MALEFICENT - 1 nomination

Costume Design - Anna B. Sheppard

Maleficent is a delicious little film about a fairy with a strong protective instinct (Angelina Jolie) and the curse she bestows upon a king who has betrayed her and her kind.  It is the kind of wonderful film in which we are afforded the opportunity to walk in the shoes of a character we have grown up knowing to be evil.  Maleficent cares for and grows to love the child she has cursed, and as the story we know plays out, we are rooting for Maleficent and for the child.

Because we are in a land of fairy tales, the costumes are creative, beautiful, evil, and inspiring.  This movie was most certainly a contender, as well, for production design and sadly just didn't make the final cut.  Normally, movies like this end up with nominations for costume even though they are in fairly weak movies (i.e., The Great Gatsby); not so with Maleficent.  The costumes are indeed worthy of Oscar nomination, but if you come for the costumes, you'll stay for the film and for Angelina Jolie's rich performance that works on every level.

I'm a fan of Maleficent, and if you see it, you will be too.

See the trailer:

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS - 1 nomination each

Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 - Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry
Joanna - Aneta Kopacz
Our Curse - Tomasz Sliwinski and Maciej Slesicki
The Reaper - Gabriel Serra Arguello
White Earth - J. Christian Jensen

The documentary short subject films are usually a diverse set from around the world ranging a broad set of topics.  This year's crop is no different.

Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 is a high intensity experience as we see the counselors at the nation's only suicide hotline specifically devoted to military veterans and current service people.  These helpers give a new meaning to the word dedicated, not only talking to those who are suffering and trying to secure their immediate safety, but also following up, tracking them down if they hang up, and badgering law enforcement (in the best sense) to get them on scene, as necessary.  It is an emotional roller coaster for both the callers and the helpers, and a shining example of the documentary short at its finest.

Joanna follows a woman as she battles terminal cancer.  She has a very special relationship with her son, and her very supportive husband is strong by her side.  She is a difficult subject for a documentary, because she is not a big talker, and naturally, we want more of a narrative as we watch. However, with that criticism in mind, the striking thing about the film is how many important conversations are shown without the audio for the dialogue.  We only see people's authentic reactions.  We realize that what is important is not what is said, but what is felt.

Our Curse was the most difficult of the five for me to watch.  It follows the first year of life as a couple adapt to life with their newborn who has a deadly congenital lung disease.  Where new parents would struggle with changing diapers, this couple struggles with changing throat tubes which are plugged in to a breathing machine while the baby sleeps.  The couple, who look like Gael Garcia Bernal and Kate Hudson look alikes, film both moments caring for the baby and quiet moments on the couch where they ponder what their lives will look like now and into the future.

The Reaper follows a slaughterhouse in Mexico and the man whose job it is to actually kill the cows, all day every day, which he has done for 25 years.  It juxtaposes the bringer of death as also the sustainer of life for his 5 kids who are not in desperate poverty thanks to his job.  This film was a little artsy for my taste, and when a short subject documentary feels too long, it's clear that more story would do better than so much filming of walls and shoes and settings.

White Earth is the film that I least appreciated of the five.  It follows four people whose families have moved to a very small town in North Dakota (White Earth) in order to take advantage of job opportunities related to oil drilling.  The interesting part of the film is that it provides another view of the oil industry beyond the debates about the environment.

To see the Trailers, see below:

Crisis Hotline

Joanna:

Our Curse

White Earth http://oscar.go.com/nominees/documentary-short-subject/white-earth

No trailer is available for The Reaper.

BEYOND THE LIGHTS - 1 nomination

Original Song - "Grateful" Music and Lyric by Diane Warren

Beyond the Lights is the story of Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a remarkable award-winning singer and her Svengali mother (Minnie Driver) who controls every move that Noni makes.  Noni attempts suicide and is rescued by police officer/aspiring politician Kaz (Nate Parker), who also has his path being dictated by his father (Danny Glover).  They get together and he doesn't care about the fame, he loves her for who she is and he loves him for who he is, cue music.  And that's it - you can just as easily watch any other generic romantic film, and you'd get the same storyline.  This one is by the same filmmakers as Love and Basketball, so if you want romantic film with love story complications that the characters eventually overcome, you simply have to choose if you would prefer the harsh realities of the sports world or the harsh realities of the music business, and then watch the same movie with different settings and costumes.  I do love me some Minnie Driver, so ok, pick this one.

The song that is nominated, Grateful, is a nice song, but it's basically another pop song.  I happen to love the songwriter, Diane Warren, who has been nominated for Oscars for Best Song for decades (Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Mannequin; I Don't Want to Miss A Thing, Armageddon). Unfortunately for this song, it could just as easily be a Beyonce song or a Rhianna song - there is nothing distinctive about it that makes it a prime nominee for an Oscar... much like the movie.

So, I'm putting this squarely in the Oscar nomination miss category.  And, I'd wait for Netflix to see the film.  Hear the nominated song here:

THE LEGO MOVIE - 1 nomination

Best Song - Everything is Awesome, Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson

In The Lego Movie, Chris Pratt voices Emmett, an ordinary construction worker who plays by the rules of society.  Elizabeth Banks voices Wild Style, a rebel who is convinced that Emmet fulfills a prophecy of being "the special," or the person who holds the key to saving the Lego universe by stopping Lord Business (Will Farrell) from freezing everyone into place.  As Emmett and Wild Style pursue a way to foil Lord Business' evil plans, they pick up assorted Lego characters as they travel the many neighborhoods of the Lego galaxy.

The Lego Movie was one of my favorite movies of the year, and for sure one of my favorite animated movies of the year.  (Color me a little bitter that it wasn't nominated for Animated Feature.)  It was funny and did an amazing job of pulling from all of our favorite Lego sets - there is an amazing scene where all of the Lego representatives come together and it seems like everyone who is anyone in the Lego world appears.  The cast of actors include everyone from Morgan Freeman to Alison Brie, Jonah Hill to Will Forte, and half the fun is figuring out who is playing whom.  

Everything Is Awesome is the nominated song that is meant to represent the nature of the Lego society - that is, group above individualism and rigorous adherence to the "way it's meant to be done" over exploring new ideas.  However, it is simply impossible to get the song out of your head once you've gotten it in.  (Watch the youtube clip at your own earworm peril!)  While I don't think it will win this year, I do love the song, because, well, everything about it IS awesome!

One more note about The Lego Movie - this film had every chance of feeling like a big product placement commercial for Legos.  The fact that it was a great film with an authentic story and a genuine lesson only speaks to how well it was done.  I recommend it most highly.

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.