Tag: Oscars 2014

Oscars 2014 Recap: A strong end to a long awards season

The 2014 Oscars were a wild success and made for one of the best shows in recent memory.

Ellen DeGeneres

“It’s Time,” read the posters for “12 Years A Slave’s” For Your Consideration ads. The Academy did ultimately anoint Steve McQueen’s masterpiece the Oscar for Best Picture of the year, but the statement could honestly refer to the very end of this long-winded Awards season.

Who could have known that at the end of it all, this year’s Oscars could not only be good, but could arguably be called great?

Perhaps “great” is a strong word, and perhaps this ceremony wasn’t as well received as I imagined. This morning I awoke to a decent helping of snark and disappointment as though the media had to meet some sort of quota. But if John Travolta butchering a name or a somewhat long ceremony as a result of some shrug worthy montages about heroes were the worst of it, can’t we call this year’s Oscars a success?  Continue reading “Oscars 2014 Recap: A strong end to a long awards season”

2014 Oscars: The Most Popular (and Likely) Upsets

We’ve made all the predictions, but what would be real surprise this Oscar Sunday? Here are some likely upsets.

I’ve made my Oscar picks, and hopefully so have you, but anyone who has ever done this before knows that Oscar night ends up with pitiful looking ballots and people shouting at the TV (how in the world did that win?). So it actually makes sense to bet against the house in some occasions  and picking with your heart rather than your head is always allowed. So here are some last minute Oscar upsets to make to your ballot that a strong minority would both love to see happen and actually might.

Leonardo DiCaprio over Matthew McConaughey

People love Matthew McConaughey, but as I alluded to in this gallery, people really love Leonardo DiCaprio. A win for McConaughey is seen as justified, but only to commemorate a hot streak; it’s not something that’s obscenely long overdue as though an Oscar was the embodiment of Leo’s kids in “Inception” and he’ll never ever get to see their faces unless he’s caught in his own perpetual ambiguous dream world existence. 

Leo will win if the Academy convinces itself that somehow Leo gave the biggest, most physical and grueling performance of the year and his career by flailing like a fish out of water… a fish that has just done a ton of quaaludes and is trying to get into a Lambo. And yes, this will be seen as even more physical than McConaughey losing 40 pounds, Christian Bale gaining 40, Chiwetel Ejiofor spending 2+ hours getting whipped and hung and Bruce Dern being ancient.

Amy Adams over Cate Blanchett

I think everyone agrees that Cate Blanchett gives the best female performance of the year, but is anyone rooting for her? Is anyone rooting for anyone in this category?

Yes! It’s Amy Adams of course! She’s the only one in this bunch who doesn’t have an Oscar. But not only that, of all living actresses, only Glenn Close has more nominations and no wins than her (six to Adams’ five). Her split personality work in “American Hustle” is as complex as the movie itself, and her surprise nomination is evidence the Academy is already behind her and the movie. Continue reading “2014 Oscars: The Most Popular (and Likely) Upsets”

Ellen, Tina, Amy and Oscar: Why we need more women in Awards Season

This is the first time in 10 years the Oscars and Golden Globes have both been hosted by women in the same year.

Many pundits saw Ellen DeGeneres’s selection as this year’s Oscar host as “safe.” She could be funny and mocking, but she could play by the rules. She was also a time-tested choice who had proven she could hold her own on Hollywood’s biggest night.

But the Academy may have made a bold choice in picking DeGeneres after all. With Tina Fey and Amy Poehler serving as Golden Globe hosts this year, 2014 marks the first time in nearly 10 years where two of the four major awards shows have been hosted by women.

This is skewed slightly because the Globes have not traditionally had a host in the way the Oscars always have, but Ellen, Tina and Amy likewise joined People’s Choice hosts Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings, the stars of “Two Broke Girls,” as part of this female fronted awards circuit.

Fey and Poehler managed to bring in the highest ratings in 10 years for the Hollywood Foreign Press, and they’ll be back again next year to make out with more Irish rock stars and continue sending fruit baskets to Matt Damon’s house. Continue reading “Ellen, Tina, Amy and Oscar: Why we need more women in Awards Season”

15 Great Actors (other than Leo) who have never won an Oscar

Everyone wants Leonardo DiCaprio to win an Oscar, but his lack of one may not even be the most outrageous.

Leonardo DiCaprio is turning 40 this year, and in that time he has four Oscar nominations for acting to his name, including one for this past year’s performance in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” but he has never won.

This, in some circles of the web, is viewed as an inexplicable tragedy on par with freezing to death after a giant shipwreck and sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

The argument in his defense goes, if any actor deserves a lifetime achievement award, it’s him, or alternatively, if you’re going to give him one of those “career Oscars,” better give him one now while he’s in his “prime.”

Not everyone can win an Oscar. For many, the time or the movie just wasn’t right, the rest of the field was too strong, and the Academy will rely on history to rectify their mistake.

If Leo loses again this year (and he very well may to first time nominee Matthew McConaughey), he will only be behind an elite group of six actors who have managed to lose more times than he has (including this year’s five time nominee Amy Adams) without winning. But even of those he is ahead of in the losing streak, his lack of an Oscar may not even be the most egregious.

Click through each photo to read a not exhaustive list of 15 other great actors who have never won an Oscar.

Continue reading “15 Great Actors (other than Leo) who have never won an Oscar”

2014 Oscar Winner Predictions

“12 Years a Slave” will win Best Picture, along with three other Oscars.

The Oscars are here, although maybe not soon enough. A report recently said that two thirds of Americans have not seen any of the Best Picture winners yet. That to me doesn’t add up for a movie like “Gravity” that made as much money as it did, but the point is that this awards season, while interesting, has just gone on too long. A New York Times article wondered if the average individual is generally apathetic to the whole institution of the Oscars.

I hope that isn’t true, but it’s starting to feel that way when the debate over “12 Years a Slave” versus “American Hustle” has long since past, when we’ve heard the story about Jonah Hill getting paid as little as SAG would allow to work for Martin Scorsese over and over again, and when even “Let it Go” parodies are getting old.

Anyway, here are my final predictions. You may find there’s more consensus and predictability than you’d think.

12 Years a Slave

Best Picture

Months ago I wrote an article bluntly titled “Gravity Will NOT Win Best Picture… Probably.” It was smart of me to add on that last word, because the good news is that “Gravity,” my favorite film of the year, is still here. It is still as much of a favorite to win now as it was back when it premiered at Toronto, despite all the things I said about it technically having come true.

But in the case of “Gravity,” the nitpickers have beaten the dollars, and a more “worthy” title, one that isn’t seen as just “a ride” or a movie with a “bad script” will have to take its place. That film will be “12 Years a Slave,” as many predicted long ago that it was invincible. It has now survived with wins at the BAFTAs and Golden Globes as the one to beat, and yet its tie in the Producers Guild Awards with “Gravity” confirms just how close this race is.

“American Hustle” may not be the last minute favorite after all, and it’s a shame for David O. Russell, who would now be 0-3 in a row on his current hot streak. The third time is not the charm, it seems, but I’m betting he’ll strike again, whereas Alfonso Cuaron and Steve McQueen may never make another Oscar friendly movie. The reason I feel it can’t win, and why some are predicting it might not win anything, is, what exactly is the narrative behind this movie winning? It’s a throwback, but not quite. It’s a crowd pleaser, but not entirely. It’s madcap fun, brilliant and original, but some would argue even that’s not all true.

“Gravity” and “12 Years a Slave” each have their supporters who would say otherwise about all of the above, and a win for them will mean something special.

Click Bait: Alec Baldwin, Oscars and Fraternities

Alec Baldwin’s departure essay grew a lot of ire this week, along with articles on a Duke Freshman and fraternities.

I read a lot of stuff, and not all of it makes it to my social media feed. “Click Bait” is my weekly roundup of links pertaining to movies, politics, culture and anything else I found generally interesting this week.

Alec Baldwin: “Good Bye, Public Life”

I’m quickly coming to realize that siding with Alec Baldwin is an unpopular opinion, but I found a lot of his essay smart and insightful about the way our media and our culture operate today. A few poor choices of words about him being a homophobe fail to paint the full picture of the man. The verbs thrown at him are the same once used against Michael Richards and Mel Gibson, to name a few, he seems to be fighting a losing battle with the press, and everything that’s being said reflects of this choice line from his piece: “In the New Media culture, anything good you do is tossed in a pit, and you are measured by who you are on your worst day.” 

So no, I don’t think Alec Baldwin is a douche.

Apathy and the Oscars

The common fear this Oscar season is that people increasingly don’t care about awards shows, about the Oscars or about movies. I’ve written as much in suggesting that TV is the new medium of choice, while film is only passionately admired by those in an ever shrinking niche. This fear is explored interestingly in this NY Times piece, and it may be corroborated by a recent poll suggesting that two thirds of Americans have not seen any of the Best Picture nominees.

That puzzling stat though doesn’t seem to ask who all did pay for those tickets to see “Gravity,” i.e. the fifth highest grossing movie of the year. Continue reading “Click Bait: Alec Baldwin, Oscars and Fraternities”

Oscars 2014 – Best Documentary Overview

A rundown of reviews of all the documentaries nominated for this year’s Oscars and a prediction of the future winner.

People love to rail on the Best Documentary category at the Oscars, and while it’s mind boggling that something as innovative and fresh as “Stories We Tell” couldn’t make the cut, it’s quite often that the final crop is never so terrible.

This year the branch diversified their picks with some crowd pleasers, profiles, surreal experiments and important political statements. And what’s really fortunate is that four of the five nominees (“20 Feet From Stardom” excluded) are all streaming on Netflix.

Here’s a brief rundown of each of the nominees and my own prediction of who might take Oscar gold.

The Act of Killing – 4 stars

One of the early great scenes in “The Act of Killing” shows Anwar Congo, a former gangster and executioner in Indonesia who alone murdered 1000 individuals and lives to boast about his former glory, demonstrating how to strangle a man while minimizing the blood splatter. It’s absolutely harrowing how casually he performs it with a spring in his step, but when Director Joshua Oppenheimer shows Congo the footage, he feels nothing and isn’t phased in the slightest. “The Act of Killing” takes us deeper down the rabbit hole by allowing these evil men to stage recreations of their horrible crimes. People act with bravado in surreal scenarios, and the film crosses the border between movie making fiction and reality. It’s darkly funny and disturbingly beautiful at times, and it pulls the miraculous trick of actually making us sympathize with this wretched man, someone we smiling and even petting ducklings. To see him purge his horror at the film’s end is magnificent.

Continue reading “Oscars 2014 – Best Documentary Overview”

Oscar Nominations 2014 Analysis: Full of Surprises and None

All the Oscar surprises that really weren’t surprises after all

The Oscar nominees rarely satisfy, only surprise and enrage, although never in the way people expect, which I guess is its own surprise.

It was expected that Amy Adams could “surprise” by breaking into the field of Best Actress nominees, but did anyone suspect that it would be at Emma Thompson’s expense? There were predictions that Christian Bale or Leonardo DiCaprio could get into an even tighter race, but both of them? Sally Hawkins was less expected behind perhaps Octavia Spencer and others, but was Oprah really the weak link?

These are the kinds of revelations that both delight and frustrate Oscar pundits. In a way, they were right that the Academy after all did not love “Inside Llewyn Davis” or “Saving Mr. Banks,” but then those prediction tallies never seem to match up.

The fact that there are surprises each year really shouldn’t be a surprise at all. If the Oscar nominations were as easy to predict as picking all the top ranked favorites, then what would be the fun of waking up at 7:38 in the morning to watch them? For instance, why was there doubt that David O. Russell couldn’t lead yet another cast to a sweep of the acting categories like he did with “Silver Linings Playbook” and nearly did with “The Fighter”? That’s one of those “surprises” that people should’ve seen coming a mile away, but no one did.

I guess it’s less of a surprise that Oscar pundits will now all turn around and rationalize the nominations in the way I’ve just done, as though it made sense or was expected all along, but no one “knew” that Thompson would be out, or no one “knew” that “Philomena” was a sure thing thanks to Harvey Weinstein after all. (I did however bet Hanks would get nothing) Continue reading “Oscar Nominations 2014 Analysis: Full of Surprises and None”

2014 Oscars Final Predictions

Who all will be nominated for the 2014 Oscars on January 16.

The day has come. Everyone’s had their say, and the Oscar nominations are only days away. In one corner we have strong consensus on some absolute great movies, movies that could sit on any year’s Best Picture list and be stronger contenders than they are here. And in the other corner you have controversy, bitching, stewing and whining that maybe just about all of these are overrated to some degree. I mean, we knew “Spring Breakers” wasn’t about to be nominated, but does the Academy really think there are 10 better movies this year than “Before Midnight”?

It’s easy to get exhausted by all the bickering, but then that’s criticism, and that’s the Oscar race. It isn’t every year that we get three, maybe four plausible winners in such a vast field.

I tend to enjoy Oscar nomination morning even more so than Oscar night itself. There are more chances for surprise, for curveballs, snubs and the opportunity to pick the winner. Maybe not everyone is aware that Cate Blanchett’s Oscar win this year will be a foregone conclusion (watch me eat those words), but there’s a lot less certainty when it’s so close to being over.

This year my predictions have gone back and forth, but not as much as you might think. Movies like “Rush,” “August: Osage County” and “Fruitvale Station” have been pushed to the margins as the months have passed, and “Her” and “American Hustle” have emerged as more than gems. But this crop of films that we started with back in October has stayed mostly constant because all of them have been as good, if not better than expected. No amount of prognosticating, statistics and snubs can take all that away.

Best Picture

  1. 12 Years a Slave
  2. Gravity
  3. American Hustle
  4. Her
  5. Captain Phillips
  6. Saving Mr. Banks
  7. The Wolf of Wall Street
  8. Nebraska
  9. Inside Llewyn Davis

This remains a race between “12 Years a Slave,” “Gravity,” “American Hustle” and to a lesser degree “Her,” and it’s most exciting to know that not one is the runaway favorite. “12 Years” may be in the lead, but “American Hustle” pulled the hat trick of being recognized by all three guilds, the DGA, PGA and WGA.

“Captain Phillips” and “Saving Mr. Banks” seem like safe fifth and sixth bets, both studio films but one with an edgy action pulse and the other a family friendly affair full of Old Hollywood nostalgia.

A bigger question mark however hangs over “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the most controversial of all the contenders, and “Inside Llewyn Davis,” which has been hit or miss. Opposite “American Hustle,” it pulled the hat trick of being snubbed by all three guilds, and yet it swept the National Society of Film Critics’ Awards.

The reason I feel both are getting in is the little movie no one is talking about, “Nebraska.” This movie has quietly remained in the hunt despite only mild notices for its actors. Alexander Payne missed with the DGA, and no critics have really come to bat for it. But is there a fear that it can’t scrape together a measly 300 1st place votes? Both “Inside Llewyn Davis” and “Wolf” have that kind of love, despite the hate, and this will be a nine horse race for the third year running. Continue reading “2014 Oscars Final Predictions”

Gravity will NOT Win Best Picture… Probably

Some reasons why “Gravity” stands a tough shot at winning the Oscar for Best Picture.

 

“Gravity” may just be the finest movie of 2013. It’s a game-changer, as cliché as it is to say that, and there’s only one other film so far this year that may yet go down as an all-time Hollywood classic.

But it will not win the Oscar for Best Picture.

This may just be a controversial, trolling argument fanning the flame that is the media hype surrounding this year’s barely begun Oscar race (and even as I write this I’m a bit hesitant to say its chances are already over, especially when people already disagree with me), but ask any pundit, and they’ll tell you that the front runner status is not a desirable one to have this early in the game.

What happens is this: there’s a “spin” machine that goes into action, hurling negative press at the wall until something sticks. Before long a “narrative” forms that can overcome quality, dollars or buzz.

“The Hurt Locker” and “The Artist” each survived attacks of plagiarism, but when time passed and reactions settled, movies that were first hailed as generation defining masterpieces like “The Social Network” and “Up in the Air” lost steam fast when people decided they were just “pretty good.”

“12 Years a Slave” may be the “official” front-runner, it also being debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and being the only film to get an article as hyperbolic as this, but the public has drawn first blood on “Gravity” with three straight weeks as the number one box office draw, and the arguments hurled against “Gravity” may outweigh those for Steve McQueen’s film. Here’s what it’s up against over the next few months: Continue reading “Gravity will NOT Win Best Picture… Probably”