Oscar 2016 - Sound Editing & Mixing

I decided to give my quick picks for this year's sound categories, although this is never easy. I'm starting to believe that's a rule to have here four common nominees for both editing & mixing, plus one different for each. I don't remember when, or if I've noticed any other nominee configuration. About the difference between editing & mixing, oh well ... let's backlink again to older references. At the next link you can find a pretty good summary of where and how the sound gets involved in a movie, and should be clear what part in which category goes: https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/film-editing-stages-sound/ . So, let's move one to the main list ...

"Bridge of Spies" is the single black sheep, or otherwise said the only case with a nomination just for mixing. The movie is nicely done, carefully put together, but I couldn't find any clip more relevant than the one below. It shows somehow the typical sound of the Cold War time. The background music, the rain outside ... In the end that's the role of a final mix: what the sound feels like ... Still, I don't see much winning chance here.
"Mad Max" wins clearly in mixing. Just if we rely on the first impression given by a track that combines a guitar rock solo with burning engines in something noisy but not annoying, and "listenable". On the editing side, the situation is more complicated ...
"The Martian" didn't catch my ear on mixing. For editing, I don't know... We have a storm, other diverse atmospheric events ... Still, what I heard did sound less complex than "Mad Max" or what's following ...
"The Revenant" is my risky pick for a winner on sound editing, very closely followed by "Mad Max" and "Star Wars". Let's just say that I was convinced again by ... the bear :) who apparently is not just a bear (details below - to watch on Vimeo, unfortunately their embedding doesn't seem to work anymore). For mixing it's good but not the best, so let's move forward ...

"Sicario" has a sound editing nomination. I didn't hear anything to impress me. It's a movie with an ok sound, as good on the effects side as many others that include bullets and explosions. However, I'd rather pick the mixing as something that deserves more attention here. But that doesn't show up in the nominees list.
"Star Wars" is closing the day with entries in both categories. And many say it'll win them. And if the editing vote is politically correct has big chances ... I prefer to keep my options above.