply here. The big question now is how many films the Academy will choose to nominate. It could be anywhere from five to 10 but usually ends up on the high side around nine. So, that is where we will draw our prediction line. Based on everything that has happened up until now, here are the nine films I think are most likely Best Picture nominees (in order of likelihood): Spotlight; The Big Short; The Revenant; The Martian; Mad Max: Fury Road; Bridge of Spies; Brooklyn; Carol; Trumbo.

Best Director

This category rarely lines up directly with its guild counterpart, but most of the time, four out of the five make it. Last year was anomalous in that Bennett Miller was nominated for Foxcatcher despite that film not being nominated for Best Picture. I would not predict that happening again. The weakest name on the DGA list might be Scott for The Martian, but it is hard to know who else might slip in besides maybe Steven Spielberg for Bridge of Spies. So, against my better judgment, I am predicting it to match the DGA exactly (in order of likelihood): Inarritu for The Revenant; McCarthy for Spotlight; McKay for The Big Short; Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road; Scott for The Martian.

Best Actor

Not much has changed in this category since we last covered it, except that a few contenders have probably fallen by the wayside. Paul Dano in Love and Mercy for instance is likely to be shifted to the supporting category, while Will Smith (Concussion) and Johnny Depp (Black Mass) really have not picked up any momentum. For the win, Leonardo DiCaprio may finally be in line for an Oscar. Regardless of his feelings about it, which I covered here and here, his peers sure seem to want him to win, based on the standing ovation he got at the Golden Globes. Anyway, here are my Best Actor predictions, which have not changed since last month (in order of likelihood): DiCaprio for The Revenant; Bryan Cranston for Trumbo; Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs; Matt Damon for The Martian; Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl.

Best Actress

Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn.

On the other hand, Best Actress is very much in flux since we still do not know how the Academy will choose to categorize Rooney Mara in Carol and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl. Both have been campaigned as supporting contenders, but the Academy could still choose to place them (correctly) in the lead category. Either way, both are almost surefire nominees. The rest of the lineups in both categories simply depend on their placement.

Brie Larson’s performance in Room is picking up steam as the most likely winner, while Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) and Cate Blanchett (Carol) are right there as well. Despite the film’s lackluster reception, Jennifer Lawrence should still make it in for Joy, which leaves one space. I am guessing the Academy will place Vikander in lead and Mara in supporting, giving us (in order of likelihood): Larson for Room; Ronan for Brooklyn; Blanchett for Carol; Lawrence for Joy; Vikander for The Danish Girl.

Best Supporting Actor

Despite the mild controversy, which really should not have been any controversy at all, over his acceptance speech, it sure was fun to see Sylvester Stallone win an award at the Golden Globes. It is possible he will repeat that performance – with a better grasp of his thank-you list – at the Oscars, but I still have serious reservations about his chance for a nomination. Creed has not caught on with any of the guilds, and its heat seems to have died down since it was a considerable box-office hit in November and early December.

The heat on Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies, though, just seems to be picking up as he has pretty much run the table with the critics’ awards. Michael Shannon, well liked and universally admired by his peers, seems a safe bet to be 99 Homes’ only recognition, while both Spotlight (Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton) and The Big Short (Steve Carell and Christian Bale) have multiple performances that could be highlighted. Bale seems like a sure thing, and while I cannot imagine the Best Picture frontrunner not getting an acting nomination, it is possible Ruffalo and Keaton split the vote and neither makes it.

Other than that, Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation) have dropped off the radar a bit, but I would not be shocked to see one or either end up with a nomination. Then, there is Dano as well. My predictions right now are (in order of likelihood): Rylance for Bridge of Spies; Bale for The Big Short; Shannon for 99 Homes; Dano for Love and Mercy; Stallone for Creed.

Best Supporting Actress

If we guess that Mara will end up here, she is a definite nominee and the biggest threat for the win, especially considering it is a co-lead performance. Winslet, who just won the Golden Globe in a bit of a surprise victory, is probably safe. Jennifer Jason Leigh has showed up on most lists for The Hateful Eight, and the Academy loves Quentin Tarantino, so she seems likely to benefit, plus she is great in the movie.

Helen Mirren has received a few mentions for Trumbo, and Kristen Stewart has been a critical darling for her turn in The Clouds of Sils Maria, but I expect only one of them to be nominated as I am going on a limb and predicting a double nomination for Vikander, here for her stellar performance in Ex Machina. Rest assured, if it happens, it will be one of the most pleasant surprises of the morning for me. Rachel McAdams also has an outside shot for Spotlight. My predictions (in order of likelihood): Mara for Carol; Winslet for Steve Jobs; Leigh for The Hateful Eight; Mirren for Trumbo; Vikander for Ex Machina.

Below the line & final thoughts

Cate Blanchett in Carol.

In the crafts categories, we can expect Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, and Stars Wars: The Force Awakens to dominate. All three could get in for Editing, Art Direction, Sound, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects. Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant are also frontrunners for Cinematography, along with Carol. Carol could be a more low-key force in the crafts given its gorgeous design elements, so look for it in Costumes and Art Direction as well. The same goes for Brooklyn and The Danish Girl. Bridge of Spies has showed strength with the crafts guilds, and it could be in for well-deserved recognition in Art Direction and Cinematography.

The Best Editing category is usually the strongest bellwether of Best Picture, and in addition to The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road, expect to see The Big Short and possibly The Martian. If Spotlight fails to nab an Editing nod, that will be its first real sign of weakness. I am not expecting that to be the case, but it could happen.

When the final tally comes in, I expect The Revenant to lead the list and for Mad Max: Fury Road not to be far behind. Iñárritu’s Western epic could hit in the following categories: Picture, Director, Actor, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Sound, Sound Editing, Costumes, Makeup, Visual Effects, and possibly Adapted Screenplay. That would give it 12. Mad Max: Fury Road could show up in all those places except Actor or Adapted Screenplay and wind up with 10.

As I said back in December, this is a wide-open year, and that makes it a fun year. Even after the nominations come out, we still will be flying mostly blind. When the guilds start to announce their winners at the end of this month and the beginning of February, we will know more, but for now, let’s enjoy the feeling that any movie we love is a potential nominee and maybe even a winner.