Oscars 2015

Nominations are out, and they're REALLY fucking white, even for the Academy. Not one actor of color. The only reason we have any women in the major categories is because women have their own acting awards.* Inarritu is about as diverse as we're going to get.

I mean, I didn't expect Ava DuVernay to win, but not even a nomination? Sheesh. Hurt Locker was half a decade ago. 12 Years A Slave's win did not mean "12 Years Until We Have to Acknowledge Black People Again." (Selma only got Best Original Song & Best Picture. Its lack of nominations anywhere else means I wouldn't hold my breath for it winning the latter.)

Despite the Academy's eagerness to nominate white dudes, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Joaquin Phoenix were unfairly snubbed. Though I can't say I'm surprised about Phoenix. Though it's nice the other Anderson (Wes) getting a nod--the Academy seems to prefer nominating him in the writing category, so it's nice to see his distinctive directing nominated.

Least favorite nominee: "Everything is Awesome" for original song, because I've already seen "Everything is Not Awesome" more than enough times.

I was expecting Boyhood to do really well at the Oscars (the whole "singular feat no one will do again" thing really helps), but I wasn't expecting the nominations to be this ridiculous.

*If you want to stretch things, Sandra Adair is nominated for editing Boyhood. Which is nice enough, since that's a pretty male-dominamted category, too. (The only recently nominated/winning woman editor I can recall off the top of my head is Thelma Schoonmaker.) If you don't want to stretch, would it have been so hard to nominate Gillian Flynn?

EDIT: One of the songs from Beyond the Lights got nominated! Yay! Beyond the Lights is the winner of the prestigious 2014 Poubelle's Absolute Fave award, and features a brilliant performance from the 2014 Poubelle's Absolute Fave Actress award-winner Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

I was surprised that the lead actor in Selma wasn't nominated.

bookworm wrote:I was surprised that the lead actor in Selma wasn't nominated.  

No kidding. We saw Selma last weekend, and he was just amazing as MLK.

These nominations are pretty baffling to me. I'm disappointed--not just by the utter lack of diversity, but there are some real hard core performances that absolutely should NOT have been snubbed, like Jake Gyllenhaal--and yes, the Lego Movie. Dragon 2 was good but not Oscar worthy, imo.

I pretty much have zero interest in the awards this year, first time in forever.

Ditto, CocoaGoddess. After The Golden Globes made some interesting, cool choices (primarily in the TV columns, though), this just feels extra disappointing. And, yes, of course, we all know the tune about how the Oscar voters are terrible and these are very silly awards, but there is no denying that they are still the standard High Hope for the film industry. So it's just crushing that women and POC artists will continue to be shut out of the party until the demographics change. And because of the process of inviting new members, it's a self-perpetuating system. I wish this didn't bother me, but it does.

And of course, it's also linked to how horribly anti-progress the industry itself is, but that's part of why awards attention matters. Again, it's a cycle. The unimaginative heads of studios need to see numbers and dollars and awards to believe in anything, and to start paying people what they deserve and giving them the chances they would already have if they were white men.

So, I'm going to see Selma this weekend, and then I don't know that I'm paying to see any movie without a female/POC director, writer, or central actor for awhile. Maybe I'll just a make a year out of it. My "That'll Do, White Men" year.

Carrie Ann wrote:So, I'm going to see Selma this weekend, and then I don't know that I'm paying to see any movie without a female/POC director, writer, or central actor for awhile. Maybe I'll just a make a year out of it. My "That'll Do, White Men" year.

I don't know that I can cut out all of the movies that would fail that test (I'm a Marvel Studios/Star Wars/Disney fanboy, I'm SORRY), but I feel like I could safely limit myself to just Avengers, Ant-Man, and Star Wars to scratch that itch, skip most everything else, and then make an effort to see every movie with a female/poc director, writer, primary character that comes through my area.

I pretty much have zero interest in the awards this year, first time in forever.

My family usually has a little party, but we couldn't pick a better year to skip that whole thing. The only thing that made me happy in the nominations announcement was Laura Dern being recognized, she is super terrific in Wild. And while you could make a very good correct argument that The Grand Budapest Hotel is white dude movie, it at least treats Tony Revolori's Zero as co-lead, and it's Moustafa who tells the story. So those are my sole rootable interests.

I think Mighty Opes should stage a massive special screening of Selma on Oscar Night, I know I'd go see that instead.

You can still root for Selma in BP! I have some slim hopes that enough noise will be made about its snubs in Director and Best Actor that the Academy will guilt-vote it for BP, or all of the female/POC voters will band together and vote out of solidarity.

Just, what a depressing year. And yeah, I had plans of doing my annual triple-feature catch-ups at the theater, but now I just have no interest.

And laddical, I'm with you. Before I typed that I thought, oh no, Avengers, and oh no, Star Wars. And I could argue that Joss and JJ get exceptions because they both gave me some of the best ladies ever to grace the small screen, but it would be cool if they would make it a priority to do more for women on the big screen too. I know Joss has tried, somewhat, and I have problems with his idea of feminism anyway, but whatever. I'm going to see those movies, no question. But otherwise, my time at the theater is pretty limited these days and I'm perfectly happy to limit it to movies made by and about people other than white men.

I don't think boycotting is going to send a message either way--the Academy it seems cares less and less about being in tune with the masses.

Boycotting the awards themselves, or the white men movies? If the latter, I wouldn't be attempting to send a message to anyone. I'm just tired of propping up a sick system, I guess, and tired of seeing the same stories play out over and over on screen. This would just be a concerted effort to put my money (or not put my money, as the case may be) where my mouth is.

But yeah, I don't think the Academy has ever demonstrated an interest in anything aside from giving their friends awards, or voting for the safest, best-known options. I know it's not going to change anytime soon, and like I said, I wish I didn't care. But I've religiously watched the Oscars, and followed the campaigns and nominations, since I was a pre-teen. I guess it's like being a boxing fan, or an NFL fan at this point. You know the system is broken, you've probably always known, but you don't really want it laid out so clearly.

Skyblade wrote:I don't think boycotting is going to send a message either way--the Academy it seems cares less and less about being in tune with the masses.

I saw one article that pointed out that if you added up the box office take of all this year's Best Picture nominees, you still wouldn't have the amount Gravity made.

I would actually argue, race issues aside, Selma should be a pretty safe choice for the Academy: a prestige picture based on an important part of history. Bonus points for the lead actor playing an actual person, which is normally a great way to get nominated, if not win, if trends in the Best Actor field for the past decade are anything to go by. (Heck, the only actual best actor nominee this year who DIDN'T play a real person is Keaton, and even he did something of a variation on himself.)

I LOVE movies, I can never see enough movies, so I would never not see something down to a particular calculus, but I try to prioritize those that are female driven and diverse, which is usually undermined by how small a window those films are given at the actual theater. I think that's one of my bigger issues with the modern distribution landscape, stadium seating is great when you need to pack X amount of people into X amount theaters to break even, but it KILLS the smaller films, few operators want to spare a screen to Beyond the Lights, Belle, or Dear White People, and when they do you have at most two to three weekends to see it before it's gone. The whole model can barely spend any time on NOW, they are far more concerned with NEXT.

Back in the day movies even "smaller" non action movies stuck around for a couple of months at least, now that is more of a rare bird. I think Gone Girl had good legs, same with Interstellar, but those are the only two I can think of.

Mark Harris had a great article at Grantland that basically put it all down to release date and mishandling by Paramount, in addition to the usual systemic reasons. Worth a read.

Watching What the Flick they noted that Selma did not have screeners sent to all the Guilds so that probably hurt it because not everyone goes to screenings.

I will say that I cackled a bit when Jennifer Aniston was not nominated. I haven't seen her movie, but the crazyass campaigning over the last few months has been bonkers.

Carrie Ann wrote:Mark Harris had a great article at Grantland that basically put it all down to release date and mishandling by Paramount, in addition to the usual systemic reasons. Worth a read.

Yeah, I was going to mention the truly shitty campaign Selma had. It really should've been pushed back a year. It just wasn't ready early enough, and even if you get those screeners out the Academy, if you're already conceding that you're going to skip out on the guilds, BAFTA, the festival circuit...that is a LOT of momentum to lose while other films are taking advantage of it.

The only race I care about this year is Best Actor, where I just really, really need Keaton to win. He's been one of my faves since I was a little kid and I fear Bradley Cooper might be swooping in at the last second to grab it away from him.

So I decided to have my very own Oscars party all by my lonesome. I made hors d'ouevres, and my very own Oscars cocktail (it's bright red, and it's named after my favorite of the Best Picture nominees The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anyway, if you'd like to try it your self, it's easy to make: Shake over ice 1 oz Jack Daniels (or other bourbon), 1 oz Abolut Orient Apple, and 2 oz pomegranate juice. Strain into a martini glass. Top with champage (or other sparkling white wine). So yummy!

Am I crazy or was Chris Pine crying after Common and John Legend performed "Glory" tonight? I found that really endearing. David Oyelowo certainly was, and I can't blame him. That performance was amazing, and the song is incredible so I can imagine the vibe in the room was pretty strong and emotional.

whatthedeuce wrote:Am I crazy or was Chris Pine crying after Common and John Legend performed "Glory" tonight? I found that really endearing. David Oyelowo certainly was, and I can't blame him. That performance was amazing, and the song is incredible so I can imagine the vibe in the room was pretty strong and emotional.

Not only that, but he was the first to stand for a standing ovation when the song won. I actually checked imdb to see if I had missed him being in the movie! But so sweet that he was that emotional.

For some reason I could never pinpoint, Chris Pine usually annoys me, but he's forever endeared himself to me with the tears streaming down his fave.

And apropos of absolutely nothing, Eddie Redmayne totally reminds me of Jane Lynch. Please tell me someone else sees it. Also, he looks so sweet and gorgeous tonight in that blue tux. His berserk reaction to his name being announced was adorable, and he gave a great and funny speech!

I loved Patricia Arquette's speech and Innaritu's as well. There were actually lots of beautiful speeches tonight. Also pretty great that Julianne Moore and Eddie got to mention Alzheimer's and ALS. Julianne saying "Thanks for giving me a home" to her family was so touching and sweet.

I think this year will definitely be known as the "social awareness" Oscars. As much as I LOVED Patricia Arquette and Common, and guy from The Imitation Game, the one person whose speech felt a bit forced was Eddie Redmayne. I know he was excited and everything, but he won a LOT of awards this season. And frankly, I think he won because he campaigned like hell to get it, which is fellow nominees didn't do as much. But I did appreciate his thank you to the entire Hawking family, which was really nice.

And although the show did NOT need it because it was running so long, Lady Gaga was great. Also her performance was a brilliant way to remind everyone that she really, really can sing.

A little disappointed that Birdman won Best Picture, as it was probably my least favourite of the ones I've seen (Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Foxcatcher - which wasn't even nominated - were better IMO). But still, it seems like it was a good year for movies. Can't wait to see the rest of them. I think Whiplash will be next on my list.

It actually was a pretty good year for movies. It's just a shame that it wasn't also a good year for diversity. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I liked Birdman fine, but of the six Best Picture contenders I saw, it was in last place. If I'd actually been a voting member, it would have taken seventh - yeah, I didn't see Grand Budapest Hotel (stupid iTunes doesn't offer a rental option for it), but I would have put it in sixth above Birdman just because I think the latter deserved Best Director and should have been a split from Best Picture (which I would have given to Selma).

Kookla wrote:A little disappointed that Birdman won Best Picture, as it was probably my least favourite of the ones I've seen (Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Foxcatcher - which wasn't even nominated - were better IMO). But still, it seems like it was a good year for movies. Can't wait to see the rest of them. I think Whiplash will be next on my list.

Same here. I had seen 6 out of the 8 nominees for Best Picture, and Birdman was definitely my least favourite. I thought it was technically impressive, but otherwise, a bunch of pompous nonsense. But it was all about how artists are purer and braver than other people, so I'm guessing it spoke to members of the academy. lol

Yeah, I get the feeling that Birdman would speak to the academy's members, but just from what little I've seen of it, it seems a bit pretentious and bizarre more than anything else. I do think it's cool though that such offbeat movies like that and Grand Budapest Hotel scooped up so many awards.