Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

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Big Magilla
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Big Magilla »

ITALIANO wrote:
Big Magilla wrote: Personally I hope they all cancel each other out
How can they?
We've had this discussion before. It happens all the time. The majority likes A, B and C equally, votes for them equally, while a small minority likes D well enough for him or her to receive one vote more than any of the big three. That's all it takes.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote: Personally I hope they all cancel each other out
How can they?
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Big Magilla »

Best Picture

Selma is getting respectable reviews, not ecstatic ones. I think it will be nominated, but won't win.

I see the five locks as Boyhood, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything with Into the Woods and Selma heading the second tier. After that it all gets murky with Unbroken and Whiplash most likely heading the third tier. My outside picks are A Most Wanted Man, Calvary and Ida, any one of which would probably be a shock.

Best Director

I think Ava DuVernay will be nominated for Selma, along with Richard Linklater for Boyhood, Alejando Gonzelez Inarritu for Birdman, Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel and Morten Tydum for The Imitation Game, taking the place of James Marsh, the only director of one of the five front-runners (The Theory of Everything) who will likely be ignored. I don't see anyone else breaking into this group.

Best Actor

Michal Keaton in Birdman, Bendeict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game and Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everythingare in. David Oyelowo is almost certain, leaving the fifth slot a mad scramble between Steve Carell in Foxactacher, Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler and Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner. Personally I hope they all cancel each other out allowing my favorite dark horse in the category, Brendan Gleeson in Calvary, to slip in.

Best Actress

Julianne Moore in Still Alice, Reese Witherspoon in Wild, Felicity Jones in Theory of Everything and Rosmund Pike in Gone Girl are virtual certainties. Marion Cotillard in Two days, One Night is primed to take the fifth slot. Despite her double whammy at SAG and the Globes I don't see Jennifer Aniston making much of a headway with Oscar for Cake.

Best Supporting Actor

J.K. Simmons in Whiplash, Edward Norton in Birdman. Ethan Hawke in Boyhood and Mark Ruffalo in Foxcathcer are going to be there. So, probably, is Robert Duvall in The Judge, but my hope is that they will ignore him in favor of Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler.

Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette has this in the bag for Boyhood. There are, however, a good seven others, any one of whom could wake up to a nomination. Keira Knighley in The Imitation Game, Emma Stone in Birdman, Meryl Streep in Into the Woods and Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year are the ones most often mentioned, but Laura Dern in Wild, Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer and Rene Russo in Nightcrawler are all strong possibilities.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Okri »

Ava Duvernay doesn't get a DGA nomination.

Here's my thought process

a) Selma is getting the awards/nominations to keep it in the conversation across the board, but nothing more. It's missing out on screenplay recognition here and there. It's not making a run for a gettable supporting nomination. It's not getting those generic coattail nominations that often go to best picture contenders.

b) And that's partially because no one has really seen it. We know that SAG couldn't get to it in time. AMPAS voter Ken Rudolph posts a list of screeners he gets every year and he hasn't received it yet (other late releases - American Sniper, A Most Violent Year, Into the Woods - all have distributed their screeners).

c) The Director's Guild will often miss a late release in favour of something earlier/more popular (Nolan vs Altman in 2001, Forester vs Leigh in 2004, Little Miss Sunshine in 2006, Nolan vs The Coens in 2010) in general.

d) With the Broadcast's predictions and the Golden Globes, we saw the same five filmmakers (lets ignore Jolie as early-glamour-bait that often fails). I'd argue that of those five, DuVernay's the most vulnerable to the miss with the DGAs - everything else is in release (or in one case, on DVD already) and I can see Chazelle (not a big hit, but aggressively screened) or Marsh getting the nomination.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by The Original BJ »

I think one reason why the season feels relaxed (for now, at least...fingers crossed!) is that many of the movies perceived as cooler (Boyhood, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel) are the ones leading the race, much in the same way No Country/There Will Be Blood helped make '07 an overall exciting year. And there just aren't THAT many options -- there are certainly movies I'd rather see nominated over stuff like The Theory of Everything, but there's nothing that will be excluded that will frustrate me as much as Inside Llewyn Davis missing last year (despite last year's slate being overall a very strong one.)

Is Michael Keaton really considered the frontrunner for Best Actor? I feel like I have no idea which way the wind is blowing in that race. Keaton, Cumberbatch, and Redmayne all strike me as very possible winners. Wouldn't it be fun for the Drama Globe, Comedy Globe, and SAG to all go to different people?

I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a scenario where Boyhood misses Original Screenplay, but Sabin's point is valid that that field is just overwhelmingly tight, and who knows which candidates might squeak in or be excluded.

Birdman is fairly unique as an editing candidate. Part of what made the movie work so effectively was the nearly seamless visual trickery that strung scenes together, and blended reality & fantasy in the same frame. And yet, you don't SEE the cuts, which could make some less inclined to vote for it, at the win stage, or even here at the nomination stage.

I also feel like there are still a few year-end candidates whose chances I'm not entirely sure how to read at all. American Sniper has had ups and downs throughout the first part of the awards season, so it's hard to know whether it's a player or not. Mr. Turner hasn't made much of a showing outside that LA Best Actor win, but I still imagine a Topsy-Turvy like haul (Original Screenplay and a handful of techs) could be in the cards. And both Into the Woods and A Most Violent Year seem on the cusp of breaking through in big ways...but aren't quite showing up in the precursors as much as it seems like they need to. These are the movies for whom the number of nominations seems most unpredictable for me.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Sabin »

With the strong showings of Birdman and Boyhood, it seems like this year's Oscar season seems a bit more relaxed than usual. There is partisanship for sure but there is an element of (how shall I put this?) fear that seems missing from this race. Or perhaps a melodrama. A sense of "Oh, God! Not this!" or "Oh, God! Not that!" If they are indeed inevitable, the inevitables (Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore, J.K. Simmons, Patricia Arquette) feel a bit more pleasant. There's certainly a chance all that is thrown asunder and The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything takes it all, but it doesn't look likely. Right now, it feels like a very pleasant race.

So as I sit here Oscar blogging in an age where this kind of thing is done with the intensity of political polling (with attention to trends, history, precedents, etc.) wondering if the big surprise will be a series of perfectly understandable omissions that make the race look a lot more confusing than it is. I'm not going to bet the farm on any of this, but here are some things that could happen:

-- Boyhood is not nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
Right now it's certainly a strong candidate for a Best Original Screenplay nomination, but I don't think anybody thinks that this is the best written film of the year. In a field where it's up against Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma, Whiplash, A Most Violent Year, Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, and Mr. Turner, it's entirely possible that Boyhood doesn't get the votes.

-- Birdman is not nominated for Best Film Editing.
Right now it's certainly a strong candidate for a Best Film Editing nomination, but (though Children of Men and Gravity were nominated for films that weren't exactly "cutty") what if it isn't? What if Boyhood, Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Foxcatcher, The Imitation Game, Unbroken, or Whiplash just get nominated instead?

-- The Imitation Game is not nominated for Best Director but gets the most nominations.
If The Imitation Game is nominated for writing and editing, Boyhood and Birdman aren't, and it gets the most nominations but Morten Tyldum is not nominated for Best Director, will arguments be posited that the film is more or less likely to win Best Picture? With Argo's victory very fresh despite neither film being very worthy of a directing nomination, will a Best Director omission help The Imitation Game?

And then of course the likelihood of Foxcatcher, Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma & The Theory of Everything being nominated for Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing. What does that do for them?

My answer would be the race stays mostly the same and the expected choices go on to win, just as the fact that it wasn't nominated for Best Original Score or Cinematography didn't affect 12 Years a Slave, nor did the fact that Alfonso Cuaron was going to win Best Director. But the race will seem more interesting.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Reza »

For me pleasant surprises would be Ben Affleck, Rene Russo and Tilda Swinton making the cut.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Okri »

Also, Direct TV aired it on cable so it's not eligible.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by ksrymy »

flipp525 wrote:
The Original BJ wrote:I still feel like Best Actress could still produce a totally random, unexpected nominee.
What about Essie Davis for The Babadook? A la Ellen Burstyn's The Exorcist nomination.
"The Babadook" was the social media sleeper hit of the year - I highly doubt the old fogies of the Academy even know of it.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by flipp525 »

The Original BJ wrote:I still feel like Best Actress could still produce a totally random, unexpected nominee.
What about Essie Davis for The Babadook? A la Ellen Burstyn's The Exorcist nomination.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by flipp525 »

Good point, mlrg.

I also just randomly realized that Keira Knightley and Benedict Cumberbatch were in Atonement together.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by mlrg »

flipp525 wrote:I always think of people like Maria Bello (A History of Violence) or Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven) at moments like this. They were considered very comfortable for nominations at the same time in their respective years.
On the other hand, neither Quaid or Bello were in best picture nominees. I think it's safe to say that The Imitation Game is pretty mcuh locked for a best picture nomination. And also the film is backed by Harvey Weinstein
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by flipp525 »

I think my biggest surprise inclusion on Oscar morning would be either Carrie Coon or (less surprising) Tilda Swinton or Rene Russo showing up in Best Supporting Actress. All three giving some of the best supporting performances of the year.

Is Keira Knightley really seen as a lock for a nomination at this point? I always think of people like Maria Bello (A History of Violence) or Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven) at moments like this. They were considered very comfortable for nominations at the same time in their respective years.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by kaytodd »

I would not mind seeing Keira Knightley not get nominated for her solid but nothing special performance in Imitation Game and seeing Tilda Swinton get that slot for Snowpiercer.
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Re: Our Biggest Surprsie Oscar Nomination, Or lack Thereof

Post by Sabin »

That would be so great.
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