X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST - 1 nomination

Visual Effects - Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie, Cameron Waldbauer

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the next installment of the Marvel comic book series in which robots called Sentinels have been sent with tremendous power to kill all mutants.  Mutants living in this current era decide to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to the 70's to prevent the production of the Sentinels, which appears to be the only solution available to combat the terror they are raining down.

The visual effects in this film are incredibly cool.  First, X-Men in general has fantastic visuals because mutants don't exist.  (Much like The Hunger games series, it has been overlooked in the makeup category, and it shouldn't have been.)  Then, add in the amazing effects produced for the Sentinel robots, and it's easy to see how this film was finally nominated for this category.  The Marvel universe films, in general, should be contenders each year for visual effects nominations, and this film is a very deserving for this one indeed.  

SELMA - 2 nominations

Best Picture - Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner
Best Song - "Glory"  Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn

Selma is the story of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King's vision to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest the laws keeping African Americans from voting.  Inherent in that struggle is the demand for equal rights across the board - working for the demise of segregation altogether.  The key challenge was not only to have institutionalized racism overturned, but also to ensure that the laws that had already passed protecting African American citizens were actively enforced.  It may have been legal for African Americans to vote, but that doesn't mean that the person working in city government was actually allowing people to register.

It's a very powerful, very moving film, with phenomenal performances, especially by David Oyelowo who embodied the spirit of MLK.  The best part of the film is that although we do follow Martin Luther King and his actions to make change, it equally lauds the people of Selma who endured humiliations, beatings, and other forms of degradation.  The victories do not rest solely on the charismatic leader, they sit in the hands of the people who made these tremendous sacrifices every day, in every possible way.  The choice to make MLK a very real person and show all sides of him (including that he was cheating on his wife), was a brave one. Ava DuVernay, as the Director of the film, did an outstanding job of personalizing the struggle and showing the realities of that time - not everyone believed that the chosen way was the correct way.  In some ways, MLK was seen in the film as a carpet bagger, picking the best towns to drop in on and do his work, which was not appreciated by everyone already working in that town.  I must admit that of all of the categories in which Selma was overlooked, Ava DuVernay not being nominated for Best Director is the most upsetting to me.  She did a brilliant job with this film.

The bottom line of what makes this film so well done is how real the portrayals are.  Now, this is a film so it would be foolish to assume that everything portrayed is accurate to the actual history of struggle.  There are those who are furious that President Johnson is portrayed as working against MLK, but we have to remember that this is a film in need of conflict.  I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle.  There are those who are unhappy that other communities who were active and supportive of the efforts were not highlighted - I do not agree with those voices.  This film is one lens of the story, and what I sincerely hope is that people are inspired by the film to learn the true history of the struggle.  That would be a real victory.

Finally, I have to mention the song that is nominated for an Oscar, "Glory."  I believe this song to be absolutely the most powerful of the category.  John Legend and Common knocked it out of the park, and I'm sharing a video here that includes the lyrics so you can really be moved by its power.

NIGHTCRAWLER - 1 nomination

Original Screenplay - Dan Gilroy

Nightcrawler is the story of an ambitious and moderately sociopathic free lance videographer who does anything and everything to get video footage of disasters to sell the pieces to news organizations.  The film takes place at the moment in history when the news was evolving from reporting with the highest standards of ethics to the model where "if it bleeds, it leads."  It's a haunting movie where we watch a person whose only driver is getting footage make choices that are totally devoid of any sense of morality with absolutely no remorse.  This film takes place before social media, before TMZ, and before showing the most gruesome footage became commonplace.  It documents the beginning steps into the current form of news as entertainment.

The performances in this film are superb, with particular note to Jake Gyllenhaal and Renee Russo. The screenplay is powerful and the execution was beyond what can be described.  I suspect that Nightcrawler was likely a contender for multiple nominations, and simply came up short in the key categories (Actor, Supporting Actress, Director).  

The really haunting part of the film for me was my own reaction to it.  While I simply couldn't help judging harshly what was happening on the screen, upon reflection one has to ask what makes the film so compelling.  When we truly examine our own obsession with the story, we simply must admit that it's hard to look away from the train wreck happening before our eyes, and when we think about it through that lens, we come to realize that we are doing the very thing for which we are judging the characters in the film, even if not to the same disastrous degree.  If we can understand our own inability to look away, we begin to identify how news devolved into its current form.

The one is truly worth the time, and very deserving of the nomination.

THE JUDGE - 1 nomination

Supporting Actor - Robert Duvall

The Judge is another predictable film where complicated father-son relationships are strained at the beginning of the film and we all learn a valuable lesson by the end.  Everyone is a little bit angry and a little bit intense and a little bit on edge, and the fact that the father (Robert Duvall), who has served as a judge in town for his entire career, is accused of murdering a man who has just gotten out of jail who he sentenced in the first place.  His estranged son (Robert Downey Jr.) comes to town to bury his mom who has just died, and he wants to serve as his father's lawyer for the trial.  Dysfunctional relationships and the insidious nature of secrets hidden are at the heart of this story.

Watching the preview of the film, it looks like it's going to be wonderful.  It has intensity, an amazing cast, and serious themes.  The problem is that even a superb actor can't rise above what is basically a trite script.  There's a challenging marriage and custody dispute as a subplot that unfortunately doesn't do anything to make the narrative more compelling.  It's a movie you really want to like, but at best it's mediocre.

Robert Duvall was good - as he always is - but this nomination seems to be as much a career achievement award for consistent superlative acting as it is for this particular film.  I could list 5 actors who sit more appropriately in this year's Supporting Actor nominee list without trying (and see other blogs for other "robbed" potential nominees!).  We've seen Duvall do this ornery guy before, this was not a new exploration of identity for the actor, and while I love seeing him on film, I dispute the validity of this nomination.

If you must see The Judge, I recommend waiting for Netflix or cable.  It's not a waste of an evening, it's just not worth it to invest movie theatre money. 

See the trailer here:

INTO THE WOODS - 3 nominations

Actress in a Supporting Role - Meryl Streep (isn't it nice for her to finally be nominated?)
Costume Design - Colleen Atwood
Production Design - Dennis Gassner (Production Design), Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)

I love musicals.  I love love love musicals, and I already knew the entire score of Into the Woods before I went to the film.  Needless to say, no one wanted to sit next to me for fear that I would sing out loud along with the actors.  (That may or may not have happened.  You have no proof.)  But I really really hate when Hollywood takes a favorite musical and turns it into a crappy movie.  And that's why Rob Marshall and I are still friends - this was a darn good adaptation.

If you're not familiar with the Sondheim favorite, the first half of the show takes beloved fairy tales and weaves the characters together.  The central storyline follows a baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) who want to have a child and asks them to find four key elements - the cow as white as milk (Jack and the Beanstalk), the shoe as pure as gold (Cinderella), the hair as yellow as corn (Rapunzel), and the cape as red as blood (Little Red Riding Hood), so that the evil witch (Meryl Streep) will remove a curse that keeps the couple from having a child.

As fairy tales always do, everything works out in the end, until... until Sondheim, reminds us that fairy tales aren't real and that life is complicated.  Some of Sondheim's best lyrics are in these songs, and unfortunately, when you take a three hour musical and turn it into a two hour movie, some of the best ones are cut for time.  But at least, if you're going to cut beloved songs, the movie makers decided not to include a new song that was written for the screen.  (good call, movie makers)

Here's my biggest disappointment with regard to Into the Woods - the cast was terrific (with a slightly miscast Johnny Depp) but I am unhappy that Emily Blunt was overlooked for the Supporting Actress category.  She was a true standout in the cast and her exclusion is just wrong.

The production design and the costume design were both wonderful.  The very fertile opportunity to design costumes for a bunch of fairy tales was not missed.  Cinderella's shoes alone had me at "I Wish."  Great job to the costume and production teams.  (I wear a size 6 shoe, if you're wondering what to do with the leftovers.)

I wish, more than anything, more than life... that you will see the film!

See the trailer:

INHERENT VICE - 2 nominations

Costume Design - Mark Bridges
Adapted Screenplay - Paul Thomas Anderson

How I wanted to love Inherent Vice and then come to you and tell you that all of the negative commentary was just from people who didn't "get" the movie.  It was a lot of dialogue, but I understood what was going on for the first chunk of the film, though unfortunately, I didn't see how most of the scenes were about moving the story forward.  

The basic plot (from what I could decipher) was that a local real estate mogul, Wolfman, and the ex-girlfriend of protagonist "Doc" (Joaquin Phoenix) have gone missing.  Doc is a private investigator/drug dealer, who has a history with the police and FBI, none of whom like him.

In an early scene, the ex, Shasta, tells Doc that the mogul's wife and her boyfriend are going to put him secretly into an asylum. A pretty large cast of characters show up occasionally in the film to give Doc tidbits as he researches where Wolfman and Shasta have gone.  And that's truly all I can explain about this film.  How it could be nominated for Adapted Screenplay is totally beyond me, except that I would call the movie a series of conversations in which clues are given to Doc that seem to be making sense to him while we have no idea what's going on.

The costume design was fun and hideous as 70's authentic costuming should be, but while American Hustle was the best of that decade's clothing, Inherent Vice was truly the worst of the 70's garb.  The cast was an assembly of Oscar nominees, Oscar winners, and popular powerhouses.  The elements were all there except I still don't know what the heck happened during those few hours.

Inherent Vice is the epitome of my motto for this blog - I see all the Oscar nominated films so you don't have to see the bad ones.  I still have a handful of films to see, but I would rank this in the bottom three films of all 60 with nominations.  See it at your own peril.

INTERSTELLAR - 5 nominations

Original Score - Hans Zimmer
Production Design - Nathan Crowley (Production Design), Gary Fettis (Set Decoration)
Sound Editing - Richard King
Sound Mixing - Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker, Mark Weingarten
Visual Effects - Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, Scott Fisher

Let me just begin by saying that I fully expect to be derided for my review of the just mediocre Interstellar.  I highly doubt they will be "retweeting" what I have to say.  The visual effects were terrific and of course, this film was just primed for all of the technical awards.  It's no surprise that it has garnered nominations for both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.  Much like Gravity, it had a stunning musical score which Hans Zimmer created (his 9th nomination for Original Score!), and that was a nice companion piece to the visual gymnastics.  The design of the film required the ability to suppose what other planets might look like, what space travel would look like, and what redesigned future worlds would look like.  That was very well done.

Then we arrive at the narrative.  I really really liked the first hour and a half.  It was interesting story, I was riveted, I liked the characters and the complexities of their relationships and the challenge faced by Matthew McConaghey's character whether to save the world or be with his family.  The exploration of other planets was cool.  But after that first section of the film, that's where Interstellar starts to go off the rails. We learn that love is a physical property (as in, another property of physics, or maybe it was meant to be next element on the periodic table... the science was, it was, well, let's just say Neil Degrasse Tyson was not the scientific advisor on this movie), that time is fluid, and that we had the power to click our heels and go back home all along.  (Believe it or not, that was not even a spoiler.)

In my defense, I want to add that I love science fiction films.  I don't mind a crazy new wrinkle that has nothing to do with reality or anything that could ever be reality.  I'm sure Neil Degrasse Tyson does too (right, Neil? Call me!), and that he is also able to separate real scientific principles from fantastic ones.  But this one was just too cheesy, even for me.  The last hour made science too precious, too adorable, too much baby seal hugging a puppy (what's cuter than that?), to the point where they lost me.

The sad part of this film is that it should be seen in a theatre in order to fully appreciate the sound and the visuals, but the story is more of one that you could "catch it on cable."  So if you balance the excellence of the technical merits and the silliness of the story, you end up with Inter-mediocre rather than Interstellar.  

THE IMITATION GAME - 8 nominations

Best Picture - Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, Teddy Schwarzman
Actor in a Leading Role - Benedict Cumberbatch
Actress in a Supporting Role - Keira Knightley (in 2 films with nominations!)
Directing - Morton Tyldum
Film Editing - William Goldenberg
Original Score - Alexandre Desplat
Production Design - Maria Djurkovic (Production Design), Tatiana Macdonald (Set Decoration)
Adapted Screenplay - Graham Moore

We have arrived at my favorite movie of the year, to date.  (I still have a fair few to watch before the end of the list, but let's call this a top contender.)  The Imitation Game is a biopic about Alan Turing, indisputably one of the early creators of the modern computer.  He is portrayed as a socially stunted but brilliant character who is enlisted by Britain to help crack the very complicated nazi code by which the enemy communicates during World War 2.  Turing's social challenges are further complicated by his gay identity, which is still a crime at that time in history.  He hires a handful of colleagues including Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), who help Turing both crack the code and develop more social instincts.  Despite having been central to the allies winning the war, Turing submitted to chemical castration so that he could continue his work, which is a shameful mark in Britain's history.

The entire cast was brilliant in this film, and Cumberbatch did an amazing job of capturing the essence of his character.  Knightley is good, as she always is, and I think almost any good actress in this role would be nominated for the Oscar, because of how well the part was written.  The film is riveting (even though we know the outcome!) and every element does its part to bring together an outstanding piece of filmmaking.  It is an unforgettable film, and will be one that can be seen over and over again.

In particular, I have to note the outstanding musical score.  From the moment the film opens, it is captivating and yet complimentary enough not to make the movie about the music.  Certainly, the production design is authentic and sets the stage in which the story can unfold.  These complimentary pieces are done so phenomenally that they are absolute standouts in their categories.  As always, when a film is this outstanding, credit is due to the captain of the ship, the Director, who leads all of the elements to perfection.  

This film, if you'll pardon the pun, is the real thing.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 - 1 nomination

Animated Feature - Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold

Hiccup and Toothless are back and now that they have made peace between Vikings and Dragons, they have moved on to exploring the world.  The find an ice cave filled with amazing dragons and something even more significant - Hiccup's mother appears who we thought long dead.  Together, they must all protect the dragons from the evil Drago who wants to control the dragon species and therefore, the world.  All of Hiccup's friends are back in this sequel, which means we get to hear from the likes of TJ Miller (ahem, in TWO Oscar nominated animated films), Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, and they all bring the funny that they brought in the first installment of this story.  Also a key plot point in the film is the deep control that the alpha dragon has over all dragons, and whether friendship and love are enough to overcome one's DNA - can Toothless surmount his dragon programming and remember his bond with his best friend?  Is it fair to hold Toothless accountable for actions he committed while under the alpha dragon's spell, or are there some things that are simply unforgivable?

These are the themes that fill How to Train Your Dragon 2, while also being a visually stunning work of animation.  The story is compelling, the characters are well drawn and surprisingly complex for an animated film, and it's just a delight to watch.  Of course, dragon anthropologists may dispute some of the details of the dragon portrayals and the descendants of the evil dragon in the film have yet to issue comment, but overall, I'd call it a terrific film well worth the watch.

THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES - 1 nomination

Sound Editing - Brent Burge and Jason Canovas

So let's just begin with a quick reminder of what the art of sound editing or sound design is.  Sound editing takes previously recorded audio elements like dialogue and sound effects and uses sound to establish the ambience of the film.  Sometimes audio elements are deconstructed or reconstructed to give the exact sound that the designer is attempting.  Sound editing is a very technical skill and you can bet that manipulating sound in a film with dragons, warring  armies, and dialogue is no small challenge.  War movies and musicals do very well in this category.

This Hobbit film is the third in the trilogy where Peter Jackson took a short book and turned it into three movies.  At the end of the book, all of the factions in the land are warring over control of the Lonely Mountain and all of the gold therein.  The interesting thing about this film is that it examines very real, very human themes - does power corrupt, is there a difference between justice and fairness, what is important to defend to the death and what requires compromise, can the little guy make a difference, what is bravery? The problem with the film is that true to its name, the majority of it is fighting scenes which means not that much actual storytelling.  This, of course, is the difficulty of taking a short book and making it into three long films - by the end, you have to make a whole movie out of the climax, and that's not easy to do.  Because of that, this is the weakest of the trilogy.  But, if you are a Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings groupie, this will be a very satisfying experience as it brings the Hobbit tale to its conclusion.

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL - 9 nominations

Best Picture - Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson 
Cinematography - Robert Yeoman 
Costume Design - Milena Canonero
Directing - Wes Anderson
Film Editing - Barney Pilling 
Makeup and Hairstyling - Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier 
Original Score - Alexandre Desplat 
Production Design - Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock 
Original Screenplay -  Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness 

Let's start with the fact that I don't usually "get" Wes Anderson films, but recently he has been on a tear of films of which I can't get enough.  The Grand Budapest Hotel was one of them.  Every single one of the categories for which it is nominated is absolutely correct.

Describing a Wes Anderson plot is a little bit like trying to herd cats because there are always so many things happening and you don't really know what to attend to first.  The basic story revolves around M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) a concierge at an upscale hotel and his trusty sidekick and protoge, Zero (Tony Revolori).  Gustave "services" elderly ladies who come to the hotel, and one in particular dies and leaves him a very valuable painting in her will.  Naturally, her greedy children dispute Gustave's claim to the painting, and it's fair to say in summary that hijinx ensue.

The film is funny and quirky and has Anderson's usual cast of characters (Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Bob Balaban...).  For me, the real standouts of the film were the Costume and Production Designs.  The look of the film from the dilapidated hotel to the lavish version is spectacular.  The costumes are elegant and interesting, but also manage to be that particular "Anderson strange" that supports his motif perfectly.  In fact, when I saw the first 10 seconds of the trailer for the film before it came out, I immediately thought, "this is a Wes Anderson film."  All of the elements are so distinctly him that the Directorial nomination was a no brainer.

The Oscars rarely get behind movies that are not solely dramatic in nature, and to see a comedy coalesce in this way is a treat.  The Grand Budapest Hotel is grand, indeed.

GONE GIRL - 1 nomination

Actress in a Leading Role - Rosamund Pike

Gone Girl is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Gillian Flynn.  At the start of the film, we discover that Nick Dunne's (Ben Affleck) wife Amy is missing on the morning of their 5th wedding anniversary.  A media frenzy ensues and many clues point to Nick as a primary suspect.  Amy's journal is discovered during the investigation, and we begin to have insight into her view of the marriage, and we see a story that is played out with Nick's public popularity waxing and waning as each new detail comes to light.  The film has many unexpected twists and turns along the way, and to say more about it here would reveal far too much to make seeing it worthwhile.  I had read the book before I saw the movie, so part of my pleasure in seeing it in the theatre was watching others get the sensation of seeing a critical surprise about half way through the movie.

As usual, the film was not as good as the book, but it was a very very good adaptation.  Rosamund Pike plays Amy, the complex character whose parents wrote a series about her as a child entitled, "Amazing Amy."  We see how they laid all of their hopes and dreams on the fictional version of the person, and how that manifested into an adult bent on proving herself to be amazing in her own right. The character of Amy has so many faces and emotions which often present themselves literally back to back.  She can go from orgasmic to dead-eyed in a single moment.  From the time this film came out, Rosamund Pike was a contender for a Best Actress nomination.

Also notable was Kim Dickens (she plays one of the cops leading the investigation), to whom I was first introduced when she starred in a film over a decade ago called, "Things Behind The Sun."  Since then, she has taken on a series of challenging parts, and I think she deserves recognition for her work in this film, which was at once intense and kind and serious.

Carrie Coon was overlooked in the race for Supporting Actress, though the early buzz of the film was not enough to get her there in the end.  She represented the person we would all be if we learned that someone to whom we were close was accused of murder - a desire to stand by our family member combined with the very real worry that he is indeed guilty.

Gone Girl did very well in theatres and there's no mystery as to why.  It's a good old fashioned suspense film with lots of juicy surprises along the way.  Though it has only one nomination, it was certainly a contender for many categories.  With a good tub of popcorn, you'll have the best afternoon.

See the trailer here:

FOXCATCHER - 5 nominations

Actor - Steve Carell
Supporting Actor - Mark Ruffalo
Director - Bennett Miller
Makeup and Hairstyling - Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard
Original Screenplay - E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman

Sports movies are among my favorite genres of film because win or lose, the notion of putting oneself out there, working hard to overcome obstacles, and what can be learned in the process is inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.  So, without knowing much about Foxcatcher, I bought my ticket to see a great wrestling film.  Little did I know what was coming, and how much more magical and complex Foxcatcher would be.

The film is based on a true story of real life Olympian brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and David Mark Ruffalo) Schultz.  Mark is scouted by zillionaire John DuPont, who aspires to serve as Mark's coach, father, best friend, and Machiavelli, creating a controlling and abusive relationship and slowly separating Mark from his brother who has heretofore been Mark's trainer and coach.  

We see the sad life of a rich person who has never been held to any standards, and who believes himself to be good at anything and everything, but also knows deeply that he is good for nothing. This lack of self esteem leads him to need more and more from Mark, while David is constantly trying to get his brother's focus back to Mark's life's aspiration.

The performances of the three leads is unbelievable.  Steve Carell is nearly unrecognizable in the film, not just because of the superb makeup (and a much deserved nomination for that team), but because he alters himself so dramatically to emulate John DuPont.  Mark Ruffalo gives a strong and worthy performance as he struggles to maintain the charade that DuPont is head coach which all the wrestlers buy into in order to keep access to the incredible facilities and salaries DuPont has provided.  But the real story of this film is Channing Tatum, who somehow manages to alter his skull, his walk, his manner - this is not the Tatum we have ever seen before.  I was dearly hoping that the Academy would do for Tatum what they did for Geena Davis when she won for The Accidental Tourist, and move Tatum's role to the Supporting Actor category so that there would be room for lauding his work in this film.  (Remembering that Davis' role was a lead role, but she was nominated for a Supporting role, knowing that the lead actress category was packed that year as the Lead Actor category is this year.)  Though the entire cast was wonderful, it is truly a shame that Tatum is the only one of the three who walks away without a nomination.  I wonder if he had had to endure the same makeup process as Carell, would he have received a nomination?  Was it too obvious a choice for Carell and not for Tatum?  We will never know but he was robbed.  But now we know he has this in him, I suspect this won't be his last crack at the bat.  (End of rant.)

Foxcatcher has been one of my favorite films of this Oscars season.  The characters were well drawn, the cast did their jobs, and the Director and screenplay made the story compelling.  As I discovered, the wrestling is merely a backdrop for a truly outstanding film.  

*How about that Mark Ruffalo, appearing in TWO films with Oscar noms this year?

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES - 1 nomination

Visual Effects - Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Erik Winquist

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the next installment of the reimagined prequel to the Planet of the Apes.  In this film, the simian flu has wiped out much of the human race while the apes have become more and more advanced.  While scientists are trying to restore electricity to the human population, they discover that their needed resources are located among the apes, who are unaware that any humans still exist until the moment of their encounter.  There are agitators for war and advocates for peace on both sides of the conflict, and we see how fear breeds the thirst for fighting - both sides believing they are acting for self preservation.

Now, the effects may not be obvious at first, but apparently, there is no such thing as an ape who talks.  Lead ape Andy Sirkus' performance is completely done by motion capture, which is a big effects accomplishment.  Add in a healthy dose of explosions and the typical action movie sequences, and there you have an Oscar nominee for visual effects.  However, the Oscar for this category generally goes to a movie that has spectacular effects that add themselves to a really great story, and I'm not sure this one is strong enough to compete with some of its other nominees for this award.

I enjoyed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes when I saw it this summer.  It was a fun way to pass a couple of hours and the popcorn was delicious.  This visual effects film does harken back to the original Planet of the Apes which was culturally and politically nuanced, and asks us (in a more simplistic way than the original) to examine how we interact with cultures different than ours. Ironically, for a film that is supposed to represent post-apocalyptic San Fransisco, there are a huge number of white faces in the crowd scenes, and we certainly know that city to be much more culturally diverse than what is represented. 

Bottom line - if you're looking for a good bubblegum movie with lots of action and pretty good performances, this one is certainly ape-ropriate.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER - 1 nomination

Visual Effects - Dan LeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a very satisfying film from the world of superhero movies.  It's another in the Marvel series featuring solo projects for The Avengers, and it hits on all levels.  The visual effects are certainly marvelous, though no more of a standout than any of The Avengers films along the way.  It's a superhero movie, we know that the effects are going to be superb, so this nomination is hardly surprising, though I don't know how the Academy chooses from among the obvious choices.

The story is a fun one, with Captain America doing his best to fight a mysterious enemy and the super villain group HYDRA, who seem to have infiltrated the good guys at SHIELD.  When Director Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is gunned down, he warns our hero to trust no one in the organization. Nonetheless, he partners with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a new friend, The Falcon (Anthony Mackie), to root out the evil, which he discovers to be closer to home and his own past than he expected.

Even though I'm a huge fan of all of the Marvel films, I have to admit that there is one element that always puzzles me.  Captain America, in this film, is fighting a big baddie who threatens the safety and vitality of the world.  Why doesn't he get on the phone at some point and ask his buddy Iron Man to come help out?  Ok, Thor is in another dimension, so he may not have cell service and the Hulk is likely off somewhere picking out clothes that go well with his shade of green, but if a threat this big is facing the world, you don't have time for a two minute phone call?

We may never know the answer to this question, but what we do know is that for a fun, popcorn movie, Captain America is a winner.  You can check out the trailer here:

BOYHOOD - 6 nominations

Best Picture - Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland
Supporting Actor - Ethan Hawke
Supporting Actress - Patricia Arquette
Director - Richard Linklater
Film Editing - Sandra Adair
Original Screenplay - Richard Linklater

Boyhood is the simple story of a single mom and her two kids, their not quite a boy not quite a man father, and the ways that adult choices affect the growth of their children.  As everyone who's heard of the film knows by now, it was filmed over a period of 12 years with the same actors for one week a year, so we see the characters grow as people and we see them age, as well.  This is most pronounced for the two children who we meet when they are very young, and we watch them grow year by year.

The story isn't really one we haven't seen before, and I think that if this were any other movie without this unique approach to aging, we would call it a nice, vanilla story that is sweet and universal.  Some women make very poor choices in picking partners.  Some dads are unreliable but extremely loving. Kids go through stuff as they age and find their voices and their passions.  They become adults who leave their parents behind.

The aging is the heart of this film's acclaim.  The reason that we feel so connected is the same reason we marvel when a friend's child is about to learn to drive, go to college, get married - we watched that child grow up.  The same is true for this film, we literally watch the characters grow up, and the truth is, without that element of the film, this movie would not be an Oscar contender and it would just be a nice film about Richard Linklater's childhood.  It's a different movie entirely because of the novel approach, which is why I do recommend seeing it.  It feels like a more authentic story because of the maturation process, and that also makes the parents' journeys more real to us.  

That's why Boyhood deserves a nomination for Best Picture, but not Original Screenplay.  Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette are very good in the film, but not necessarily what I would call Oscar good (she had a juicier part, so maybe she more than he has a justified nomination, though they were both great in their parts).  Richard Linklater as the Director with the vision for this whole project is most deserving of recognition, and I believe that this may have an impact on future films in Hollywood.

I, too, am approaching a time when my oldest son will be off to college, so I'm not ashamed to admit that I sobbed like a little baby when Patricia Arquette struggled with this same life transition.  So that's where I land on Boyhood - authentic, representative of real life experiences, characters that you know.  But Oscar worthy?  The answer is 4 weeks in the making.

BIRDMAN (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) - 9 nominations

Best Picture - Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole
Actor - Michael Keaton
Supporting Actor - Edward Norton
Supporting Actress - Emma Stone
Director - Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Cinematography - Emmanuel Lubezki
Sound Editing - Martin Hernández and Aaron Glascock
Sound Mixing - Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
Original Screenplay - Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo

Birdman is the tale of an actor, known primarily for his portrayal of a superhero, seeking validation by mounting a serious production on Broadway.  At the start of the film he is in rehearsals just days away from opening as he deals with emotional actors,  a nervous lawyer, a recovering drug addict daughter, and a haunting voice of self-loathing and self doubt embodied by his former character, Birdman.  

Michael Keaton gives a vulnerable performance and we understand that this play means everything to him - financially, spiritually, and emotionally.  He has constant hallucinations of superhero powers that range from telekinesis to flight, and each setback in the play slowly chips away at his sanity.  His ex-wife very pointedly tells him, "you confuse love for admiration," and the most powerful Broadway reviewer says, "you're not an actor, you're a celebrity."  All of this while he deals with a nervous female lead (Naomi Watts), an insane but clearly brilliant last minute cast addition in Edward Norton (himself manic and unstable, but hilarious), and a confused and struggling daughter in Emma Stone, who is raw and emotional in her own right.

This is a completely different kind of movie, and that's a tribute to Director, Alejandro Iñárritu, who had a clear vision having produced, directed, and written Birdman.  The screenplay is sharp tongued and quick witted.  It is funny and dark and emotional.

For the technical categories, the cinematography is subtle - I had to watch the film a second time to really ingest the brilliance of the camera work.  Yes, there are lots of shots in dark places with interesting lighting that usually attract the attention of this branch, but the amazing work comes in taking a drama and shooting it like a superhero movie.  I'm not sure that any of the three technical awards will go to Birdman, but the merits of the nominations are clear.

Watch the trailer here:

THE BOXTROLLS - 1 nomination

Animated Feature Film - Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable and Travis Knight

Oy, The Boxtrolls is just so darn cute and adorable!  It was clever, creative, and delicious.

The city of Cheesebridge is home to trolls who take anything that humans leave outdoors and turn them into incredible inventions and works of art.  Each troll has his own wardrobe comprised of a box for a product that coincidentally dons his name - so the troll in the shoebox is called "Shoe," and the troll in the fish box is called "Fish."  They take in a human baby who they raise as their own, and the legend in the town begins suggesting that Boxtrolls will steal the town's children at night.  This gives license for a rich man in town to embark on a campaign to kill all of the Boxtrolls.

Their human child, Eggs, is the hero of the film, and he works to protect his Boxtroll family.  He develops a relationship with a young girl, and discovers his humanity through her.

As an aside, there is a particular obsession with cheese in the film, which frankly left me feeling hungry!  That cheese is certainly a prized possession of the town and I was ready to help them dig in. That's how great this movie is, even animated cheese looked delicious.

There is an incredible sweetness to The Boxtrolls even though there is plenty of dramatic tension and lots of crazy scenarios.  The animation was absolutely breathtaking, and the appearances voiced by Tracy Morgan and Richard Ayoade are both standout characters in the film.

Take a look at the trailer, you'll see a great snippet of the film and why it's so worth seeing:

BIG HERO SIX - 1 nomination

Animated Feature Film - Don Hall, Chris Williams and Roy Conli

Big Hero 6 is the story of precocious Hiro Hamada, a kid with a talent for robotics, who teams up with a group of smart scientist kids to fight evil in their city.  They are joined by Hiro's brother's invention, Baymax, a super puffy robot whose mission is to maximize the health of those under his care.  Baymax's protective instincts and kind "heart" make him ripe for coming to the aid of these young smarties who use their brains and scientific skills to equip themselves to be superheroes.

A particular standout in the cast (as always) is T.J. Miller who voices Fred - the goofy rich kid who gets the symbolism of what they are doing, noting training sequences as comic book references and has a particular glee in what the team is doing to fight crime.  He is the comic relief to Hiro's intensity, and he does it brilliantly.

Big Hero 6 was a standout in the animated full length feature genre this year.  I was truly delighted by it.  It's a movie that works as much for adults as it does for kids.  It's funny, it's sweet, and it approaches the super hero genre in a different way.  We have not seen this exact story a million times before.  From the day I saw it, I knew it would be nominated for this Oscar category.  Whether or not it grabs the gold, I highly recommend seeing it.

Watch the trailer (and don't forget to watch the movie until the end for a post-credits scene)

BEGIN AGAIN - 1 nomination

Original Song - Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

Begin Again is the sweet, yet predictable, story of Greta (Keira Knightly), a young songwriter who has followed her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) to New York as his music career is taking off.  Dave is on the precipice of becoming a huge rock star, and she is seeing her songs (sometimes co-authored with him) taking center stage.  When he returns from his tour, she intuits that he has cheated on her and their relationship falls apart.  Meanwhile, music executive Dan's (Mark Ruffalo) career is on a falling trajectory, and his relationships with his ex-wife and daughter aren't exactly stable.  It is at the intersection of these two talents - producer and songwriter - where Begin Again heats up.  Dan and Greta agree to record a unique album together, and their fires are rekindled - bringing her out of her post break up funk, bringing him out of his creative lull.  The great surprise of the film is how beautiful Keira Knightley's singing voice is and I left the film absolutely certain that I would buy her album.  CeeLo Green has an adorable cameo that captures his persona and his sweet side, and he was a fun addition to the film.

Lost Stars, the nominated song, is at the heart of the conflict between staying with one's old life or pursuing a new road ahead; between losing oneself to live another person's dream and letting go to find one's own voice.  It's a great song, and there are multiple versions of it as a sweet ballad, as a pop song, and as a hybrid of the two.  Check it out, performed here by Adam Levine.

Haven't seen the film?  Watch the trailer here: