Oscar 2015 - Sound Editing & Mixing

I keep writing every year about the difference between sound editing and mixing. So, I'll take a break from that for 2015 (since again I'm rushing to finish this entry) and I'll refer to more detailed info to last year's post (you can find it indexed also in the month of February, but of course Anno Domini 2014). Now, the nominees ...

It's always said that in sound sections the favorites are the war movies. I'd give a nuance here, and more precisely I would agree with that but only for editing, and not also on mixing, because what gives an edge in this case is what's related to sound effects and their processing. And to confirm the nuance, without further ado I'll give "American Sniper" as favorite this year on sound editing. As a small argument, let's consider the clip below, for as long it will hold on YouTube. So, with editing we're pretty much done, but on the mixing side the discussion is still open ...
"Birdman", nominated on both sections seems to be present on editing just to fill up the list. For mixing, however, the situation is quite interesting, because what we have here is an attempt to supplement the continuous frame we see (we'll talk more about it in cinematography) with a final mix, that syncs in percussion highs, in volume cuts, or other sequences like that. Not that this is something abnormal, but what we hear tries at least as I said to give the sensation of a final unique track which "moves" along the camera. Still, doesn't seem enough ...
The last "Hobbit" managed to snatch a nomination on sound editing. Which seems to be granted more to ... let's say not to seem that the movie passed completely unnoticed at this year's Oscars. Enough comments on that.
Although the clip below seems more centered on editing than on mixing, "Interstellar" is a movie with a brilliant final mix. It's true that I might be influenced by the soundtrack which is ranked separately, but even leving that aside, I think I'd still risk naming it as winner here. Well, as usual, despite that we have a musical among the nominees, I think this section is much harder to predict than editing, so we'll se if it gets the statue or not ...
"Unbroken" is the second war movie with a double nomination on sound sections, but despite all praise it got in the extensive presentation below I can't say that my humble ears heard something that can be ranked above "decent". So ...
The last nominee is "Whiplash". Just for mixing. And as any musical it implicitly ranks high in chances here. The difference, however, to others (e.g., "Les Miserables") would be that in this case we don't have an actual pure musical, but more a drama with a lot of jazz. So ... as I said, the mixing award is hard to predict :) and I hope for another winner, which I think deserves it more.