The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by Sonic Youth »

And I don't think I'll be far off. On ABC they just did a story about how Snoop Dogg is now a grandpa ("Aaawwww!!") and how a micro pig turned out to be not so micro at all! Now they're tasting birchwater, and leading into their "Deals and Steals" segment. Poor George Stephanopolous. He must feel he made a deal with the devil in a past life.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by mlrg »

Sonic Youth wrote:"And there you have it! The Oscar nominations for 2014 has just been announced, and all I can say is Wow! Some huge surprises, isn't that right Barbie?"
"HUGE surprises, Ken!"
"One of the biggest: Unbroken not nominated for Best Picture!"
"That's a shock!"
"One of the most popular movies of the year. Everyone was predicting it. But... it didn't make it in."
"It's very odd, Ken. Back at our studio, we all had it on our lists. It was the definition of a 'sure thing'. But, the Academy Awards can surprise you sometimes..."
"Well, Barbie, it also shows how out of touch Hollywood has become. I see Into the Woods also was not nominated, nor Guardians of the Galaxy which everyone LOVED!"
"But they did nominated something called The Grand Budapest Hotel. Now, what - (laughter in the studio) - is that even a MOVIE? What is that?"
"Umm.... Wait, wasn't that the Maggie Smith movie? Where she and her friends stay at a hotel in Budapest, India?"
"Oh, you're right! I apologize. That was a good movie...."

Happy nomination day, everyone! Have fun, and don't get too pissed off.
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

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"And there you have it! The Oscar nominations for 2014 has just been announced, and all I can say is Wow! Some huge surprises, isn't that right Barbie?"
"HUGE surprises, Ken!"
"One of the biggest: Unbroken not nominated for Best Picture!"
"That's a shock!"
"One of the most popular movies of the year. Everyone was predicting it. But... it didn't make it in."
"It's very odd, Ken. Back at our studio, we all had it on our lists. It was the definition of a 'sure thing'. But, the Academy Awards can surprise you sometimes..."
"Well, Barbie, it also shows how out of touch Hollywood has become. I see Into the Woods also was not nominated, nor Guardians of the Galaxy which everyone LOVED!"
"But they did nominated something called The Grand Budapest Hotel. Now, what - (laughter in the studio) - is that even a MOVIE? What is that?"
"Umm.... Wait, wasn't that the Maggie Smith movie? Where she and her friends stay at a hotel in Budapest, India?"
"Oh, you're right! I apologize. That was a good movie...."

Happy nomination day, everyone! Have fun, and don't get too pissed off.
"What the hell?"
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by The Original BJ »

Mister Tee wrote:
rolotomasi99 wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:I am not sure if you mean "Marvel movies" since Marvel started making the films themselves, but outside of Visual Effects SPIDER-MAN was nominated for Sound Mixing, SPIDER-MAN 2 was nominated for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, and IRON MAN was nominated for Sound Editing.
This a horribly ignoble thing to do, but I was just quoting BJ (and may have misquoted him: it may be he said Iron Man was the only Marvel movie to be nominated anywhere but FX). And it's quite possible he meant the current generation of Marvel stuff; those first Spider Man movies feel like a century ago.
I was referring to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, of which the Spider-Man pair are not included. And yes, I said that Iron Man was the only one to get anything other than Visual Effects (and only added Sound Editing, not even the second sound category). But I agree that Guardians of the Galaxy possibly seems poised to do a bit better, perhaps scoring in all four categories that fellow WGA-nominated blockbuster Star Trek did.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by Mister Tee »

The Original BJ wrote:One last thought before I post predictions later: it'll be super interesting to see how the live announcement of the down-ballot categories might confirm or mislead our suspicions about the top categories. Imagine if, last year, Cinematography and Score were the first categories read off -- where 12 Years a Slave suffered surprising exclusions -- might some of us have started panicking about its overall success? Similarly, in 2011, all those tech nods for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would have made me assume its Best Picture chances were solid, only to be even more shocked by Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as the final Best Pic nominee.
By coincidence, both those categories you mention (cinematography & score) are being held for the second round tomorrow morning. As is makeup & hair -- I wonder who it was decided that category deserved more prominence-of-place than animated feature or song, both of which showed up on-air in last year's more abbreviated reveal.

Hopefully an answer to what I wondered the other day: the ad I saw this evening for Good Morning America made a big deal that they were doing ALL the nominations. So it appears ABC, at least, will be carrying both segments (with, I presume, a commercial slipped in between).
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by Mister Tee »

rolotomasi99 wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:I am not sure if you mean "Marvel movies" since Marvel started making the films themselves, but outside of Visual Effects SPIDER-MAN was nominated for Sound Mixing, SPIDER-MAN 2 was nominated for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, and IRON MAN was nominated for Sound Editing.
This a horribly ignoble thing to do, but I was just quoting BJ (and may have misquoted him: it may be he said Iron Man was the only Marvel movie to be nominated anywhere but FX). And it's quite possible he meant the current generation of Marvel stuff; those first Spider Man movies feel like a century ago.

It is, though, fairly remarkable that with all the super-hero movies they churn out, they've got so few nominations in the techie categories -- X-Men, Thor and Captain America have been roundly ignored, so far.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

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The Original BJ wrote:As Mister Tee said, it's also worth noting just how many movies seem to be fully qualified for Best Picture attention. And I'm not necessarily saying that in terms of aesthetic merit -- for me, beyond the top few contenders, this was a pretty thin year. But, for instance, in August, if someone told you that Into the Woods would garner respectable reviews and become a huge box office hit, wouldn't you just assume that would be a Best Picture nominee? And yet, the precursors just don't seem to be there for it to be anything other than a just-miss. When I saw Gone Girl, I DID assume it was a Best Picture nominee, with its combo of reviews, followed by box office, and a gazillion think pieces, but that's not something I would bet the farm on today. It'll be especially interesting to see if both of these big hits miss the list, just a half-decade after the rules were changed to make it easier for stuff like that to get in.
This is a very interesting issue.

Probably District 9, Up and The Blind Side benefitted not only from the expanded category but actually from the previous year controversy. Afterwards, that feeling has been cooling down, "proving" that The Dark Knight/Wall-E omissions were probably a heat topic as an oddity. No one complaint when Terminator II: The Judgment Day or Jurassic Park failed to get nominated in the Best Picture category, that wasn't even an issue, a possibility... 2010 had a respectable list of 10 very good reviewed films, even when you factor into equation the likes of Inception and Toy Story 3, the obvious commercial films the expansion was apparently made for. 2011 was a mixed up bag, with the expansion benefitting artsy films like The Tree of Life and letting things like War Horse and ELAIC get in the race just for the strenght of innertia, but there was no love for films like HPATDHP2 despite being the last installment of a beloved/kind of important saga, decently reviewed AND the top-grossing film of the year. Had it been released in 2009 it probably would have gotten the nod. The 2012 list shows a very indie effort (BOTSW) as a benefitiary but no film from the top-grossing list of that year. This is in fact a very small amount of years to speak of tendencies, but as far as we know, right now it seems that we can have an expanded field of 15 and voters would rather look under the rocks to find an "artful enough" pick (if it has good grosses, the better) than look at the most popular choices. Having said that, I won't be surprised if Gone Girl gets nominated tomorrow, but I feel more confident in Whiplash grabbing the nod than in Into the Woods (which is a respected musical from a respected composer, already an Oscar winner, with good reviews so in no way we are talking about a summer blockbuster/action film/comic based film... so in the end, who knows? Tomorrow we'll find out).
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by mlrg »

The Original BJ wrote:
One last thought before I post predictions later: it'll be super interesting to see how the live announcement of the down-ballot categories might confirm or mislead our suspicions about the top categories. Imagine if, last year, Cinematography and Score were the first categories read off -- where 12 Years a Slave suffered surprising exclusions -- might some of us have started panicking about its overall success? Similarly, in 2011, all those tech nods for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would have made me assume its Best Picture chances were solid, only to be even more shocked by Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as the final Best Pic nominee.
Interesting point, but I think that the nominations will be announced so fast that we won't really have time to absorve nominations and snubs live. It will be 24 categories in 14 minutes approx. That is less than 1 minute per category.

Two years ago it took a while (5 min..) before you could notice the Affleck and Bigelow snubs.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

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As Mister Tee said, the Internet has sort of collectively decided what the nominees will now be, and that's basically that, as if they're just ready to move on to next year. Apparently, the formula for Best Picture nominees is: take 8 of the PGA nominees, and add one, because that's what's always happened. And, by always, they mean for the past TWO YEARS. Never mind that in 2011, it was actually 7 PGA nominees, and TWO others added, because citing that would mess with the perfect formula. Don't get me wrong, I think the majority of nominees will come from the PGA list, but how many and which ones strikes me as utterly fluid. (Not to pile up on her lately, but Sasha Stone has really been on a roll in this "the die is cast" department lately -- I don't know how you can make comments expressing annoyance at those upset that Jennifer Aniston "got the fifth Best Actress spot" when technically NO ONE has gotten ANY Best Actress spots yet.)

This isn't to say that there aren't things we know virtually for sure. Barring a tectonic shift, Boyhood and Birdman will certainly be called off as Best Picture nominees tomorrow; but I'm a lot less inclined to call things like The Theory of Everything or Whiplash Best Picture LOCKS. I guess certainty is in the eye of the beholder (and god knows, I'd have called Affleck and Bigelow certain nominees two years ago), but I'm definitely feeling like the bottom chunk of that Best Picture field has quite a bit of wiggle room.

It's interesting just how many of these movies have had similar -- or, at least equivalent -- precursor runs. Nearly everyone seems to be betting on Whiplash for a Best Picture nomination -- and I am too, mostly due to the fact that I haven't met a single person who didn't have a religious experience while watching it. But, when you look at precursors, Nightcrawler got pretty much exactly the same level of attention, and Gone Girl and Foxcatcher both did BETTER. (Foxcatcher, especially is a movie I have no idea what to do with. Everyone I talk to hates the thing, but it pretty persistently keeps showing up on lists.) And then there's American Sniper and Selma -- one of which was a Globe misfire that rallied big time with the Guilds, the other had a very respectable Globe haul only to vanish completely with the unions. Will some of these movies have a REALLY good day tomorrow, and others a REALLY bad one? Or bits and pieces of success for all of them?

As Mister Tee said, it's also worth noting just how many movies seem to be fully qualified for Best Picture attention. And I'm not necessarily saying that in terms of aesthetic merit -- for me, beyond the top few contenders, this was a pretty thin year. But, for instance, in August, if someone told you that Into the Woods would garner respectable reviews and become a huge box office hit, wouldn't you just assume that would be a Best Picture nominee? And yet, the precursors just don't seem to be there for it to be anything other than a just-miss. When I saw Gone Girl, I DID assume it was a Best Picture nominee, with its combo of reviews, followed by box office, and a gazillion think pieces, but that's not something I would bet the farm on today. It'll be especially interesting to see if both of these big hits miss the list, just a half-decade after the rules were changed to make it easier for stuff like that to get in.

I, too, think Editing is a hugely competitive category, but I also want to highlight Cinematography, too, as a category that seems to have an overwhelming number of possibles. I'd pegged Birdman, Unbroken, and Mr. Turner as likely nominees before ASC, and am not likely to change my mind after their Guild nods. But the ASC also expanded the field in a way I didn't anticipate, going for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game. I hadn't thought either movie would be a strong candidate in this category, but as top Best Picture nominees, it's hard to rule them out now that they're in the conversation. Throw in the strong work from other Best Picture possibles (Selma, Gone Girl, Nightcrawler, Foxcatcher), as well as more left-field candidates (A Most Violent Year, Ida, The Immigrant, maybe even something else) and I'm not even sure I'd be able to cover all of the possibles in a list of ten.

One last thought before I post predictions later: it'll be super interesting to see how the live announcement of the down-ballot categories might confirm or mislead our suspicions about the top categories. Imagine if, last year, Cinematography and Score were the first categories read off -- where 12 Years a Slave suffered surprising exclusions -- might some of us have started panicking about its overall success? Similarly, in 2011, all those tech nods for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would have made me assume its Best Picture chances were solid, only to be even more shocked by Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as the final Best Pic nominee.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by rolotomasi99 »

Okri wrote:Okay, does anyone think that the category reclassification of Whiplash could actually lead it to missing a screenplay nomination altogether?
What I find odd is the writers are being so strict about WHIPLASH but THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL was clearly inspired by author Stefan Zweig and even used story elements from his writing but is considered original. Now I know some would say it has to be directly related to a previously published piece, but BRIGHT STAR was forced to compete for an Adapted Screenplay nomination despite it not being directly based on any previously published material.

The Writers' branch is almost as inconsistent in enforcing their rules as the Composers' branch. It really is too bad THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is not competing in Adapted since that would allow it to win one category while BIRDMAN won another. As it is, either THE IMITATION GAME or GONE GIRL will be taking the Oscar while fans of either Wes Anderson or Alejandro González Iñárritu (or the many fans of both) are going to be disappointed on Oscar night.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

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Mister Tee wrote:Just a few scattered thoughts below the line: Cinematography still seems a wild card to me. I’m interested to see if Ida carries the branch’s flag for two of its favorite things: foreign films and black-and-white…I don’t see many suggesting it, but isn’t Belle – a successful art-house period piece – the kind of movie that gets costume nominations?...I’d been thinking Desplat’s big year was likely to get him two nods, for Imitation Game and Unbroken. But now a lot of people are suggesting he’ll get mentioned for Grand Budapest. Would that be cool, if he could win for that, rather than schmaltz? I’m very interested at how well Interstellar does in tech categories. If it’s left out of enough, it might make the visual effects prize this year a real toss-up, with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Guardians of the Galaxy offering strong competition…Re the last film: I hadn’t realized, till BJ mentioned it a short while ago, that Marvel has never received a nomination other than for visual effects. I wonder if Guardians – after showing up at both WGA and CAS – might be the one to change that. Both sounds, visual effects and make-up all seem possible.
Great write up Mister Tee. I just had a few thoughts on the tech categories.

IDA would certainly be a worthy Cinematography nominee, but I am also holding out hope for recognition of Darius Khondji's gorgeous work on THE IMMIGRANT.

I definitely have BELLE in my predictions. It falls perfectly in the lone Costume nominee slot that British period films like THE INVISIBLE WOMAN or JANE EYRE often fill. If BELLE and SELMA are nominated for any awards, they would be some of the first Oscar nominations in the feature film categories for films directed by black women. I know black female directors have been nominated in the animated, short, and documentary categories, but other than A DRY WHITE SEASON, I cannot think of any other movies directed by women of color (not just African) that have been nominated in the non-specialty categories.

I am not sure if you mean "Marvel movies" since Marvel started making the films themselves, but outside of Visual Effects SPIDER-MAN was nominated for Sound Mixing, SPIDER-MAN 2 was nominated for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, and IRON MAN was nominated for Sound Editing.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by Mister Tee »

Okri wrote:Okay, does anyone think that the category reclassification of Whiplash could actually lead it to missing a screenplay nomination altogether?
The possibility exists, thanks to confusion, and the rather late discovery of it. But I'm told it was easier to see the reclassification if you voted online, and my impression is that Whiplash's biggest fans tilt younger, and are thus more likely to do their voting online. So, that helps.

Something I thought of after I posted this monstrosity: after best actor, the most competitive category this year may be editing. You've got a bunch of movies that qualify on a pure "noticeable cutting" basis (Whiplash, Gone Girl, Nightcrawler, American Sniper), some that have to be considered simply as part of a best picture run (The Imitation Game, Selma), and several that offer both (Boyhood, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel). And even once it's narrowed to five, it should be one of the most hotly contested awards this year.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

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If Ralph Fiennes makes it for best actor it would totally make my day.
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by Okri »

Okay, does anyone think that the category reclassification of Whiplash could actually lead it to missing a screenplay nomination altogether?
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Re: The Pre-Nominations Thumbsucker

Post by Big Magilla »

My full predictions are up on CinemaSight.

Best Picture - I'm not expecting any surprises were there are 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 nominees.

Best Actor - Keaton, Cumberbatch and Redmayne are safe. Gyllenhaal is looking good for the fourth slot, but the fifth is still up in the air. My probably lost hope is that Brendan Gleeson will take the fifth slot for Calvary.

Best Actress - Only Moore is really safe. Witherspoon is likely and so are Jones and Pike, but any of the three could be replaced by Cotillard, Adams, Blunt or Aniston. If all three make it, then only one of the last four will pop up in the fifth slot. My preference is Cotillard but I'll take anyone over Aniston whose "I've been a beloved star for decades, I've done something different and I want an Oscar" campaign is reminiscent of Mary Pickford's 1929 campaign for which America's former sweetheart won the Oscar for what is still the worst performance ever to win one, which she got just because she wanted it.

Best Supporting Actor - I've been advocating for Ahmed for a while now, but I'm open for just about anyone other than Duvall for the only open slot.

Best Supporting Actress - lots of good candidates here. I'd be happiest with a repeat of BAFTA's slate of Arquette, Knightley, Russo, Staunton and Stone with Swinton in place of one of them but with Streep in the running there are probably only four slots up for grabs with Arquette the only one who is truly safe.

Best Director - Linklater, Inarritu, Anderson and who else? No one would surprise me here. Well, maybe Jolie at this point, but anyone else anyone wants to mention probably has a chance.
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