1. Gravity2. 12 Years a Slave3. Nebraska4. Inside Llewyn Davis5. The Grandmaster(Alt: Captain Phillips) This category is so jammed packed with amazing contenders that I could legitimately see up to twelve different films getting a nomination. Brilliant visual magician Emmanuel Lubezki, who somehow hasn't won an Oscar yet, has this category in the bag for one of the greatest visual feats ever with Gravity. Sean Bobbit's simultaneously beautiful and horrific imagery of 12 Years a Slave is also a certainty. Beyond that it's a little more ambiguous, but I feel pretty good that the cinematographers will reward the old-school black-and-white of Nebraska. Critics have heaped the kudos on Bruno Delbonnel's lensing of the Coen's Inside Llweyn Davis, so even if the film fails to get nominated for anything else, it should land here. Finally, I'm also going with Wong Kar Wai's epic The Grandmaster, which being a foreign film, is always a risk, but the film's cinematography is supposed to be prominently showcased. If not, expect Barry Ackroyd's work in Captain Phillps to get the nod.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
