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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ahead of Sunday's 88th Academy Awards, Associated Press film writers Lindsey Bahr and Jake Coyle share their predictions for a ceremony that has everyone guessing:
BEST PICTURE
The Nominees: "The Big Short," ''Bridge of Spies," ''Brooklyn," ''Mad Max: Fury Road," ''The Martian," ''The Revenant," ''Room," ''Spotlight."
BAHR:
Will Win: "The Revenant's" bravado will match its awards tally.
Should Win: "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a visionary filmmaking coup of a different kind, and, unlike "The Revenant," Miller's raging road opera is the definite classic of the bunch.
Should Have Been a Contender: It still boggles the mind why Todd Haynes' period romance "Carol" was overlooked. It is filmmaking at its best.
COYLE:
Will Win: No one really knows. "The Revenant" has the momentum, but consensus is elusive. Panicked voices everywhere can be heard exclaiming "The guilds are all over the map!" In the end, I go with "The Big Short" because the Producers Guild has been the best forecaster in recent years.
Should Win: It may lack some cinematic punch, but the sturdy "Spotlight" is the closest thing we have to a new Sydney Lumet classic.
Should Have Been a Contender: "Carol" and "Creed." The absence here of Todd Haynes' majestic '50s dream is a glaring oversight. And it took too long for people to realize just how good Ryan Coogler's "Rocky" sequel is.
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BEST ACTOR
The Nominees: Bryan Cranston, "Trumbo"; Matt Damon, "The Martian"; Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Revenant"; Michael Fassbender, "Steve Jobs"; Eddie Redmayne, "The Danish Girl."
BAHR:
Will Win: DiCaprio. He had us at "raw bison."
Should Win: DiCaprio's inevitable win can be both boring and merited. If only we could guarantee that the Academy was choosing him for his actual performance and not the behind-the-scenes suffering.
Should Have Been a Contender: When did we start taking the greatness of the Tarantino/Samuel L. Jackson pairing for granted? Jackson's speechifying, Lincoln-letter carrying Union soldier in "The Hateful Eight" is a performance that will live long beyond DiCaprio's tussle with that bear.
COYLE:
Will Win: DiCaprio. It's "his year," as they say. But I would love to see what lengths his Oscar crusade would go to if he didn't win. What would he eat in his next film? What animal carcass would he sleep in?
Should Win: It's a weak year for the men. Can I pass?
Should Have Been a Contender: Michael B. Jordan of "Creed" and 2013's "Fruitvale Station" has twice been unfairly overlooked here. But what about Al Pacino as an aged rock star in "Danny Collins"? It was one of the year's most underrated films. (And that surprised me, too.)
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BEST ACTRESS
The Nominees: Cate Blanchett, "Carol"; Brie Larson, "Room"; Jennifer Lawrence, "Joy"; Charlotte Rampling, "45 Years"; Saoirse Ronan, "Brooklyn."
BAHR:
Will Win: Brie Larson. She gives about 10 incredible performances in a single film and has won everything so far.
Should Win: Obvious grit trumps nuance at the Oscars, but Charlotte Rampling tore out many a heartstring as a jealous woman in "45 Years."
Should Have Been a Contender: Bel Powley made the sexual awakening of a teenager (with her mom's adult boyfriend no less) seem neither too exploitative nor celebratory in the criminally underseen "The Diary of a Teenage Girl."
COYLE:
Will Win: Brie Larson has this in the bag. She's a terrifically natural performer and a real talent. But, for me, she was better in "Short Term 12" than in the mawkishly manipulative "Room."
Should Win: In a strong field, Cate Blanchett slips by because of the regularity of her quality. In "Carol," she's both devastating and exhilarating.
Should Have Been a Contender: Bel Powley's hip-swinging '70s San Francisco teenager in "Diary of a Teenage Girl" was a sensational breakthrough.
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BEST SUPPORING ACTOR
The Nominees: Christian Bale, "The Big Short"; Tom Hardy, "The Revenant"; Mark Ruffalo, "Spotlight"; Mark Rylance, "Bridge of Spies"; Sylvester Stallone, "Creed."
BAHR:
Will Win: Sylvester Stallone, but it'll be more about his legacy than "Creed."
Should Win: Mark Rylance made his subtlety affecting Soviet spy more lovable than Tom Hanks in "Bridge of Spies."
Should Have Been a Contender: Nicholas Hoult. It takes quite a performance to upstage the bellowing visuals of "Mad Max: Fury Road."
COYLE:
Will Win: There's potential intrigue here, but the swell around Stallone is a fitting honor for the actor who's spent three myth-making decades as Rocky Balboa.
Should Win: Mark Rylance gives "Bridge of Spies" a serene glow. The combination of him and Tom Hanks is riveting: one of the theater's greats meets one of the movies'.
Should Have Been a Contender: The thundering Idris Elba is the obvious answer for his rebel commander in "Beast of No Nation." But Michael Shannon in most things is a good answer, too, and he was in grand, imposing form in Ramin Bahrani's "99 Homes."
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BEST SUPPORING ACTRESS
The Nominees: Jennifer Jason Leigh, "The Hateful Eight"; Rooney Mara, "Carol"; Rachel McAdams, "Spotlight"; Alicia Vikander, "The Danish Girl"; Kate Winslet, "Steve Jobs."
BAHR:
Will Win: Alicia Vikander, for giving a soul to "The Danish Girl."
Should Win: Alicia Vikander, for "The Danish Girl," sure, but also as a secret nod to the scope of her work this year in both "Ex Machina" and "Testament of Youth." I swear, Jake and I did not plan this.
Should Have Been a Contender: There are few performances that have moved, entertained, and stayed with me as much as Mya Taylor's sultry transgender lounge-singing stunner did in "Tangerine."
COYLE:
Will Win: Alicia Vikander will win for "The Danish Girl," as voters honor not only her intelligent performance in that film, but a year full of standout work.
Should Win: Vikander, but for her slinky artificial intelligence in "Ex Machina."
Should Have Been a Contender: Cobie Smulders, best known for "How I Met Your Mother," ran away with Andrew Bujalski's "Results" as a comically intense personal trainer.
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BEST DIRECTOR
The Nominees: "The Big Short," Adam McKay; "Mad Max: Fury Road," George Miller; "The Revenant," Alejandro G. Inarritu; "Room," Lenny Abrahamson; "Spotlight," Tom McCarthy.
BAHR:
Will Win: Alejandro Inarritu, and it'll be deserved and an incredible achievement.
Should Win: George Miller, and it will also be deserved.
Should Have Been a Contender: There are so many this year — Ridley Scott ("The Martian") and Todd Haynes ("Carol") among them — but I would like to have seen Sean Baker in here for his incredibly inventive and utterly engaging "Tangerine."
COYLE:
Will Win: The Inarritu repeat seems to be in effect. "The Revenant" isn't shy about its filmmaking, but Inarritu's audacious long shots and ravishing frontier wilderness offer a quality hard to come by: the awe of something not seen before.
Should Win: George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a crazy puzzle of a movie trying to stretch the language of film just like "The Revenant," but in opposite directions: with rapid cutting and feverish surrealism.
Should Have Been a Contender: Andrew Haigh's "45 Years" earned a nod for Charlotte Rampling and acclaim for her co-star, Tom Courtenay. But neither would have been possible without the acutely observant eye of Haigh.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Republican Jeb Bush ended his campaign for the presidency Saturday after a disappointing finish in South Carolina, acknowledging a failure to harness the hopes of Republican voters angry at the political establishment.
The former Florida governor and political scion told supporters in Columbia that he'd tried to stay true to what he believes. Still, he was lagging far behind in the primary in South Carolina, where his well-organized campaign was outmatched by insurgent billionaire Donald Trump, and Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
"I'm proud of the campaign that we've run to unify our country and to advocate conservative solutions," a visibly emotional Bush said. "The presidency is bigger than any one person. It's certainly bigger than any one candidate."
The son of George H. W. Bush and brother of George W. Bush entered the race to huge expectations in June, and quickly fueled them with fundraising. Working with a super PAC that has supported his candidacy, Bush and allies raised more than $150 million by the end of 2015 — far more than any of his GOP rivals.
However, Bush's presence in the race and fundraising potential wasn't enough to dissuade more than a dozen other Republicans from entering the race, including fellow Floridian, Sen. Marco Rubio.
Fundraising reports filed Saturday night show how dire Bush's financial situation had become.
His big-money super PAC raised just $379,000 in January, and most of that was from a single donor who'd also given the same amount to rival Marco Rubio. The group, Right to Rise, had blown through more than $85 million over the past nine months, largely on TV ads, bashing other candidates, most notably Rubio.
Meanwhile, Bush's official campaign — which provided basic funding for his travel and political staff — had less than $3 million in available cash as the month began. He had only been able to raise $1.6 million in January, despite a once-sprawling donor network.
Bush's failure to ignite was not simply a factor of the size of the GOP field. Bush, like others, was caught off-guard by the durable popularity of political outsiders — particularly Trump.
"I firmly believe the American people must entrust this office to someone who understands that whoever holds it is a servant, not the master," Bush said as he withdrew from the race on Saturday.
The final stage of Bush's campaign became an all-out bout with the outspoken real estate mogul — the two frequently referring to each other as a "loser." Bush took shots at Trump's lack of experience while Trump attacked Bush's family legacy, particularly the unpopular Iraq war waged by his brother George W. Bush.
Bush, meanwhile, offered himself as an experienced public executive and potential world statesman informed in part by his father's and brother's wartime presidencies. But it wasn't a case strong enough to translate into votes.
"I just don't see a third Bush presidency," Julie Michau of Beaufort, South Carolina, said Wednesday after attending a Bush event.
There were other problems as well. The policy-oriented Bush was overshadowed in early debates by Trump and Rubio, which dramatically slowed his early autumn fundraising.
Bush went on to finish sixth in the Iowa caucuses, but barely squeezed ahead of Rubio in New Hampshire for a fourth place finish. South Carolina was viewed as a last early voting state for Bush to make a mark.
Having previously kept his family at arm's length, Bush brought all family ties to the forefront ahead of South Carolina, where his father and brother both won primaries as they pursued the presidency. Ultimately, it wasn't enough.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's unorthodox bid to win the Republican presidential nomination has some distinctly traditional trappings: offices and employees across the country.
Trump, the winner in two of the first three states in the presidential primary season, has long been laying the groundwork for more victories in March, when two dozen states go to the polls, new campaign finance reports show.
In January, his campaign had roughly 100 people on its payroll and a scattershot of field consultants and offices from Alabama to Texas, giving him a head start on connecting with voters as the primary calendar intensifies.
"I think we're going to do terrific," Trump said Saturday night in South Carolina, looking ahead to March. "We expect to do very, very well."
Trump's efforts are disclosed in his campaign finance report filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission. The records provided by all the campaigns covered fundraising and spending in January, and do not capture any activities in the first three weeks of this month.
The billionaire Trump has vowed to spend "whatever it takes" to lock up the GOP nomination. He has so far invested about $17.5 million into his bid, a fraction of what most of the other candidates are spending.
But Trump has been able to pump money into employees and offices in part because he saves cash in important ways: He doesn't do traditional fundraising, which can be pricey, and has done far less advertising than is typical for a leading presidential candidate.
The robustness of Trump's field operation as outlined in the January fundraising reports looks more like that of Democrats Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton than any of his four Republican competitors.
At the beginning of the year, Trump had more salaried campaign employees than Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom he has identified as his two closest competitors. In addition, Trump had at least 17 paid field consultants in states beyond the first four to vote, a network that touched Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
And his campaign was already paying for office space in eight states that vote in March. Sanders and Clinton each had a presence in at least a dozen states voting in March, their January campaign finance reports showed.
"We need your help to guarantee a huge victory for Mr. Trump," read a recent email from Trump's paid Virginia state director, Mike Rubino. "We're asking that you reach at least 25 new voters a day — every day — until the election in one of 2 very easy ways: Walking or Talking."
The email includes addresses for four call-center offices open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day of the week, with additional locations open in the evenings.
Other Republicans — perhaps focused on notching a win in one of the four February voting states — didn't appear to be thinking much about March back in January, that month's financial reports show.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich had two offices in March states (including one in his home state), Rubio one and Cruz none, though his campaign headquarters is in Houston, where voters weigh in March 1.
Rubio's campaign said it will open a Georgia office on Monday, and earlier hung its shingle in Birmingham, Alabama, and Maple Grove, Minnesota.
Rubio's campaign — which appeared to have no March state field staff in January — is now redeploying people from Iowa and New Hampshire. Among the recent hires is Chip Englander, who had been Rand Paul's presidential campaign manager. Based in Ohio, he'll oversee Rubio's efforts in the Midwest.
Cruz's campaign showed payments to a handful of strategists in March-voting states, including Michigan.
The campaign finance reports show Kasich and Rubio had little cash to work with in January: They started the month with $1.5 million and $5 million, respectively. Both insist they can pick up new donations after former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ended his presidential bid on Saturday. Cruz had $13.6 million at the beginning of February.
With so many states on the cusp of voting, presidential campaigns typically rely on television commercials as a way to spread their message far and wide.
Trump put about $10 million into his advertising plan for the first four states. That's less than the $17 million Rubio's campaign has put into television and radio ads, advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG shows.
Cruz is spending a bit less than Trump on TV, but has counted on outside groups to chip in for him with favorable commercials.
Here again, Trump may have an edge: He has sworn off big-money help — from anyone other than himself.
That means he can continue his pay-as-you-go campaign finance strategy while the other candidates either must spend time fundraising for their campaigns, or hope a wealthy donor decides to give big to an outside money group that will lend a hand.