So the Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and as expected there were a few surprises, and most of them were not fun. A few snuck in that were genuinely great, but for the most part my disappointments outnumbered them. Here’s my post where I will bitch a lot with a sprinkling of nice things to say. I keep telling myself these things don’t matter but it’s hard not to care when you spend the whole year caring about movies.
- Every Best Picture nominee is about a man or men (or boy). 4/8 movies are biopics about said man. Boring. When we say the Oscars don’t matter, the thing is they kind of do. The argument that female fronted movies aren’t profitable has been recently countered by the big box office successes of Lucy, Maleficent, the Hunger Games series, and even Gone Girl. However, this selection of nominations just pushes the idea that male fronted movies are superior. The sad thing is, other than Gone Girl and maybe Wild once upon a time, there really weren’t other female fronted movies in the running. This is highly irritating and depressing.
- While I’m insanely happy for Steve Carrell who is definitely deserving of a nomination, I’d love it even more if he had campaigned under supporting and gotten a nomination there (pushing Duvall out for his bizarre nom). If he was replaced with Channing Tatum I would be thrilled. It sucks that the poor guy is being left out despite his spectacular work in Foxcatcher.
- Jake Gyllenhaal sitting out is the biggest flub of this whole set of nominations. He gave the performance of the year, hands down. Bradley Cooper was the only passable thing in American Sniper, but I could easily boot him out of this line up, especially to let Gyllenhaal in.
- Best Actress is the category I am least familiar with. There was the pleasant surprise of Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night at least. I have only seen Pike’s amazing performance (thank god for her nomination). Guess I have some work to do.
- Supporting nominations couldn’t be more predictable except for Laura Dern. Lindsay was the only person to pick her in Film Actually’s Oscar predictions contest!
- The LEGO Movie is the second biggest flub. It was so beautifully and creatively animated, not to mention its brilliant script. Did it get pushed out because of the content in the ending? If so, that’s ridiculous.
- Extremely shocked that Life Itself didn’t receive a nomination. Seemed like a sure thing. I still need to see it but I’ve only heard lovely things.
- To be expected, but Mica Levi should have been nominated for his unique Under the Skin score. It has hit at so many other smaller awards and was nominated for a BAFTA so I thought there was a tiny shot. Oh well.
- The lack of Gone Girl love is abysmal. I figured it was on the edge for getting a Best Picture nom while still hoping for the best (after all, Dragon Tattoo didn’t receive one either), and I didn’t even think Fincher was close in the direction category (even though he certainly is in my heart). However, Pike was an absolute must while score & adapted screenplay seemed pretty likely and editing not out of the question. The screenplay snub hurts the most. Gillian Flynn’s script is exciting, dynamic, involved, loaded with meaning & subtext, and also quite fun. It seemed like a lock. I’m extremely disappointed with this almost complete shut out.
- American Sniper is shit and its huge showing is undeserved. I’ve loved Bradley Cooper’s last two nominations and he’s not bad in the movie so his Best Actor nomination only pisses me off in that it excluded others I would definitely label as more deserving (Gyllenhaal, Fiennes, Tatum, etc). The fact that it got an adapted screenplay over Gone Girl is a cruel, twisted joke. The script is laughably, eye-rollingly poor. Editing… whatever, can’t say much there. Seems like it could have been substituted for many others. Or at least they could have edited out that damn plastic baby. Sound is whatever, to be expected with any war movie. I’d be thrilled if the sound awards were the only categories it hit. And worst of all Best Picture should be nowhere near this movie. Substitute in Gone Girl, Nightcrawler, Foxcatcher… fuck it all and throw in Interstellar and I’d be more pleased. How did this happen? Why do people like this movie? How many members of the Academy golf with Eastwood?
Now, we can move onwards to Oscar night, with the comfort of predictability and our biggest disappointments already over with (hopefully). What do you want to bitch about as far as these nominations are concerned?