Whether you have a chip in the office Oscar pool or consider this august event queer revenge for Super Bowl Sunday madness, the 87th Academy Awards (Feb. 22) provide average San Franciscans with an irresistible opportunity to brag about their cultural IQ. How will 6,000 or so Academy members fill out their ballots for the 24 coveted trophies? This, and the comic stylings of Neil Patrick Harris. Bring it on, baby! We list our choice for each category in boldface.
Best picture: Informally dubbed "the producer's award," this is the top prize, awarded just before the credits roll.
American Sniper Perhaps never in his wildly productive career has a Clint Eastwood project been so neglected by fans and foes alike. Based on the memoir of former Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle's four tours in Iraq, this is red-meat, real-man stuff, just a tad out of sync in this post-war moment.
Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance Hands-down the weirdest title of this Oscar derby, with seductive performances from Michael Keaton and Yale-trained Edward Norton. Mexican-born director Alejando G. Inarritu puts a delicious masculine spin on this All About Eve-like story of an improbable comeback that teeters along the precipice of an even more improbable crash landing along "The Great White Way."
Boyhood My pick and arguably 2014's most emotionally challenging movie experience, Texas-born director Richard Linklater's film tracks the actual boyhood-to-manhood odyssey of one Ellar Coltrane. Mesmerizing time-lapse drama demonstrates how a good kid avoids the pitfalls of his bio-parents' failed marriage, a mean-drunk preacher stepdad, broken promises and an assortment of true-life-like pratfalls to emerge as a devilishly cute goy-boy mensch. With pit-stops from Houston's "Juicebox" ballpark to the humbling natural cathedral of Big Bend Country, this is the year's best three hours at the movies.
The Grand Budapest Hotel Texan Wes Anderson is boyish enough to still get carded at salons, and he's whip-smart cool at making iconoclastic whimsy feel camera-ready. This one will finish out of the money, but it's still worthy of the bottom half of a Castro double-bill or Midnight for Maniacs tripleheader.
The Imitation Game Benedict Cumberbatch is nimble at evoking Alan Turing, the WWII British math genius whose machine, a precursor to today's computers, was indispensible to the good guys beating Hitler. The film slights Turing's queer side and his tragic post-war martyrdom.
Selma Ava DuVernay's challenging account of the events behind the 1965 Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, is a singular docudrama benefiting from stellar turns from British screen actors David Oyelowo (a fiery Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and Tom Wilkinson (a politically torn Pres. LBJ). Sadly, this must-see slice of bloody American history has been shadowed by arguments about whether it has been snubbed in other Oscar categories. The flap probably partly arises from Academy members unwilling to go whole-hog for another civil rights movie after the triple win for last year's 12 Years a Slave (Best Picture, Screenplay, Supporting Actress).
The Theory of Everything Eddie Redmayne's seductively charming Stephen Hawking is this meticulous biopic's main claim on Oscar gold. Another solid science project.
Whiplash Miles Teller and J.K Simmons are a straight boy/man odd couple who reach an emotional kindling point with some incendiary face slaps and drum moves. Queer boys will definitely find more than a subliminal, unintended connection.
(For those keeping score, Birdman and Grand Budapest Hotel lead the field with nine Oscar nominations each, followed by Imitation Game with eight.)
Lead actress: Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night This unvarnished performance of a woman asking co-workers to sacrifice their bonus pay to save her job is that rare peek behind the scenes of today's European economic miracle.
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything Jones gets the unsung-girlfriend nod for sticking by her man, Eddie Redmayne's charismatic "black hole" man, Stephen Hawking.
Julianne Moore, Still Alice Moore delivers on a neglected, uncomfortable subject: the brilliant person who faces the loss of her very identity to the ravages of Alzheimer's disease.
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl Pike is the missing spouse in this David Fincher-directed drama about how the media spotlight suddenly turns on a supposedly grieving husband (Ben Affleck) when the press hounds have exhausted the usual suspects.
Reese Witherspoon, Wild In any other season, Witherspoon's depiction of a woman who undertakes a spectacular long-distance hike to exorcize her demons might be a fave for Oscar gold. Regardless of the Academy's judgment, don't miss this human marathon that reminds one of an earlier entry, Sean Penn's even darker Into the Wild and its tragic boy-explorer Emile Hirsch.
Lead actor: Steve Carell, Foxcatcher An unsettling portrayal of a truly creepy loner, Carell, with the help of big fake nose, gets under our skin with the depiction of how seriously amok a rich lunatic can run.
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper The stolidly dependable Cooper delivers for Clint.
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game Cumberbatch misses the queer soul of his eccentric loner/war hero.
Michael Keaton, Birdman The likely winner of Oscar's supreme male prize.
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything Eddie steals this queer boy's heart, and not for the first time.
Director: Alejandro G. Inarritu, Birdman My favorite among Mexico's acclaimed "three Amigos" directors, he once asked me, "Why do the gay boys love Gael [Garcia Bernal]?"
Richard Linklater, Boyhood It's the Texas Golden Boy's year. He who gave us the word "slacker" will prove he's no slouch in any facet of movie storytelling. P.S. His boy-actor find Ellar Coltrane is certainly worthy of a nomination.
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher The film is creepy and not my cup of tea, but Miller's a worthy director who always looks for the oddest of God's creatures.
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game Little-known-outside-Britain director has peaked in this year's derby.
Supporting actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood It's hers to lose. Laura Dern, Wild; Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game; and Emma Stone, Birdman flesh out the dance card. Meryl Streep, Into the Woods She's always in the conversation.
Supporting actor: Robert Duvall, The Judge A trouper gets respect but not the trophy for playing an elderly jurist to whom nobody else could do justice.
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood Linklater's actor alter-ego serves him well as a dad coming late to maturity.
Edward Norton, Birdman This Yalie never fails to please.
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher The oddball drama's sole redeeming character.
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash A loud, unforgettable male presence giving his boy pupil the manly slaps he craves.
Animated feature: Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls I have a sneaky feeling about this one. How To Train Your Dragon 2, Song of the Sea, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Documentary feature: CitizenFour A scintillating take on an American tech-boy rebel turned exiled "bride of Putin." Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth, Virunga
Documentary short subject: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, Joanna, Our Curse, The Reaper (La Parka), White Earth
Foreign language film: Ida (Poland), Leviathan (Russia) It's feeling like a Russian year in this catch-up category. Tangerines (Estonia), Timbuktu (Mauritania), Wild Tales (Argentina)
Adapted screenplay: Jason Hall, American Sniper; Graham Moore, The Imitation Game; Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice; Anthony McCarten, The Theory of Everything; Damien Chazelle, Whiplash For the stirring of stories adapted from another medium, Chazelle draws up the blueprint for an incendiary "straight dad/son" S/M pitched battle.
Original screenplay: Alejandro G. Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Armando Bo, Birdman Inarritu will get his award, often the consolation prize from the Best Picture derby, after losing to Boyhood 's Linklater. E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher; Wes Anderson (screenplay), Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness (story), The Grand Budapest Hotel; Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler