Evaluating the nominees

For the films of 2014
Big Magilla
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Big Magilla »

Yes.
CalWilliam
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by CalWilliam »

Big Magilla wrote:
nightwingnova wrote:Gene Hackman?

Good thought processes on this last (?) "brutally honest Oscar ballot":

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/b ... -no-775783
I know who it is. It's not Gene Hackman. The intro is very carefully and amusingly laid out. The Golden Globe winning and BAFTA nominated actor who is "not so much into special effects pictures" is actually best known today for his starring role in a landmark special effects film. Although he's acted opposite a number of Oscar nominees, none of them were nominated for films in which he was in. They include Don Murray, Lana Turner, Liv Ullmann, Olivia de Havilland, Roy Scheider, Angela Lansbury, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Alec Baldwin, Joe Pesci and current nominees Mark Ruffalo and Eddie Redmayne.

If you're still stumped, check out the list of Neighborhood Playhouse alumni on Wikipedia. His name should pop out at you.
Of course it's Keir Dullea, isn't it?
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Big Magilla
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Big Magilla »

nightwingnova wrote:Gene Hackman?

Good thought processes on this last (?) "brutally honest Oscar ballot":

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/b ... -no-775783
I know who it is. It's not Gene Hackman. The intro is very carefully and amusingly laid out. The Golden Globe winning and BAFTA nominated actor who is "not so much into special effects pictures" is actually best known today for his starring role in a landmark special effects film. Although he's acted opposite a number of Oscar nominees, none of them were nominated for films in which he was in. They include Don Murray, Lana Turner, Liv Ullmann, Olivia de Havilland, Roy Scheider, Angela Lansbury, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Alec Baldwin, Joe Pesci and current nominees Mark Ruffalo and Eddie Redmayne.

If you're still stumped, check out the list of Neighborhood Playhouse alumni on Wikipedia. His name should pop out at you.
anonymous1980
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by anonymous1980 »

How I would rank this year's nominees:

BEST PICTURE
01. Boyhood
02. The Grand Budapest Hotel
03. Birdman
04. Whiplash
05. Selma
06. American Sniper
07. The Imitation Game
08. The Theory of Everything

BEST DIRECTOR
01. Richard Linklater
02. Wes Anderson
03. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu
04. Bennett Miller
05. Morten Tyldum

BEST ACTOR
01. Michael Keaton
02. Benedict Cumberbatch
03. Steve Carell
04. Eddie Redmayne
05. Bradley Cooper

BEST ACTRESS
01. Marion Cotillard
02. Reese Witherspoon
03. Rosamund Pike
04. Julianne Moore
05. Felicity Jones

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
01. JK Simmons
02. Ethan Hawke
03. Edward Norton
04. Mark Ruffalo
Unseen: Robert Duvall (I'm not OCD enough to check out The Judge)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
01. Patricia Arquette
02. Emma Stone
03. Meryl Streep
04. Laura Dern
05. Keira Knightley

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
01. The Grand Budapest Hotel
02. Boyhood
03. Birdman
04. Nightcrawler
05. Foxcatcher

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
01. Inherent Vice
02. Whiplash
03. The Imitation Game
04. American Sniper
05. The Theory of Everything
nightwingnova
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by nightwingnova »

Gene Hackman?

Good thought processes on this last (?) "brutally honest Oscar ballot":

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/b ... -no-775783
The Original BJ
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by The Original BJ »

Big Magilla wrote:The one B.J. referenced I thought made a few good points. This one, though, should be locked up in a looney bin.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/b ... -no-773848
I had read both, and I was actually referring to that one more. I mean, good god.
Big Magilla
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Big Magilla »

The one B.J. referenced I thought made a few good points. This one, though, should be locked up in a looney bin.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/b ... -no-773848
Mister Tee
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Mister Tee »

I'd argue it's the dumbest voters who most frequently volunteer their opinions, creating a wholly unrepresentative view of the electorate as a whole. Mark Harris says he's talked to a number of voters, all of whom offer better reasoned choices -- but none of them feel the need to splash their opinions publicly.
nightwingnova
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by nightwingnova »

sadly, this is the thinking we need to understand to correctly predict the winners. :(
The Original BJ wrote:I hate reading those things, because it just reminds me how some of these people use reasoning that's utterly idiotic to come up with their choices.
Last edited by nightwingnova on Thu Feb 19, 2015 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Original BJ
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by The Original BJ »

I hate reading those things, because it just reminds me how some of these people use reasoning that's utterly idiotic to come up with their choices.
nightwingnova
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by nightwingnova »

Brutally honest Oscar voter ballot. Love it!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/ ... 015-773902
flipp525
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by flipp525 »

Brendan Gleeson is your annual "old lady pick" for this year, Big Magilla.

I would've given Meryl Streep's spot for Into the Woods to...Meryl Streep for her kind, compassionate, humane and unaffected cameo in The Homesman.
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Big Magilla
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Big Magilla »

This is one of those years in which I half agree with the Academy and half don't.

I agree with most that Boyhood, Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel were the year's most satisfying artistic successes and rank them 1st, 2nd and 3rd in that order.

Boyhood may seem simple, even tedious at times, but overall it's a fascinating look at a young life being lived, of a struggling single mother and a mostly absent father. Nothing much seems to be happening, but the totality of it is extraordinary. Patricia Arquette's last scene speaks volumes. It cost something like $2.5 million to make, the year's least expensive film despite having been filmed over a twelve year period proving the obvious -it shouldn't take a lot of money to make a good movie..

Birdman ia a quirky film, but an artistic triumph nonetheless. Michael Keaton is not making a comeback. He is playing a character who is. To me the film was about someone of a certain age trying to do too much and having a nervous breakdown. It's also very funny despite being primarily a dramatic film. Everything about it works on its own terms.

The Grand Budapest Hotel takes us into a world that never was, but is part of its director's extraordinary vision. I've enjoyed most of Wes Anderson's films but I never really loved any of them until now.

The fourth nominee I agree with, although not as strongly, is The Imitation Game.

The Imitation Game gives us a fascinating rare look at a World War II backdrop even if it skimps on Alan Turing's overall tragic life story. The Weinstein campaign may be despicable, but when aren't Harvey's campaigns overboard?

The other four:

American Sniper is an uneasy film to watch but it's neither pro-war nor anti-war, it's just a reconstruction of events that happened to its central figure during four tours in Iraq and the terrible stress it put on his life. It's also one of Clint Eastwood's two or three best films but I need to see again before I can fully make up my mind about it.

Selma does fine with the big scenes: the church bombing, the marches, the senseless killings, but the dramatic scenes are a mixed bag. Sure, they're well-acted but almost totally made up. Dreamworks owns the rights to King's speeches rendering their made-up substitutions in the screenplay weak. Making LBJ a villain is just wrong and the director's excuse that she didn't want to make another film in which the white man is the hero of a film about black people may be admirable but you don't need to turn a hero of the movement into a villain to do that. It was RFK, not LBJ, who allowed Hoover's surveillance of MLK. The scene in which Coretta confronts him over his extra-marital affairs never happened. Sge always maintained she didn't know about them. The 1978 TV mini-series King with Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson covered the material much better.

Whiplash is a fine minor film, but not Best Picture worthy IMO.

The Theory of Everything I just don't get. It should really be called "A Few Scenes from the Life of Stephen Hawking" because that's basically what it is. There is no sense of the passage of time, no real explanation of Hawking's theories, no real exploration of his illness and most disappointing, no real love story. Jane seems more to be pitying Stephen than truly loving him. She has more spark in her supposedly chaste relationship with the choir director who becomes her second husband on the rebound.

I would give those four slots to Nightcrawler, Calvary Ida and A Most Wanted Man.

I don't really have a pony in the Best Actor race. Brendan Gleeson, my pick for Best Actor for Calvary, is not nominated, but I would be happy to see either Michael Keaton or Benedict Cumberbatch take the prize. My fourth and fifth picks would be Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcawler and Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner. I liked Bradley Cooper in American Sniper despite my overall uneasiness with the film but found Steve Carell lacking in Foxcatcher.

A win for Julianne Moore for Best Actress is about as overdue as a win for any actress in Oscar history so no complaints although my personal pick is Marion Cotillard. But then I previously gave Moore one of my own awards and have never given Cotillard one, otherwise I would be more forcefully on the Moore bandwagon. Of the other nominees, only Reese Witherspoon marginally deserves to be there. Amy Adams in Big Eyes and Hilary Swank in The Homesman would be my picks over Felicity Jones who is okay but nothing special and Rosamund Pike who really didn't impress me at all.

Except for Robert Duvall, the supporting actor nominees are all terrific with front-runner J.K. Simmons well deserving of his likely win. Edward Norton, Ethan Hawke and Mark Ruffalo are fine also-rans. Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler is my pick for the fifth slot.

Patricia Arquette is far and away the best in her category, but I also like Keira Knightley quite a bit. I would have preferred Rene Russo in Nightcrawler, Imelda Staunton in Pride and Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer to Laura Dern, Emma Stone and Meryl Streep in the other slots.
Greg
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Greg »

If I remember correctly, I think it was for Gravity, not Silver Linings Playbook.
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Re: Evaluating the nominees

Post by Bog »

I follow...reminds me of Italiano a couple years back aghast at someone rating Silver Linings Playbook 3.5 stars...asking if that could be true what on earth is the rating of L'avventura?
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