Your Oscar Picks

[KissingSunlight]

The Academy Awards is the Sunday. Since, nobody started a thread like this, I'll do it.

It was kind of a disappointing year in movies. There were 2 really innovative movies that came out and got a lot of attention. If you haven't seen them, you really should.

Best Picture: Should Win: Tie for Boyhood and Birdman. Both of them are breathtakingly ambitious and well executed. Comparing them story-wise is apples and oranges. Both of them should win it. Will Win: Boyhood will barely edge out Birdman. I think the older members of the Academy will appreciate the story of Boyhood more than Birdman.

Best Actor: Should Win/Will Win: Michael Keaton. A lot of people are thinking Eddie Redmayne will win for playing a disabled person. The biggest thing against him is that he is young. Michael Keaton has been around for a long time. Oscars like to treat the award as a life-time achievement award. Speaking of which...

Best Actress: Will Win: Julianne Moore. Have been nominated numerous times and playing a person suffering from a disease. Should Win: Rosamund Pike. The only movie I have seen from this category is Gone Girl. She did a great job with an original character that will have us talking about for years to come.

Best Supporting Actor: Should Win/Will Win: JK Simmons. Is there any debate on this? If you haven't seen Whiplash, do so. It's the 3rd best movie nominated this year.

Best Supporting Actress: Should Win/Will Win: Patricia Arquette. She is the heart and soul of Boyhood.

Best Director: Should Win/Will Win: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman. This is close. I think Birdman is a greater technical achievement than Boyhood. I think the Academy will agree and give him this as a consolation prize.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I'm rather partial to the Grouch, myself.

Oh wait, you mean movies? Yeah, haven't seen all that many. Sort of annoyed that Lego Movie didn't at least get the nod though. But for animated film, my favorite was Big Hero 6. I should probably see Princess Kaguya though. That one looks interesting.

 

[ZiggyE]

Birdman should get Best Director and I'd like to see it win Best Picture too.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Very happy with the nominees this year. I see very few token nominations, bar Meryl Streep's.
I think most awards will be split between Birdman, Boyhood and Whiplash. All of them terrific movies.

Best Picture: Torn between Birdman and Boyhood. If either of these wins Best Pic, I'd like the other movie to win Best Director.
Best Director: See above. Realistically I think Iñárritu will win this, and Boyhood will get Best Pic. Either way is good though.
Best Actor: Michael Keaton.
Best Actress: I've only seen Gone Girl and Wild, and between Rosamund and Reese I vote Rosamund.
Best Supporting Actor: J. K. Simmons, hands down.
Best Supporting Actress: I like Laura Dern, but I think Arquette (also very good) is going to win.
Best Original Screenplay: Birdman.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Whiplash.
Best Animated Picture: The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
Best Foreign Picture: Wild Tales.

 

[Zontar]

Birdman should get Best Director and I'd like to see it win Best Picture too.

Pretty much this, how Boyhood even got nominated is beyond me. It isn't a movie of that quality, it doesn't even reach the status of 'good' movie and is completely reliant on a gimmick that the movie could have been made without, and used it both as the core of its advertising and narrative, despite the story being easy to make and tell using a few multi-actor characters and a few months of filming.

If it wins anything, it would prove that gimmicks can make a bad movie win the biggest awards.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Birdman won Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and Cinematography. Wish Picture had gone to Boyhood. At least Arquette got Best Supporting Actress. JK Simmons deserved every bit of that Best Supporting Actor award, good for him. And The Imitation Game got Adapted Screenplay... eh. Hallmark movie is Hallmark. Can't speak about Best Actor and Actress since I haven't seen Theory of Everything or Still Alice, but after watching Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending I feel he should return his award as penance.

In all happy with the results. Shame Kaguya didn't get Best Animated Picture but the Academy always seems to shun anime features.

 

[Fox12]

Best Picture: Interstellar
Best Director: Interstellar
Best Actor: Interstellar
Best Actress: Interstellar
Best Supporting Actor: Interstellar
Best Supporting Actress: Interstellar
Best Original Screenplay: Interstellar
Best Adapted Screenplay: Interstellar
Best Animated Picture: The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
Best Foreign Picture: Interstellar

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're all thinking, but I can't help it. I really like Princess Kaguya.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Pretty much this, how Boyhood even got nominated is beyond me. It isn't a movie of that quality, it doesn't even reach the status of 'good' movie and is completely reliant on a gimmick that the movie could have been made without, and used it both as the core of its advertising and narrative, despite the story being easy to make and tell using a few multi-actor characters and a few months of filming.

If it wins anything, it would prove that gimmicks can make a bad movie win the biggest awards.

It would never have worked without it. There are so many Bildungsroman style films that use multiple actors, but none of them have ever felt as authentic as Boyhood because they don't have the same continuity as the character ages. It's more than just a gimmick, it's an ambitious gamble that paid off incredibly. Moreover, it's incredibly well edited, acted superbly by a few of the cast members, and captures some moments more powerfully than any other film has managed. The domestic violence scene is one of the most tense pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen.

I mean, you can call the 12 year part a 'gimmick' if you must but I don't see how it's any more of a gimmick than filming a play.

 

[l0lwut]

If it wins anything, it would prove that gimmicks can make a bad movie win the biggest awards.

Fully agree. This film has been a critic's darling even before it was released. It's 2,5 hours of boring, badly written and (mostly) poorly acted dialogue. The movie has nothing going for it besides its gimmick, and the movie didn't even really utilized it.

I was glad to see it didn't win the big prizes. Birdman is easily the best film I've seen this year so I think they deserved their prizes. Shame the Academy denied them the nomination for soundtrack but ah well, they got the big ones and thuroughly deserved Cinematography.

It was Keaton's time to shine, too bad he got passed by. Redmayne was impressive in Theory, but the movie itself was a middle of the road, paint by the numbers biopic. The Academy once again showing that they are suckers for actors playing handicapped people. Not that he didn't do well, it was just that Keaton was in an entirely different league. Cumberbatch had a nice turn as well, he'll get his in time.

Can't argue with Julianne Moore and J.K. Simmons. Both excellent actors with an impressive track record who deserved this more than anybody this year. A bit surprising to see Grand Budapest Hotel to absolutely dominate the technical awards, but I guess it's still well deserved when you look at the competition.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

If it wins anything, it would prove that gimmicks can make a bad movie win the biggest awards.

Fully agree. This film has been a critic's darling even before it was released.

That would be because critics watch films before they're released.

 

[Albino Boo]

Hmm here we go

Oskar Lafontaine: The former German finance minister for sounding like a Hamburg Reeperbahn drag act

Oscar the Grouch: for telling kids what life is really like

Oscar De La Hoya: For getting paid for repeatedly punching people in the head and looking strangely attractive in fishnet bodystocking

 

[Fox12]

If it wins anything, it would prove that gimmicks can make a bad movie win the biggest awards.

Fully agree. This film has been a critic's darling even before it was released.

That would be because critics watch films before they're released.

I noticed that you mentioned that before. Out of curiosity, what do you think Boyhood had going for it, besides the gimmick? I've heard a lot of negativity about it.

I must say, I was quite disapointed with the animated film results. Princess Kagoya and Song of the Sea both lost out to... Big Hero Six. Not a bad film, but the day it's truly Oscar worthy is the day I eat my boot.

 

[l0lwut]

That would be because critics watch films before they're released.

I'm sorrt I wasn't very clear. I should've expressed myself differently. I didn't mean that the fact that they were raving about it before release as a bad thing, but rather that they were raving about it at all. I honestly can't see why. Why was it even nominated for best picture? Of best director for that matter, all scenes are flat and uninteresting. Absolutely nowhere you see the hand of exceptional directing.

I admire the risk its makers took by this huge undertaking, and it is a very interesting and cool idea to film over this timespan. But it does not a good movie make. It hasn't. You say it deserved to win best picture? Let me join the poster above me in asking you why, I'm truly curious what you think.

 

[Story]

The show itself was extremely ho-hum. Niel Patrick Harrison did an okay job but it was also very dull and it didn't help that the winners were pretty predictable. Also the musical numbers were mostly boring, especially Lady Gaga's piece which was lovely but dragged the whole show down because it came up too late.

As for who I wanted to win, I just wanted what could be Takahaha's last film to win. It could be Studio Ghibli's last film in the long time so that is a huge upset. Heck, I wanted Dreamwork's How to Train Your Dragon 2 (a studio who is struggling financially right now) to win over Big Hero 6 I was so very disappointing in that pick. Then again the Oscars don't give a damn about animation. I love The Rock, but animation is not a genre its it's own medium. Not that he would know better as anyone outside the animation industry doesn't known the different and/or doesn't care.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

If it wins anything, it would prove that gimmicks can make a bad movie win the biggest awards.

Fully agree. This film has been a critic's darling even before it was released.

That would be because critics watch films before they're released.

I noticed that you mentioned that before. Out of curiosity, what do you think Boyhood had going for it, besides the gimmick? I've heard a lot of negativity about it.

Sorry it took this long to answer. In an ideal world I'd just link you to my review and that would be it. But I think that counts as self-promoting, and it's in Spanish anyway.

I don't think Boyhood's 12-year shooting span is a gimmick. A gimmick is something whose sole purpose is to catch your attention. So it's a question of how, not what. Movies started out as a silent, black and white business. When sound defied convention, it was widely dubbed as a gimmick. Same deal with color. And Cinemascope. The gimmick parade probably began with 3D and smell-o-vision and all of William Castle's B-movie stunts, which I invite you to check out. The man was nothing short of creative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Castle#On_his_own:_the_gimmicks

These days have seen the revival of 3D, and new digital gimmicky such as screening movies at 48 FPS. There's nothing much to any of this, they're just ways of getting people to go to the movie theater, because the gimmickry they advertise is mostly exclusive to the theater (for now, I'm sure once the home market assimilates them the execs will discover the latest cornerstone of cinema, which will get them a few more years of moviegoers, and so on). I'm quoting the chief of sales for a local Fox distribution studio, whom I interviewed a few years ago on the subject (he used the first Hobbit movie as an example: 3D AND 48 FPS).

Anyway, while gimmickry can be largely industrialized as explained above, it doesn't stop the littler movies from developing gimmicks of their own. Like Memento and Irreversible, the "backwards" movies, or movies filmed in a single, uninterrupted take (the Russian Ark, or Birdman for that matter). Some of these techniques catch on, some fail. Like Lady in the Lake, which was entirely shot in first person POV (you only see the protagonist through mirrors, etc). And here comes Boyhood, which was filmed over the course of 12 years. I'm sure that's what a lot of people will remember the movie for.

Personally I didn't find it gimmicky at all. It's a movie about the passage of time, in which time is the theme of the story, and arguably its protagonist, since our lead doesn't drive the plot so much as react to what happens around him in a very episodic and frequently incoherent way. That's life for you, or rather "boyhood": a time in our lives in which we do not lead nor do we protagonize, where we spend our time reacting to what happens around us and we don't get to decide what forms us and what doesn't. And you could tell this story without spending 12 years shooting it (a lot of other movies have). But then there're no original stories, only original ways of telling them. I think watching the movie "in real time" reinforces the premise of the movie, that we don't live moments, but moments live through us (the kid says these exact words at the very end).

Birdman - a movie I fucking loved, by the way - is considerably a bit more pretentious than Boyhood. Honestly I see no fault in Boyhood's shape or size. Whereas Birdman is more than a bit pretentious at times. Hence my opinion. I like both movies, but Boyhood feels a bit more organic, for lack of a better word - what it tells, and how it tells it, match quite beautifully.

 

[Fox12]

snip

This is quite interesting, as I haven't had the pleasure of seeing the film yet. I think you make an important point, though, in articulating that it's not a gimmick if it's tied to the central theme. That's an important distinction to make, I think, and it's one that is frequently forgotten.