Who are all white.
Let’s get this started:
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
It’s entirely possible you’ve had a chance to see the movies in this category by now (unlike with the Best Actress category), but I still have not seen Wild. I would give it to Laura Dern, solely to honor Laura Paleobotanist Dern, but alas.
Keira Knightley in Imitation Game does nothing particularly strenuous as the smart Woman supporting. A. Smarter. Genius. Guy.
No one deserves an Oscar simply for Meryl-stomping into a role for which she doesn’t have the vocal range. Better luck next time, Silkwood.
Emma Stone makes an impression in Birdman, as Millennial who TEXTS (and SEXTS and sulks, damn kids these days).
The real winner here, in a walk, is Patricia Arquette, for playing a truly three-dimensional character, anchoring the increasingly powerful arc of a 12 year project as much and maybe more than anyone else does in Boyhood.
Should Win: Patricia Arquette
Will Win: Patricia Arquette
LIVIA:
Patricia Arquette deserves to win, but not just for letting them film what happens to a normal human woman’s face over 12 years. She deserves to win because she wiped the floor with these other bitches (no shade to Emma Stone, who was great), and because she was married to Thomas Jane and she deserves something good to balance that out.
Keira, I have developed an odd tolerance for you, despite your many terrible choices in the past, and despite Jay making me watch your UNCONSCIONABLE adaptation of Dr. Zhivago, but this is not your year.
Meryl, for you, I go directly to the tape of our post Into the Woods analysis: “Meryl Streep should have two of her Oscars rescinded for her performance here. She liberally changes tempo, sometimes within the same LYRIC, and whines through most of her high notes. And then she belts, and she sounds like a different person. Because that is a different person. Y'all, I saw Mama Mia, and I saw the rest of this movie. That is not her belting those mezzo notes. It's just not. Meryl has a belt double, and it's obvious. Her performance of the Witch Veggie Rap is the third most embarrassing thing I have ever seen an actor do onscreen. The other two were also in this movie. The other two were Johnny Depp.”
Winner: Patricia Arquette
COSTUME DESIGN
Were there any 18th century dramas this year?
Could that attest to why this category is actually interesting and competitive?
This excludes Into
The Woods, which is as misbegotten and tonally drained an experience as you
could get from such rich source material, be it in costuming, singing, or in
the act of generally looking at it.
Maleficent, at least insofar as the main character is
concerned, has perfect costume design, and I also truly dig the 70s threads in
Inherent Vice, man.
But I have a feeling Grand Budapest Hotel will walk away with more than a few of these technical awards. Every costume looks great in it anyways.
Should Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
LIVIA:
Are we honestly going to stand here and pretend that it’s hard to make Angelina Jolie look like a seductive dragon-monster? Are we just going to act like slapping horns and some cheek contour on a bitch deserves a statuette?
However, BETTER THAT THAN INTO THE WOODS, which looked like third rate trash rented from the Haleakala Community College Theatre and Bait Shop, with a generous grant from Party City. Meryl's sexy witch dress looked like Cruella de Vil developed a pipe cleaner fetish, and Rapunzel looked like she was wearing a faded American Girl doll nightgown (and not even a good doll, but like Samantha's poor neighbor who worked in the factory all day). Even the stepsisters looked like garbage. It was like Les Mis of the Forest. I mean, COME ON, they couldn't even make the stepsisters look garish, because apparently they were going for a patina of gritty realism IN A MOVIE WHERE A COW EATS A SHOE AND EMITS A POTION THAT RESTORES YOUTH.
Give the award to the only nominee that actually deserves it: Grand Budapest Hotel.
Winner: Grand Budapest Hotel
SOUND MIXING/SOUND EDITING
EEGAH:
No strong feelings in either category (do you know very many
folks who have strong feelings in these categories? Or can distinguish the two
in their heads?)
Look, I love Interstellar, it’s amazing, but surely we’re
not awarding it in either category where it suffers the most? Caught more of
the dialogue second go-round, but still.
For Sound Mixing, Whiplash should win, definitely. It’s
sonically perfect and precise in ways it has to be to accomplish its mission. But it’ll probably lose to American Sniper.
Sound Editing:
Should Win: The Hobbit BOT5A or something
Will Win: American Sniper
Sound Mixing
Should Win: Whiplash
Will Win: American Sniper
LIVIA:
Sound Mixing
Winner: Whiplash
Sound Editing
Winner: Interstellar
FILM EDITING:
Another strong and competitive technical category here (we
don’t really get to random, unsynchronised territory until later category), it
really comes down to a knockout fight between two tough contenders that present
very different strategies through their editing.
(I’ll go ahead and mark off American Sniper, GBH, and seriously,
The Imitation Game. Imitation Game, what, you want credit for scenes following
sequentially with the narrative? Congratulations on that victory!)
In one corner, you have Whiplash, the most exciting movie of
2014 in many, many, ways, the effect of which would not exist without the
absolute precision of its technical and musical elements. I’ve never seen
anything like this movie, and that’s really hammered home in its excellent,
jaw-dropping final sequence.
Then over here you have Boyhood, which subtly accomplishes
so much with its editing we can barely notice the seems. The markers for time’s
passage are unobtrusive yet clear, and I have a strong feeling the editor made
it look way easier than that could possibly be.
This is a hard one for me, but I’m going to have to root for Whiplash,
at least in this Indie Battle Royale category.
Should Win: Whiplash
Will Win: Boyhood
LIVIA:
Winner: This seems like the kind of place they might throw The Imitation Game a bone.
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
EEGAH:
All but one of the nominees here are actually for movies
that also got a Best Picture nod? How novel!
To get to that one first, I am not watching The Judge. That is not going to happen. The Judge looks like a slightly edgier version
of the movie within a movie they’re shooting in State and Maine. Small town
life, right?
America.
Who doesn’t love Robert Duvall? It’s nice to nominate
someone’s legacy, but sorry, not with this movie.
Ethan Hawke is sympathetic and consistent throughout
Boyhood, which is obviously an accomplishment (a huge accomplishment for the
kids there as well!), but I think the trophy for this one will go to Arquette.
Mark Ruffalo is very good in Foxcatcher, a movie a few dozen
people have seen, probably not all of them academy voters. It’d be pretty funny
if new Hulk just kept beating Old NortonHulk in everything he ever does, but I
don’t think we’re gonna see those fireworks this time around.
This one’s J.K. Simmons’ to lose, and quite deservedly,
since he’s the scariest horror movie monster in recent memory. Voters may have
completely missed that Whiplash is a full-on horror genre picture.
Simmons’ big challenger here is of course, the one, the only,
Edward “Odets” Norton.
Actor. Writer. Director. Producer. Dramaturg. Gaffer. Hard
Dick Haver. On-set philatelist.
Here he plays all of that and then some, and it’s a very
believable performance, within a premise that’s about a million miles from any
actual lived experience. Perhaps he deserves credit for riffing somewhat on his
reputation. It’s certainly more straightforward than the rest of the movie.
But I think it’ll be Simmons for the win.
Should Win: J.K. Simmons
Will Win J.K. Simmons
LIVIA:
Supporting Actor
Special shoutout to my mother, who shot me a look of unadulterated disappointment when I said Robert Duvall was “an okay actor”, and then wouldn’t look at me for another twenty minutes.
Boyhood deserves credit for making me tolerate—and yes, even appreciate—sentient trash bag Ethan Hawke, whose crimes against Shakespeare are as numerous as they are deplorable. You know that episode of True Blood where Eric dismissively says that New York smells like pee? Ethan Hawke looks like he smells like pee, all the time, whether he’s in a movie or not.
Setting that aside, the role in Boyhood really does make him shine, like a penny plucked from a gutter soaked in pee. EDWARD NORTON, YOU ARE A GOD, and I applaud you from the deepest recesses of my soul. Your performance in this movie is sublime, mainly because I think Jesse and I manifested this character for you through our decade of mean-spirited jokes.
Winner: Should be Norton, but WILL be Simmons, and who can begrudge him? He’s wonderful, and he doesn’t make people want to kill themselves when they work with him.
PRODUCTION DESIGN:
EEGAH:
Interstellar. I’m a
little amazed, or maybe not, that for all the back and forth on this one, the
silliness over scientific accuracy in a Work of Fiction (FFS, enough), we
completely ignored the world building that was going on here? Sure, there’s the
dying Earth, but also the other
planets we visit, and the vessels that get us there. Deserves to win, over Imitation Game’s Masterpiece
Theatre look (Oh, you shot in England), and certainly over Into The Woods’ “we
shot on the same set as Daniel Craig’s Defiance” greyed-out look.
But it’ll go to Grand Budapest, because this is the year Wes
Anderson’s model boxes get him all those awards (and I’m partial to it
anyways).
Should Win: Interstellar
Will Win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
LIVIA:
Winner: If it’s Into the Woods, I WILL KILL. Grand Budapest Hotel.
MAKEUP And HAIRSTYLING:
EEGAH:
So Maleficent isn’t nominated here? Huh.
And look, as for the actual nominees, there’s nothing wrong with Steve Carell’s DuPont nose, exactly, but it’s a pretty showy thing to do (see also, The Hours, obvs.)
Grand Budapest will win. You gotta bring it for Tilda, and they did (she’s brilliant in her five or so minutes in this one. Note to Clint Eastwood, this is how you do old person makeup)
Guardians Of The
Galaxy would be a greatly deserved win (somebody had to be in charge of putting
blue on Michael Rooker everyday, think about that)
But of course
Should Win:
Guardians of the Galaxy
Will Win: The Grand
Budapest Hotel
LIVIA:
Sorry, Foxcatcher, but you just slapped a nose on Carell’s face, so don’t look to this category to slake your Oscar thirst. Occasional birthmarks and pencil-thin mustaches aren’t exactly lighting up the world, either.
Voters, throw a bone to your boy Bradley Cooper, who you seem to inexplicably love even though he’s given only two good performances, one of which was voice capture for a passive-aggressive raccoon space warrior.
This is to say NOTHING of the majesty of Lee Pace Blue Face, which is the name of my future production company. Guardians must be rewarded.
Winner: Guardians of the Galaxy
VISUAL EFFECTS:
Captain America 2,
Guardians, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men DOFP: At their best, they’re
still mostly reliant on computer animation (no problem when the concept is as
winning as a Groot)
Interstellar uses
CGI as well, plenty, but the awesome practical effects should be rewarded! (TARS,
for example). More Mixed Approaches!
Please!
The Apes are a close
second for me, and will probably win for expressiveness alone.
Should win:
Interstellar
Will Win: Apes
LIVIA:
Winner: I’m sorry, were there OTHER movies that featured a screaming ape firing a machine gun while riding a horse through a wall of flame? Tough competition in this category, but COME ON. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is some next level sorcery.
MUSIC (Original Score)
EEGAH:
Interstellar, again,
has a memorable, wondrously emotional score, one of Hans Zimmer’s best.
But this is another
one where Grand Budapest’s brand of romanticism will win out.
Should Win: Hans Zimmer
Will Win: Alexandre Desplat. (For GBH, not Bletchley
Circle: Boys Edition, for which he’s also nominated)
LIVIA:
Winner: I thought it was Interstellar, but I bet the Academy thinks it’s Theory of Everything, so we’ll go with that. It’s melodic, repetitive, and ENDLESS.
MUSIC (Best Song)
EEGAH:
Yes, Lego Movie was
snubbed.
No, Everything Is Awesome winning won’t make that any better.
No, Everything Is Awesome winning won’t make that any better.
Can you imagine the
Academy pissing off both Selma supporters and Lego Movie fans at once by giving
Selma its only Oscar for Common and John Legend’s rendition of Glory?
Should Win: Everything Is Awesome
Will Win: Glory
LIVIA:
Winner: What a garbage category this year. I guess Everything is Awesome?
CINEMATOGRAPHY
EEGAH:
Every consecutive
year it seems I go in hard for Emmanuel Lubezki, but the streak is over.
Granted, Lubezki very nearly rescues Birdman from its premise and makes it seem like a movie it ultimately isn’t. That takes skill, but he’s demonstrated that skill already for directors superior (and some inferior) to Inarritu.
Granted, Lubezki very nearly rescues Birdman from its premise and makes it seem like a movie it ultimately isn’t. That takes skill, but he’s demonstrated that skill already for directors superior (and some inferior) to Inarritu.
I’m also a big Roger
Deakins fan, who this year shot Unbroken, which judging by the trailer is
mostly brown and white? I can’t remember, and am not that interested in the movie,
sorry.
I love Mike Leigh,
and hate that Mr. Turner hasn’t played near me yet. Dick Pope also shot Leigh’s
beautiful, joyous Gilbert & Sullivan biopic/Mikado origin story, Topsy
Turvy, which is the best looking Blu Ray disc I own, so again, I’m actually
pretty angry I still haven’t seen Mr. Turner yet.
Ida is the best looking
B & W picture I’ve seen in awhile, but it will likely win in the Foreign
Category.
Robert Yeoman’s
serves WA’s multiple aspect ratios and time periods beautifully in Grand
Budapest, and will most likely get caught up in the movie’s award sweep.
Should Win: Robert
Yeoman
Will Win: Robert
Yeoman
LIVIA:
LIVIA:
Winner: DO NOT REWARD BIRDMAN FOR ENDLESS STATIC SHOTS OF BACKSTAGE HALLWAYS. Please just give it to Anderson and be done.
EEGAH: None for me this, year. Livvy?
LIVIA:
Live Action Short
Winner:Aya
Animated Short
Winner: Feast
Documentary Short
Winner: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
BEST ANIMATED FILM
EEGAH:
Wish I’d seen
anything on this list but How To Train Your Dragon 2 (which has a great middle
act and a very messy finale).
Song of the Sea and
The Tale of Princess Kaguya are both fine films or so I’ve heard. I’ve heard
Big Hero 6 is fine.
It’s probably going
to How To Train Your Dragon? Who knows?
Should Win: Probably Song of the Sea?
Will Win: How To
Train Your Dragon 2
LIVIA:
LIVIA:
Winner: How to Train Your Dragon 2. And yeah, I’m sorry, it WAS better than The Lego Movie, even though it is a sequel. It has these things called emotional stakes. That’s right; I’m coming out as the only person in America who thought The Lego Movie was just meh.
BEST DOCUMENTARY
EEGAH:
This, along with
Best Foreign Film are always interesting categories, because I think they serve
to make us aware of movies that we might otherwise miss. Really, the best thing
a silly awards show can do, right?
Except this year both categories have egregious snubs. All I’ve seen of the Doc noms is Virunga, which is on Netflix, is fine, but not a great movie.
Except this year both categories have egregious snubs. All I’ve seen of the Doc noms is Virunga, which is on Netflix, is fine, but not a great movie.
I’m sure Citizenfour
is no doubt a very good film, but it didn’t get to any theaters around me, and
isn’t on VOD yet, so I can offer no opinion.
The others are all
out there for rent or are about to be, so you can see Last Days in Vietnam,
Salt of the Earth, and Finding Vivian Maier soon and/or easily.
Where, oh where is
Life Itself on this list? An academy that apparently loved Roger Ebert like the
rest of us, still somehow has such a huge Steve James blind spot they can’t
even be bothered to nominate his work when it’s about the world’s most beloved
film lover? I’m still shocked about this.
Should Win: Life
Itself
Will Win: Virunga
LIVIA:
LIVIA:
Winner: Virunga
BEST FOREIGN
LANGUAGE FILM
EEGAH:
Here it’s a little
less emotionally perplexing for me, since of the nominees there’s a clear
front-runner (though I’ve been wrong about that before).
Ida is a great
movie, a great period piece, and consummately acted, shot and directed. It’s on
Netflix, and is highly recommended.
Timbuktu has huge critical support, but it’s not available to most of us
yet.
It becomes even more
annoying that it’s Best Foreign Language Film and not simply Best Foreign film
when one considers the exclusion of a movie like Australia’s The Babadook. It’s
a full on horror film, which would have probably been mitigated somewhat with the
presence of subtitles, but sure makes a compelling argument for opening up the
category to English Language foreign films as well.
LIVIA:
Winner: Poland, or Russia? Think I’ll go with Leviathan here.
LIVIA:
Winner: Poland, or Russia? Think I’ll go with Leviathan here.
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