Award Season 2015 - Movies edition (Update: Oscars Nominations, CCA, SAG Wins)

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Go Birdman!!!!

[Tony Soprano]

My picks:

Best Picture

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Director

Richard Linklatter, Boyhood

Best Actor

Michael Keaton, Birdman

Best Actress

Marion Cottiliard, Two Days One Night

Best Cinematography

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Supporting Actor

JK Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

Bummed about Jake Gyllenhaal not getting a nom.

[Shryke]

I am in utter shock that The Lego Movie didn't get nominated for Best Animated Feature. That's ridiculous. I'm also sad that Nightcrawler more or less got shut out of the major categories given how good the movie and performances was. Unreal.

Foxcatcher I sort of get. It seems like the movie that has great performances and looks great but doesn't elicit the response that makes people want to vote for it. Sort of like some PTA movies.

I wasn't really shocked by any of this, but only because I read the list and the first film there for Best Picture was "American Sniper" and then I just expected disappointment. And lo, it was delivered.

And don't kid yourselves about The Grand Budapest Hotel winning Best Picture. Boyhood is gonna walk away with it.

[Shryke]

I'm going to let Mladen post the full list of Oscar nominees, but I would like to comment on my prediction for the visuals category:

I was a bit off. I'm surprised that the Hobbit didn't make it, and also surprised that The Winter Soldier was included. I thought about putting X-Men instead of Edge of Tomorrow, so not really surprised there. I still think it will be between Interstellar and Dawn

The Hobbit movies look pretty assy. I'm shocked they'd been nominated before. Especially AUJ.

[Corvinus85]

Looks like I am in the minority about The LEGO Movie. I tried to watch it when it came on HBO, gave up halfway through.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I've seen far too few movies this year, but I did see Boyhood and if it's the favorite for Best Picture that seems fair enough to me. It was a great film, and a really ambitious and original project too.

[Sivin]

What a strange and shitty series of nominations.

Selma gets omitted from Best Director and Best Lead Actor, two places I thought it should have won easily.

Meanwhile American Sniper pulls in a Best Picture and Best Lead actor nom? That movie was fucking horrible! No sense of purpose or character at all, Bradley Cooper should bow out and offer his place to David Oyelowo.

And Interstellar gets pushed out of Best Picture and Cinematography!?! Kick American Sniper out of Best Picture to make room, and Unbreakable was a snoozefest from a visuals standpoint. Interstellar was by no means the best film of the year (that goes to Birdman or Selma) but it was infinitely better than American Sniper, and I'd take it over Imitation Game, which I found to be a bit bland. And I cannot get over the Cinematography snub, the entire film was shot brilliantly. The cornfield chase scene alone was better than anything I saw in Unbreakable.

Meh.

[Salafi Stannis]

Interesting excerpt from the Guardian:

"Every nominated best director, screenwriter, screenplay adaptor and original score composer is a white man. All the nominated best actors and best supporting actors are white men. All but one of the best picture nominations are about how hard it is being an entitled, genius white man. All the nominated best foreign language film directors are men. All but one of the documentary directors – Laura Poitras for Citizenfour – is a man. In the best picture category, seven films are directed by white men and the eighth, Selma, is directed by a black woman Ava DuVernay, who was snubbed for best director."

[Lord Bowie]

It was strange and shitty indeed. What bothered me personally was The Lego Movie without an animated feature nom (which should've won) and Gone Girl without an adapted screenplay nom (which also should've won).

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Interesting excerpt from the Guardian:

"Every nominated best director, screenwriter, screenplay adaptor and original score composer is a white man. All the nominated best actors and best supporting actors are white men. All but one of the best picture nominations are about how hard it is being an entitled, genius white man. All the nominated best foreign language film directors are men. All but one of the documentary directors – Laura Poitras for Citizenfour – is a man. In the best picture category, seven films are directed by white men and the eighth, Selma, is directed by a black woman Ava DuVernay, who was snubbed for best director."

This angle is hugely overblown. Some years more white men will get nominations, some years less. Small sample sizes and all that.

[Gneisenau]

It was strange and shitty indeed. What bothered me personally was The Lego Movie without an animated feature nom (which should've won) and Gone Girl without an adapted screenplay nom (which also should've won).

But seriously, Gone Girl should at least get a nomination for original score.

[Winterfell is Burning]

All but one of the best picture nominations are about how hard it is being an entitled, genius white man.

Heh? I don't see how it applies to Boyhood, or The Grand Budapest Hotel. It does apply to Whiplash, but part of the point of the movie is how the relationship between the two main characters is sick and disturbed and both are complete assholes who only have as a main quality being massively talented musicians.

I haven't seen the other movies yet, so I can't say, but I don't see how Alan Turing or Stephen Hawking qualify as entitled.

This angle is hugely overblown. Some years more white men will get nominations, some years less. Small sample sizes and all that.

In the 2007 awards (for the 2006 movies), 4/10 of the nominees among men were black, and the only reason both categories weren't won by them is because Eddie Murphy blew up his chance by being an asshole. In the supporting category, a black woman won, and there were 3 non-white contenders. It didn't mean a major progress for African-Americans.

Also, Ava Duvernay not getting a nomination might be a shame (I haven't seen the movie, as I said) but, for example, this is the first time a movie by the Dardenne brothers is nominated for anything (they weren't nominated themselves), and they are by FAR more important in the history of film than she is. It doesn't mean necessarily it's an anti-Belgian sentiment.

The fact is that white men make, I don't know, 500 movies a year in Hollywood and in the UK (more elsewhere, but they rarely get a chance to be nominated for much). From those, at best 400 are complete garbage and not work seeing.

From the rest of it, half is decent but not worthy of awards attention. From the remaining 50, some are not good but worthy of awards attention in some aspects (maybe the cinematography, the score, a performance, etc), some are good but will be overlooked due to bad distribution, no known stars or simply underseen, some will not have a shot due to subject matter or being too controversial somehow, or simply being too commercial and blockbuster-like for the Academy's tastes, and you'll be left with what, a dozen movies worthy of being nominees for BP that actually have a chance, and that's in best case scenario.

Now, if you have add the numbers for women and black men, I doubt you reach more than, say, 75 movies. Now look at the proportions in the paragraph above, and add the fact that it's harder for black men and women get a bigger budget that would allow them to be contenders and you have why so few of them are nominated.

So, while of course the Academy has problems, I think it's more of an industry problem than anything with the voting or racism.

[Castel]

So, while of course the Academy has problems, I think it's more of an industry problem than anything with the voting or racism.

At a certain point it all seems pretty academic.

I think a lot of people don't attribute it to anything directly malicious on the part of the voters. But they believe that, somewhere along the line, there's a huge gap that will naturally trickle down into voting in situations like this.

I think this article makes that point.

[Igziabeher]

I thought this was to award the best movies and best actors, not a title 9 equal opportunity awards show? If the best movies are compromised of movies starring white people, then they should be nominated. I can think of countless times black people have been nominated or won. Lupita N'Yongo, Gaboray Sidabay (sp?), the guy from Captain Phillips, the girl from beasts of the southern wild, this is just recent years, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry further back. I can't really call them racist if they honestly feel that the best performances were white people in 1 calendar year. It's not like it happens regularly.

[Shryke]

Thread here:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/121229-award-season-2015-movies-edition-update-academy-awards-nominations/

[Shryke]

The Academy is incredibly old, incredibly white and incredibly male. Once you understand this, the Oscars are half way to making sense.

The next thing to understand is that the Academy loves films that don't challenge them, films that flatter them and biopics/historical dramas.

And now the list should make more sense.

[TheKingoftheSevenKingdoms]

Where is Jake Gyllenhall or Rene Russo or a Best Picture nomination? The LEGO movie? Gone Girl's adapted sceenplay and director and best picture nom ? David Oyeillow for Selma and a director nom for that film? Cinematography nom for Interstellar? I would easily replace American Sniper with Gone girl, nightcrawler.

Glad to see Whiplash get some love, except from the director category.

As a film, sports and video game buff, I get picky over award shows.

[Kyoshi]

The only ones I care about this year:

Best Picture:

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Animated Feature

How to Train Your Dragon 2

[Crixus]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/whitest-oscars_n_6466052.html

As other publications have pointed out, an exceptionally white male year, this.

I'm especially surprised at the Selma shutout.

[Mladen]

What are the maximum number of nominations per category they can have?

I think 16... Take out the other movies - animated, foreign etc, and one of screenplays. That would also mean that a movie has all 4 acting categories - two leads and two supporting, which is rare but not unheard of (American Hustle)

Oh, God... Again with racism... I understand that it is a huge issue and something we should fight against, but I am afraid this is not the way. I think that some newspapers and critics make us think about that more than we actually should. I mean, we don't have African-American actors and actresses nominated this year. So, what? One day, we can hope we will category in which all five noms will be African-Americans. With the risk of sounding insensitive, we really shouldn't give that much power to perceived racism. And if we notice it, like real racism, we should fight it. Relentlessly.

I sincerely feel like we live in that Ellen's joke of last year "Possibility n.1, "12 years a slave" wins Best Picture, Possibility n.2, you are all racists"