Oscar-Night Predictions

I have changed my mind a lot about all of these since the nominations came out, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. And I'm sort of delighted about how few of these I feel truly confident about. I'm really in it for the surprises, as I always say. But in any case, here's who I think is going to win:

• Best Picture: Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
• Best Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
• Best Original Screenplay: Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Best Supporting Actor: JK Simmons, Whiplash
• Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
• Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Best Film Editing: Sandra Adair, Boyhood
• Best Original Score: Jóhann Jóhannson, The Theory of Everything
• Best Foreign Language Film: Ida

• Best Production Design: Adam Stockhausen & Anna Pinnock, The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Best Costume Design: Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Best Documentary Feature: Citizenfour
• Best Documentary Short Film: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
• Best Animated Feature: How to Train Your Dragon 2
• Best Animated Short Film: Feast
• Best Live-action Short Film: The Phone Call
• Best Visual Effects: Interstellar
• Best Sound Mixing: Craig Mann & Ben Wilkins & Thomas Curley, Whiplash
• Best Sound Editing: Alan Robert Murray & Bub Asman, American Sniper
• Best Make-up and Hair: Frances Hannon & Mark Coulier, The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Best Original Song: John Legend & Common, Selma

As for who I am rooting for?  
Grand Budapest Hotel, Ida, Selma, Whiplash, and The Dam Keeper all the way.
Anything that any of those films win will make me very, very happy.

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 12 of 12 (Live-action Shorts)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11.
Part 12 of 12:

The Phone Call

1 Nomination

• Live-action Short Film

Director: Mat Kirkby

Cast: Sally Hawkins, Jim Broadbent, Edward Hogg, Prunella Scales

I had read somewhere, I think, that the live-action shorts this year were all downers. Not so! In fact, not one of them is a downer as far as I can tell. I honestly and truly loved them all, and have good things to say about each one. I'm beginning here with the surefire winner of this year's award, The Phone Call. The film stars Sally Hawkins and she is excellent as a crisis-center worker who answers a phone call from a man in distress. It's a lovely little film with a tense pace, but not too much actually to say in the end. Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the movie. It has a beautifully sweet ending, but it isn't nearly as intriguing or complicated as the other four films. In any case, this is still very good, and it's hard to begrudge it its win.

Will Win: Live-action Short Film

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Boogaloo and Graham

1 Nomination

• Live-action Short Film

Director: Michael Lennox

Cast: Marty McCann, Charlene McKenna, Riley Hamilton, Aaron Lynch, Jonathan Harden

Boogaloo and Graham are two chickens, pets to young Jamesy and Malachy, who are living in Northern Ireland in 1978. Everything about this movie says that we are on our way toward tragedy, but Boogaloo and Graham, with its distinctly non-tragic title, doesn't go there. Instead, this is a lovely story about the sacrifice that a father makes so that his two sons can be happy. It's heartwarming and quirky, and the better for all of that. And it uses the Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers hit "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" liberally. That song always makes me smile.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Live-action Short Film

My Rating: Not ranked

Aya (איה)

1 Nomination

• Live-action Short Film

Director: Oded Binnun, Mihal Brezis

Cast: Sarah Adler, Ulrich Tomsen

Binnum and Brezis's almost-feature-length film is about a woman who winds up driving a man from Ben Gurion into Jerusalem. The two people connect in an intriguing way and their conversation and awkwardness are fascinating. Sarah Adler herself gives an inscrutable, complex performance, and the film gazes at her mystery, trying to figure her out. This isn't a film with easy answers about what we ought to do when we feel unhappy or trapped; instead, it opens up possibilities. But the things that happen when we follow down roads that are not planned are not always magical, and Aya doesn't think that they are; instead the movie just lets the weirdness occur.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Parvaneh

1 Nomination

• Live-action Short Film

Director: Talkhon Hamzavi

Cast: Nissa Kashani, Cheryl Graf, Brigitte Beyeler, Alireza Bayram

Parvaneh is charming and small. It's about an Afghani woman working in Switzerland illegally who is attempting to send money back to Afghanistan to help her mother with her father's medical bills. Parvaneh herself is played beautifully by Nissa Kashani, and her interactions with people and the terror she feels dealing with the city of Zürich are palpable in the film. I spent nearly the entirety of the film worrying about her – who is going to steal this girl's money, when is she accidentally going to murder someone, why would anyone try to hurt this girl? But Parvaneh ends up being about friendship and communication, and the little it costs to be kind and helpful.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Butter Lamp (དཀར་མེ་)

1 Nomination

• Live-action Short Film

Director: Hu Wei

Cast: Genden Punstock

This was my favorite of the short films. Hu's film is made from a single perspective. We watch a photographer take pictures of Nepalese families. It is a simple conceit, but a powerful one that functions as a portrait of a mountain village. It's smart and clever and I loved it as much for its intelligence and care as I did for the ways that the film's subjects stared right at the camera. This is not anthropology, and the film doesn't ask us to feel sorry for its subjects or to feel anything at all. But here they are, staring at me. This year's least sentimental short film will surely be the least favorite among Academy members (they are so predictable) but it was definitely my favorite.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 11 of 12 (Animated Shorts)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10.
Part 11 of 12:

Feast

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Patrick Osborne

Cast: Tommy Snider

This adorable film about man's best friend is the easy favorite to win. It played in front of Disney's (equally great) Big Hero 6, and if it is heteronormative and very Los Angeles, it is also gorgeously animated with a great soundtrack and the cutest central character this side of How to Train Your Dragon 2. Look for Feast to win the Oscar like John Kars' Paperman did two years ago. Although, honestly, this is the third year in a row I am predicting Disney for the win, last year Disney lost to the better film, Mr. Hublot. In any case, this year Feast might technically be the best of these animated shorts, even if it isn't my favorite. I should note that Feast is not a part of the Animated Shorts program that is for rent on iTunes and other places.

Will Win: Animated Short Film

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

The Dam Keeper

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Robert Kondo, Tsutsumi Daisuke

Cast: Lars Mikkelsen

This is my favorite of the nominees. It is, first of all, a little film that is obsessed with light and the ability to illustrate and animate light. This is the tale of a small pig who is mercilessly teased and bullied at his school. They are so mean to this little pig. And he is a depressed young kid who is doing his best to get through the day. The film plays with reality, though. After we have sat with the film for seven or eight minutes, it becomes difficult to be sure about what is "real" in the world of the movie and what is a kind of figuring of the pig's emotional state. The Dam Keeper is about being sad and the ways that the darkness can become too much for us. It's just lovely. This is a must-see, although all of the nominated shorts this year are very very good.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

A Single Life

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Marieke Blaauw, Joris Oprins, Job Roggeveen

This is perfect. It's the shortest of this year's nominees. I don't even think it comes in at three minutes long, but that is exactly part of what A Single Life is doing. This is not a movie about being single. It is a movie about one single life. And the brevity of the film is necessary to the way the film is about the brevity of life itself. It's just so great. The main character is going along just fine in her life until a phonograph record arrives that controls her life. It is her life. And she plays the phonograph. The life is over that quickly, but this is not a sentimental approach to life. It is a humorous, mocking treatment of the theme, and the main character never quite grasps what's happening. It reminded me of my own life. Oh shit! It's happening. Life is happening. And now it's done.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

The Bigger Picture

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Daisy Jacobs

Cast: Christopher Nightingale, Alisdair Simpson, Anne Cunningham

This was my favorite. Wait. I can't say that because I already said The Dam Keeper was my favorite. Ok. Well, I loved this one too. Mostly I want to say that I loved this one because of how deeply I identified with the main character. This film had me in tears by the end of its very short length. It is themed similarly to The Judge, but The Bigger Picture approaches the theme from a realistic, fascinating point of view, where frustration with one's aging parents is part of one's love for them. No dramatics are needed; this film always takes the bigger picture, laughing at the struggles it portrays and describing real humanity. An excellent little film.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Me and My Moulton

1 Nomination

• Animated Short Film

Director: Torill Kove

Cast: Andrea Bræin Hovig

The least interesting of the five films is still really really good. Me and My Moulton, like The Dam Keeper is also about a child and also about drawing as an artistic outlet for personal troubles. This film is a lovely portrait of a young girl figuring out how to be happy with her strange Norwegian parents who are modernist architects. She feels strange and different from all of the other people in her town, and she resents her parents for that. The parents really aren't perfect, but the main character learns to make things work in any case. This is charming. But Feast is the only film that can win this Oscar.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 10 of 12

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9.
Part 10 of 12:

Leviathan (Левиафан)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Picture: Russia (12, The Thief, Prisoner of the Mountains, Burnt by the Sun, Close to Eden)

Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev

Cast: Elena Lyadova, Aleskey Srebryakov, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Roman Madyanov, Ann Ukolova, Sergey Pokhadaev, Aleksey Rozin

I cannot wait to see this movie. But my local art house theatre (which is, ahem, an hour away) has had it listed on the website as "Coming Soon" since the new year. For some reason, it is always on its way and refuses to arrive. In any case, Dartmouth will screen it on March 5th and I plan to be there. I know other people are predicting Argentina's Wild Tales to win this award, but I am actually expecting Leviathan to win. This is a very, very important movie in Russian cinema – there has been talk of it being banned – and Russian politics are incendiary right now. Watch the trailer. It looks astounding.

Will Win: Foreign Language Picture

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not Ranked

Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Picture: Argentina (The Secret in Their Eyes, The Son of the Bride, Tango, The Official Story, Camila, The Truce) 

Director: Damián Szifrón
Cast: Ricardo Darín, Darío Grandinetti, María Marull, Leonardo Sbaraglia

When this played at Telluride I was forced to miss it (because my parents were visiting – should've made them come with me), so not seeing this before the Oscars is a bitter pill that I will have to swallow. This is, by all accounts, also a deliciously bitter film about revenge. It stars almost all of the big Argentinian movie stars (including Ricardo Darín, who has been in the last two of Argentina's nominees. Everyone says this is the favorite, and you should probably believe them. This is supposed to be quite fun, and its structure (six short segments) will make watching quite easy.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Foreign Language Film

My Rating: Not Ranked

Mandariinid (Tangerines)

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Estonia

Director: Zaza Urushadze

Cast: Lembit Ulfsak, Giorgi Nakashidze, Elmo Nüganen, Mikheil Meskhi, Raivo Trass

This is Estonia's first nomination in this category! Tangerines is a Georgian–Estonian co-production by Georgian director Urushadze and it is lovely. An old man is living in a deserted area of Georgia/Chechnya with only one or two neighbors. The area is abandoned because of the soldiers roaming the area. The film is about the war in Georgia in 1990, and it is an economic, quiet film about the war's effects on the young men who are forced to fight in it and the situations that demand that they kill one another. Tangerines is beautifully acted with remarkably strained performances and by the end of this short movie (only 87 minutes) I found myself deeply moved. This is great stuff.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Released in 2015

Timbuktu

1 Nomination

• Foreign Language Film: Mauritania

Director: Abderrahmane Sissako

Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed dit Pino, Fatoumata Diawara, Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Layla Walet Mohamed, Mehdi A.G. Mohamed, Hichem Yacoubi, Kettly Noël, Adel Mahmoud Cherif

Another first-time nominee, this was also Mauritania's first submission to the category. Very exciting. This is (yet another) one that I haven't seen, and it won't be winning the Oscar, so I will just comment here on a theory I have begun to develop about this category. You probably know that the governments of  individual countries each submit a single film to the Academy, so that the eventual nominees are the nations themselves and not the directors or producers. This year there were a record 83 submissions – i.e. 83 films that are likely better than The Judge – and so five nominees is way too few to really honor the awesomeness of non-USAmerican films. To make it worse, every year the Academy leaves really good films off the final list of five. This year, most egregiously, the Academy did not nominate Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure, Zeresenay Berhane Mehari's Difret, and Stefan Haupt's The Circle. But this will have to be the case every year, because, as I said, 83 films, 5 slots. To put that in perspective, let me just note that 20 films were submitted for Animated Feature's 5 slots. But I've started to feel a little more philosophical about the ludicrousness of this category, and about the Academy's strange taste when it comes to films in foreign languages. I am planning on seeing all of the films by filmmakers I know and love – the Dardennes, Xavier Dolan, David Trueba, Nuri Bilge Ceylan – so if they don't get nominated, what happens is that I end up seeing the films I planned on seeing and then also seeing the nominated films, like Timbuktu and Tangerines. This is pretty much a win-win for me, as I see it.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Released in 2015

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 9 of 12

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8.
Part 9 of 12:

The Lego Movie

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Shawn Patterson

Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Cast: Chris Pratt, Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, Liam Neeson, Keegen-Michael Key, Jonah Hill, Charlie Day, Shaquille O'Neal, Channing Tatum

I don't get it. I mean, I know that everyone was, like, really mad that this got "snubbed" for Best Animated Feature, but why? The Lego Movie is a movie that is designed to sell a product – and I don't just mean The Lego Movie itself but more Legos – and if this isn't totally clear to you watching the film, the DVD helpfully contains a commercial for LegoLAND. The film itself is premised upon the idea that what we all really need to do is throw away the directions and start building things based upon our own imaginations. This is what the so-called Master Builders in the film do. But if the movie pretends to be against conformity, it preaches it all the same, asking us to buy more Legos, and, by the end of the film, telling us just how much fun conformity can be. (If the female protagonist initially says she hates the song "Everything Is Awesome", both she and the male protagonist admit to loving this bit of conformist culture at the film's end.) Being just like everyone else isn't so bad, as long as you can pretend otherwise. "I'm just like everyone else, too, but don't tell anyone." Also the phrase "piece of resistance", a pun on the phrase pièce de résistance must've been uttered upwards of fifty times. It was driving me crazy.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #75 out of 80

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Glen Campbell & Julian Raymond

Director: James Keach
Cast: Glen Campbell

I haven't seen this yet, but the song is pretty incredible when you understand the story of the documentary. Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and the film documents his farewell tour. In the nominated song "I'm Not Gonna Miss You", he sings "You're the last person I will love / You're the last face I will recall / Best of all / I'm not gonna miss you / Not gonna miss you." Pretty moving lyrics, if you ask me, and I'm looking forward to this film, despite my usual lack of interest in documentaries.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not Ranked

Begin Again

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Gregg Alexander & Danielle Brisebois

Director: John Carney

Cast: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, James Corden, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Mos Def, Catherine Keener, Cee Lo Green

This is charming! First of all, it's a romantic comedy in which the two lead characters are not romantically involved. They revolve around one another, and spend their time together, but romance between the two of them is never really a topic of the film. It's fascinating... and refreshing. The performances are cute, the premise is cute, and the whole thing is fun and well done. And James Corden is so funny! He wins in every single one of his scenes. This is fun stuff. I am not ranking it as, like, one of the best films of the year or anything – it's quite a slight little thing – but Begin Again is good at what it is doing, and it's nominated song "Lost Stars" is a central part of the film. It's a good nomination.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #49 out of 80

Beyond the Lights

1 Nomination

• Original Song: Diane Warren (Pearl Harbor, Music of the Heart, Armageddon, Con Air, Up Close & Personal, Mannequin)

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood

Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nate Parker, Minnie Driver, Richard Colson Baker, Danny Glover, Darryl Stephens, Elaine Tan, Isaac Keys, Tyler Christopher, Benito Martinez

I honestly have no idea what this is about, but I am imagining it's about the pressures of being a star (wake up baby, a star is a slave). Nate Parker is an actor I love, so I am kind of excited about this, but I missed it when it played here because there was a ridiculous snowstorm on the only day it played in Hanover. So I will have to wait to see Beyond the Lights until after the Oscar ceremony. As for Diane Warren, you can see above that all of her nominations have been for ridiculously poppy (if hugely popular) songs. They've all been big hits on the radio – "Music of My Heart" for 'NSync and Gloria Estefan, "There You'll Be" for Faith Hill, "How Do I Live" for Trisha Yearwood and LeAnn Rimes, "Because You Loved Me" for Céline Dion, "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" for Aerosmith, and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" for Starship. But have you heard this Beyond the Lights song on the radio? It's called "Grateful" and it's a saccharine mess.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not Yet Rated

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 8 of 12 (Animated Features)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7.
Part 8 of 12:

How to Train Your Dragon 2

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Dean DeBlois

Cast: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Djimon Hounsou, Kristin Wiig, T.J. Miller, Kit Harington

This was just so dang cute, and the dragon who is the star of these films is so gorgeously designed that when he's on screen it is impossible to look at anything else. He's sleek and lovable and charming and who wouldn't want one for her very own? The movie itself is exciting, too. There are hundreds of new species of beautifully drawn dragons, and the plot is moving and sweet without being cloying or absurd. I expect this to win this year, even though I liked Big Hero 6 slightly more. For those of you who want me to say something about The Lego Movie's big snub here, read on.

Will Win: Animated Feature

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #26 out of 80

Big Hero 6

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Don Hall, Chris Williams
Cast: Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Maya Rudolph, Daniel Henney, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell, T.J. Miller, Genesis Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr., Jamie Chung

I loved this movie. It's smart and exciting, and beautifully shot. It is also a straight-up action movie, even though it is a movie for kids. And it's filled with science, so that kids can understand just how much fun science can be – and even more, how great it would be if we were using science to do good in the world instead of simply attempting to make more money. The characters are wonderful, and the main creation (his name is Baemax) is lovable and huggable (see above) and is perfectly voiced by Scott Adsit. This is an excellent film. I should say that my favorite animated film of the year was Ari Folman's The Congress, which isn't animated for its entire length, (so I guess it doesn't count?), but this is my favorite of the nominees for sure, and one of my favorite films this year.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Feature

My Rating: #17 out of 80

Song of the Sea

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Tomm Moore

Cast: Lucy O'Connell, David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Fionnula Flanagan, Pat Shortt, Lisa Hannigan, Jon Kenny

This is the first of this year's nominees that I haven't seen. Ho hum. It just never played up here in the hinterlands, and it was in Los Angeles too early for me to have seen it there. This was animated by the same folks that brought us The Secret of Kells (also a nominee, for the 2009 season), and by all accounts it is beautiful and everyone loves it. Its appearance on nomination morning was a surprise to many (although not to me), because almost everyone was betting that The Lego Movie would get a nomination for Best Animated Feature. Why everyone liked The Lego Movie is a bit of a mystery to me, but it should have been quite clear that it couldn't have gotten a nomination. It isn't stop-motion animation at all. It's a kind of hybrid thing that pretends to be stop-motion but is actually traditionally animated. The Animation Branch does not value strangely animated pictures: remember The Adventures of Tintin? Or Waking Life? It does love traditional, beautiful, and especially hand-drawn work, which Song of the Sea certainly is. This could win in an upset.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: Animated Feature

My Rating: Not Yet Rated

The Boxtrolls

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi

Cast: Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, Ben Kingsley, Jared Harris, Dee Bradley Baker

I was sort of bored by this. Its themes are very similar to last year's Ernest et Célestine, and it just wasn't as visually intriguing as I wanted it to be. It's cute and charming in a grotesque sort of way (its grotesquerie is definitely part of its attraction), but it is never really more than that. And its plot is sentimental and clichéd. I was disappointed. It's a shame because I really liked Jorge R. Gutierrez's The Book of Life, and it could have had this slot. It was imaginative and beautiful, and the plot was intriguing and clever and had a healthy ironic perspective on itself. Oh well.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #60 out of 80

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語)

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Takahata Isao

Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Darren Criss, Lucy Liu, Beau Bridges, James Marsden, Oliver Platt, Dean Cain, Daniel Dae Kim, George Segal, John Cho

This was another bit of a disappointment. I've written about this movie already here; its animation is lovely, but the story just isn't that intriguing. One sort of knows how it is going to go before we ever get anywhere. It's an old tale, so that makes a kind of sense, but it just reiterates old clichés about living in the woods and not living in the city, and that we ought to let our children be what they want to be instead of forcing them to be what we want them to be. Important sentiments, no doubt, but not sentiments that need to be told in a film that is longer than two hours.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #53 out of 80

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 7 of 12

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.
Part 7 of 12:

Captain America: the Winter Soldier

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Cast: Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, Cobie Smulders, Maximiliano Hernández

This was really fun. It is so much better than the first Captain America movie, mostly because this movie has a lot of action. In the visual effects department there is just so much. Gigantic set pieces and flying buildings, and Anthony Mackie is something called Falcon and he flies around Washington DC like a badass. It's all very cool. I am sort of surprised this movie wasn't nominated for more things, but I take it that the Academy is not really into the whole Marvel-as-studio thing. This is perhaps not surprising, since they are sort of snobby, but Marvel is making tons and tons of money and giving a lot of people work. The Academy should get hip, especially if the movies are as good as this one was.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #43 out of 80

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Matt Reeves

Cast: Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Keri Russell, Nick Thurston, Kirk Acevedo, Judy Greer, Terry Notary, Doc Shaw

Yeah, this is very good. This is a good series with lots of big ideas. And this movie, like the last one, also dealt with real and interesting issues about humanity, racism, and animal rights. I wrote a little mini-essay on it when I first saw this movie back in July. I liked Dawn of the Planet of the Apes a good deal more than I liked more "important" movies this year – it's higher on my list than six of the Best Picture nominees, for example. This movie is excellent, and everyone should see it. It's exciting and powerful and imaginative and will ask you to use your brain. As for visual effects, this movie really works because of the humans who are digitally captured performing as apes. The effects people on these movies are doing insanely good work. This is great stuff.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #30 out of 80

X-men: Days of Future Past

1 Nomination

• Visual Effects

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Peter Dinklag, Ian McKellen, Nicholas Hoult, Halle Berry, Evan Peters.

This was awful. I don't want to complain about it anymore, though. My review is here. And the visual effects, particularly in the Quicksilver sequence that is pictured above, are really great. So this nomination is deserved. I want these movies to be better. I think that's the real issue with everything X-men. I love the X-men; have since I was a kid. And I just want these movies to sort of rock instead of being sentimental and schmaltzy. Use your powers and be a badass and stop moping around.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #69 out of 80

The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies

1 Nomination

• Sound Effects Editing

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Lee Pace, Richard Armitage, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, Aidan Turner, Dean O'Gorman, Evangeline Lilly, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Stephen Fry

How the mighty have fallen! Like this dragon in the image above, who dies within the film's first twenty minutes, this final episode of The Hobbit series simply peters out, rather than being anything interesting. It's sad because The Lord of the Rings series is so delightful, but The Hobbit series is painful. They look like they are the same but they are manifestly not the same. I have gone over my feelings about this movie in detail here, so I won't go through any of that again, but the absurdity of this film is almost incomprehensible. Who knew that an excellent little piece of literature like Tolkien's original novel could be this dumbed down?
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #76 out of 80

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 6 of 12

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.
Part 6 of 12:

Nightcrawler

1 Nomination

• Original Screenplay: Dan Gilroy

Director: Gilroy

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed, Rene Russo, Michael Hyatt, Price Carson, Bill Paxton, Sharon Tay, Pat Harvey

Smart, vicious satire, a Network for 2015, although this film is not intended to be funny – it feels all too real, not distant and absurd the way that Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet's film did in 1976. Gyllenhaal is great in this, and he was close to getting a Best Actor nomination, but it was a very crowded category this year, and the Academy didn't nominate David Oyelowo for Selma, so Gyllenhaal's chances always seemed slim to me. Nightcrawler is too small a picture for the Academy, it seems to me, although it is a very "Los Angeles" film, and I'm sure that gained it some points with viewers. Better yet, the acting is stellar. Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed are just excellent. This Oscar nomination for writer-director Gilroy means that lots more people are going to see his movie, and that is good news for everyone. It's a picture that deserves the notice it's getting. It's creepy and disturbing and seat-of-your-pants tense.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #32 out of 80

The Judge

1 Nomination

• Supporting Actor: Robert Duvall (A Civil Action, The Apostle, Tender Mercies, The Great Santini, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather)

Director: David Dobkin

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Duvall, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Vera Farmiga, Billy Bob Thornton, Dax Shepard, Emma Tremblay, Leighton Meester, David Krumholtz, Lonnie Farmer

I'm going to state here and now that The Judge is the worst movie of the year. This movie thinks its audience is so stupid. I found this unbearable. It's stupid sequence after stupid sequence. We're supposed to love this judge who (as far as I can tell) is an actual murderer, a terrible father, and an awful person. Worse yet, we're supposed to believe that this adorable town that is functioning as a movie set here is actually a small town in Indiana. Every bit of it looks like New England, except for the CGI cornfields, of course. I can't even remember why I hated this as much as I did. But I will try: for some reason a hotshot lawyer who hates his father feels guilted into taking care of this father of his (who literally never stops being an asshole). I am not sure why Hollywood feels intent on trying to convince us that it would be really awesome to live in a small town in the midwest, but I see this all the time in the movies and can't understand it. In The Judge, they want to convince me that the midwest is so great that they've shot the whole thing in New England. Anyway, whatever. Hardened, crusty, curmudgeon of a father finally tells his kid he's proud of him after years of being a total asshole. Wow. Zzzz. And the son is supposed to have learned... what? I'm not sure. I couldn't have cared less. Every bit of this movie is preposterous.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #80 out of 80

Maleficent

1 Nomination

• Costume Design: Jane Clive & Anna B. Sheppard (The Pianist, Schindler's List)

Director: Robert Stromberg

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Sharlto Copley, Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, Juno Temple, Brenton Thwaites, Isobelle Molloy, Michael Higgins, Ella Purnell, Jackson Bews

This wasn't terrible or anything, but it wasn't great, either, and it turned the fabulously evil Maleficent into a copy of Elphaba the Green Wicked Witch of the West in the musical Wicked. "Wicked" could only be used ironically to describe the Maleficent in this movie, who is apparently a goody-two-shoes and not evil at all. Angelina Jolie is perfectly cast, but the script is terrible and the movie never manages to compete with the awesome 1959 film. I've already complained about this film at length, so I won't retread all of that, but this movie ends up being a kind of amalgam of Wicked and Frozen. The costumes really are pretty fabulous, so I'm glad they got some love her. (Incidentally, the Costume Designers branch really has been choosing great films these days; I'm delighted that they've taken to honoring fantasy films in this category. It shows a delightful lack of snobbery and an appreciation for real invention.)
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #65 out of 80

Oscar Nominees 2015: Part 5 of 12

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.
Part 5 of 12:

Guardians of the Galaxy

2 Nominations

• Visual Effects
• Makeup

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoë Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, John C. Reilly, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Glenn Close, Karen Gillan, Benicio Del Toro

This was an awesome movie and I loved it. I loved all of its jokes; I loved the way it sent up the seriousness (unintentional campiness) of the Marvel universe; I loved Zoë Saldana; but most of all I loved Chris Pratt. Now, I know everyone loves Chris Pratt these days so this is not any big news or anything, but he is just so lovable! As for Guardians of the Galaxy itself, its use of '80s music, and its interest in anti-heroism make it fun and action-oriented without any of the deadly sentimentalism and nobility we have come to expect from Marvel Studios movies. I can't recommend this enough. It's one of the best action movies of the year.

Will Win: Makeup

Could Win: Visual Effects

My Rating: #33 out of 78

Still Alice

1 Nomination

• Actress: Julianne Moore (The Hours, Far from Heaven, The End of the Affair, Boogie Nights)

Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland

Cast: Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, Stephen Kunken, Shane McRae, Erin Drake

Julianne Moore is finally going to win an Oscar. And it is about time. She has been nominated four times before (and got close to winning in 2003 for Far from Heaven), but this time it is for real. And one of the things that's great about this is that Still Alice is such a good movie. This isn't a picture that was especially tricked out so that Moore could win awards, this is a sensitive, well-made picture directed by the independent-film directing team who made The Fluffer and Quinceañera. In any case, I loved this movie, and I loved Julianne Moore in it, and I even loved K-Stew.
Will Win: Actress

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #21 out of 78

Gone Girl

1 Nomination

• Actress: Rosamund Pike

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Ben Affleck, Pike, Carrie Coon, Neil Patrick Harris, Kim Dickens, Missi Pyle, Patrick Fugit, Tyler Perry, Lola Kirke, Boyd Holbrook, Sela Ward, Emily Ratajkowski, David Clennon, Lisa Banes, Casey Wilson

A badass thriller that I found totally shocking at times. This is also a really interesting feminist film about the ways that women are forced to behave in certain ways and become objects that men can love ("cool girls", the film calls them). But the best part of Gone Girl is watching the nooses tighten around people's necks, watching the plots thicken, and the pleasure of squirming in your seat while someone does something you know is going to turn out really, really poorly. This is a well-shot, well-acted, exquisitely scripted tough-as-nails picture that got totally fucking ignored by the Academy for reasons I don't really understand. Was it too sexy for them? Too much about their television-addled lives? Too hard on its male characters? In any case, Rosamund Pike got a deserved nomination here, even though the film's director, screenwriter, composers, cinematographer, and editor all also deserved nominations. This is one of the great fuckups of this year by the Academy, if you ask me. This movie isn't in my top ten (there are too many good movies this year – not that Oscar is paying attention to many of those) but I know quality when I see it, and this deserved better. It's excellent.
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #14 out of 78

Deux Jours, Une Nuit (Two Days, One Night)

1 Nomination

• Actress: Marion Cotillard (La Môme)

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Cast: Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salée, Baptiste Sornin, Timur Magomedgadzhiev, Christelle Cornil, Myriem Akheddiou, Olivier Gourmet, Serge Koto, 

One of the year's absolute best. Cotillard plays a woman who is trying to go back to her job. To do this she needs the people who work on the floor of the plant with her to vote that she can have her job back. But if they vote yes, their boss has decreed that they will not get their bonus; the bonus will be used for her salary. It's a capitalist nightmare (i.e. real life) staged in human terms. Cotillard is superb and she just barely squeaked out a nomination here over Jennifer Aniston in Cake (whose movie could have gained steam if it had come out earlier). The film itself was submitted by Belgium in the Foreign Language category, but didn't make the January shortlist. The Dardennes, although they make near-perfect films every time they make one, have never been the Academy's particular cup of tea. They've never been nominated before. But, hey, Haneke finally got nominated for Amour two years ago, so maybe it's just a matter of time before the Dardennes are honored. Go see this movie, though. It is another one in my top ten for the year.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #3 out of 78