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Boyhood01This week I thought it would be nice to do something a little different in light of last week’s Oscar nominations.

The films with the most nominations among this year’s Best Picture nominees are Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel with nine each, followed by The Imitation Game with eight, American Sniper and Boyhood with six each, The Theory of Everything and Whiplash with five each and Selma with two.

While Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game have more nominations, some in technical categories it was not eligible for, critics’ favorite Boyhood would seem to be the one to beat.

The biggest surprise among the nominees is American Sniper which opened to respectful reviews as did two other major war movies, Unbroken and Fury, but none of these three films received anything anywhere near the rave reviews of Selma which received just one other nod.

Whiplash, though not really a surprise, is noteworthy as the only nominee appealing largely to a young audience, beating such hopefuls appealing to the same audience as Gone Girl, Nightcrawler and Snowpiercer.

Birdman, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything were all expected to be nominated. The Grand Budapest Hotel was considered a long shot because it opened last March to respectful reviews but no one at the time predicted it would be an Oscar front-runner.

THE BEST PICTURE NOMINEES

AMERICAN SNIPER (2014), directed by Clint Eastwood

The nation’s leaders may have lied to the American people, resulting in young men and boys sacrificing life, limb and mental stability in wars we shouldn’t have been in, but few would argue that the survivors of the Iraq and Afghan wars don’t deserve our support.

Eastwood’s film tells the life story of ace sniper Chris Kyle, played by Best Actor nominee Bradley Cooper, who had 160 kills but had a tough time re-adjusting to civilian life after four tours of duty in Iraq. He found new meaning in life in helping other veterans, only to be murdered by one of the men he was trying to help.

The film has caused a bit of a war of its own. Critics on the left have called Kyle a sociopath and taken Eastwood to task for toning down his real life bigotry and thrill of the kill. Critics on the right have responded by calling the film’s critics anti-American. The truth, though is that the film, like all good war films, is more anti-war than a celebration of wartime heroics., something that both the film’s most ardent supporters and vehement critics fail to recognize..

It could be the favorite of war film buffs, Clint Eastwood lovers and arch-conservatives.

BIRDMAN (2014), directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

The year’s most innovative nominee for Best Picture, the film appears to be shot in one continuous take as it follows the attempted stage comeback of a has-been movie star (Michael Keaton) whose claim to fame is a superhero character called Birdman, which audiences see as a play on Keaton’s legendary portrayal of Batman.

Inarritu was previously Oscar nominated for Best Picture and Director for the controversial Babel band has picked up three very enthusiastic additional nominations in those categories as well as additional one for Best Original Screenplay.

Keaton himself balks at any suggestion that he is playing himself, giving full credit to his characterization to Inarritu. The film is also a high water mark for co-stars Edward Norton, receiving his third career nomination, and Emma Stone, who like Keaton, has received her first.

It could be the favorite of theatre lovers, dark comedy fans and experimental film aficionados.

BOYHOOD (2014), directed by Richard Linklater

There have been film series in the past in which real life people are re-visited every few years, most notably Michael Apted’s Up Series which followed a group of 7 year-olds every seven years to age 49. No filmmaker, however, has ever done anything as audacious as Linklater who filmed the life of a boy from age 6 to 18 in one film made over the course of 12 years.

Linklater’s technical achievement would alone be worthy of a few awards, but it takes more than technical accomplishments to win the lion’s share of critics’ awards for Best Picture and then become the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar. What makes the film rewarding for audiences is the way it sneaks up on you. Nothing much seems to be happening as Ellar Coltrane, his older sister (the director’s daughter, Loreliei Linklater), their mostly absent father (Ethan Hawke) and their always there single mother (Patricia Arquette) go through the motions of everyday life. Then comes Arquette’s heartbreaking final scene and it hits you like a ton of bricks. We all thought there would be more. It’s no wonder the actress’s everywoman performance is reaping all the awards it is.

It could be the favorite of independent film fans, family saga aficionados and just plain good movie lovers.

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014), directed by Wes Anderson

Anderson’s particular brand of whimsy has always had a following but nothing from Rushmore to The Royal Tenenbaums to Moonrise Kingdom has struck the collective fancy as this delightful romp through a fictional East European country between the world wars.

Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schartzman, Léa Sydoux, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Owen Wilson may not all be names that automatically evoke comedy to potential audiences, but they’re all quite funny here. Best of all is newcomer Tony Revolori as the lobby boy through whose eyes the tale unfolds..

It could be the favorite of comedy lovers, nostalgia buffs and long-time Anderson fans.

THE IMITATION GAME (2014), directed by Morten Tyldum

This biography of British mathematician Alan Turing who more or less invented the computer to break the Nazi enigma code of World War II, and several years later committed suicide after being chemically castrated by the British courts, was the early favorite of Oscar bloggers to win Best Picture and Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch). It was, after all, set in one of Oscar’s favorite periods and locations in the mode of recent Oscar winner The King’s Speech, featured the popular Emmy winning star of Sherlock in his first major starring role in a film and had the backing by Oscar heavyweight producer Harvey Weinstein.

What the bloggers failed to consider was the enormous popularity of Boyhood, Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel,which were originally seen as critic’s darlings, not industry favorites which has since been debunked by the industry honors being laid upon those three films. It also suffered some backlash by those claiming it downplayed Turing’s homosexuality to a fault in order not to offend the blue-haired old ladies who were the film’s natural audience.

It could be the favorite of biography lovers, history buffs and those fabled blue-haired old ladies.

SELMA (2014), directed by Ava DuVernay

Magnificent in scope, the early reviews for this film about the 1964 Selma to Montgomery voting rights march were among the best of the year. Oscar predictions were virtually assured for Best Actor David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ava DuVernay slated to the first black woman to receive a Best Director nomination. Both received Golden Globe nominations, but then the various guild nominations started coming out and the film was mostly ignored. The blame was largely laid at the feet of Paramount which was unable to get screeners out for the late finished film, although Oscar voters did get them. Either the majority of those voters didn’t watch them or weren’t as impressed with what saw.

Adding to the film’s lack of support was the late breaking controversy about the treatment of President Lyndon Johnson, in real life as committed to voting rights legislation as King, but made a reluctant partner in the film. DuVarney’s response that she didn’t want to make another film in which the black man was helped by the white man was understandable, but if that were the case she should have left LBJ out of the film altogether instead of making him look like he was just there to take credit for something he had little to do with.

This could be the favorite of history buffs, biography lovers and staunch liberals.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (2014), directed by James Marsh

The fourth biographical film to be nominated is this story of the life of physicist Stephen Hawking which concentrates not on his scientific theories, but on his fifty year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and the unwavering support he received from first wife, Jane. The crippling nerve disease, also known as Lou Gehrig disease, is given center stage in the their love story.

It’s the performance of Eddie Redmayne that has the best chance of winning an Oscar. Ironically, one of his strongest competitors is his good friend Bendict Cumberbatch who played Hawking in the 2004 TV movie Hawking

It could be the favorite of science buffs, biography aficionados and romantic film lovers

WHIPLASH (2014), directed by Damien Chazelle

Chazelle’s first film is the kind of film that owes its Best Picture nomination to the expansion of the five picture slot. You would have to go all the way back to 1934 when there were twelve nominees for Best Picture to find similarly themed films in which narrowed one-on-one conflict took center stage when two of the nominees, Flirtation Walk and Here Comes the Navy fit the bill. More recent films in the genre such as The Paper Chase and An Officer and a Gentleman had to contend in lesser categories during the years in which Best Picture nominees were limited to five. In both instances those films won supporting actor awards for their sadistic protagonists, John Houseman and Louis Gosset, Jr., respectively. This year expect J.K. Simmons to join them as Miles Teller’s take-no-prisoners music teacher.

It could be the favorite of coming-of-age film supporters, music lovers and new filmmakers.

THE NOMINEES IN ORDER OF LIKLIEHOOD OF WINNING

  • Boyhood
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel
  • Birdman
  • The Imitation Game
  • American Sniper
  • Selma
  • The Theory of Everything
  • Whiplash

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