Awards Season 2015: The 87th Annual Academy Awards

The 87th Annual Academy Awards were held last night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. They came up with one or two surprises and more than a few talking points.

Neil Patrick Harris was on good form as host. He's got awards show form, hosting the Primetime Emmys twice and the Tony Awards four times and I would be more than happy to see him host the Oscars again. OK, there was no Twitter-crashing selfie moment and there's been a lot of complaint online about his performance but I found him charming, funny and inoffensive, and any man who has the chutzpah to appear in an Oscars telecast in a pair of tighty-whities has to be admired. 

There was a lot of politics in the speeches, with issues such as freedom of expression, racial and gender equality, the awareness of mental and physical illnesses and immigration brought up.

The acceptance speech by Brits Mat Kirkby and James Lucas for winning Best Live Action Short was kind of funny (I kind of want to try and find that doughnut shop) and Pawel Pawlikowski must be the only person in Oscar history to get two sets of wrap-up music when he effusively ran over when accepting Best Foreign Language Film. I found the Idina Menzel/John Travolta bit quite funny (even if the joke was overlaboured a little). 

There was a really fun performance of 'Everything Is Awesome' from The Lego Movie (complete with Lego Oscars handed out to the crowd) and the performance of 'Glory' from Selma was stirring (as was the acceptance speech by John Legend and Common when it won Best Original Song). Lady Gaga's tribute to The Sound Of Music was great (and I'm not even a fan of that film) and Meryl Streep gave a touching and emotional speech prior to the In Memoriam section. I also found myself moved by Graham Moore's speech when he accepted the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game, advising people to 'stay weird'. 

Onto the awards themselves:

No surprises in the acting categories with all four winners giving heartfelt and genuine acceptance speeches; J.K. Simmons advising us to call our parents, Patricia Arquette's eloquent and firey speech calling for gender and wage equality, Eddie Redmayne adorably geeking out midway through and Julianne Moore advocating more openness about Alzheimer's. 

The big surprise was Birdman winning Best Picture. Inarritu's win for Best Director wasn't a surprise and- as I have previously stated- the direction of Birdman is extraordinary (incidentally, I was also pleased at Emmanuel Lubezski's win for Best Cinematography).  Is it the Best Picture of those eight films? I don't think so, but then I'm not a member of the Academy. That was their decision. There's already rumblings online that it wasn't the right choice but you have to consider that the Academy's track record of what consitutues a Best Picture winner has had a few bumps in the road (Crash winning over Brokeback Mountain, for instance).

Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel both won four Oscars apiece, with Whiplash winning three. All eight Best Picture nominees won at least one Oscar each. Into The Woods, Foxcatcher, Mr. Turner and Unbroken didn't win anything.

Below is the full list of winners at the 87th Annual Academy Awards:

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Birdman

Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory Of Everything)

Best Actress: Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

Best Supporting Actress:  Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)

Best Original Screenplay: Birdman

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Imitation Game

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year: Big Hero 6

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year: Ida

Best Cinematography: Birdman

Best Editing: Whiplash

Best Production Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Costume Design: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Original Score: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Original Song: 'Glory' (Selma)

Best Sound Mixing: Whiplash

Best Sound Editing: American Sniper

Best Visual Effects: Interstellar

Best Documentary (Feature): Citizenfour

Best Documentary (Short Subject): Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1

Best Animated Short Film: Feast

Best Live Action Short Film: The Phone Call


Congratulations to all winners!

OK, that's awards season finished for another year. It'll start up again at the end of November. Bring on the blockbusters!

Tez

Awards Season 2015: Tez's Official Oscar Predictions 2015

Tonight, the great and good of Hollywood will convene to celebrate the best of film-making in 2014 at the 87th Annual Academy Awards, which will be hosted for the first time by Neil Patrick Harris. It has become a tradition for me to predict the nominations and the winners in the main six categories (the four acting categories, Best Director and Best Picture).  I've done this since 2003 with varying degrees of success. So, without further ado, here are my predictions for who will win.

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Arquette's performance as Olivia Evans, beleagured mum to Mason and Samantha, is a real tour de force. A woman constantly in wrong relationships with unsuitable men, her love and devotion to her kids is paramount. Her warmth and humanity shines through and there's more than a couple of 'Oscar' moments throughout the film, none more so than her tearful conversation with her son as he prepares to leave for college. She's won every other major award she's been nominated for, so it's a pretty clear indicator that she might be going home with an Oscar.


Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

It feels a bit odd to say but it feels like, this awards season, that several actors are finally getting their due. J.K. Simmons is one of those actors. A truly fine character actor who has been the highlight in some of the films he's been in (Juno and Burn After Reading come to mind), he's finally getting the recognition he deserves for his role in Whiplash. His performance as Terence Fletcher is electrifying as he pushes his students with learning techniques that are less Dead Poets Society and more Full Metal Jacket. Again, he's won everything so far as an Oscar seems a foregone conclusion and damn well deserved.


Best Actress: Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

I haven't been able to see Still Alice yet (it doesn't open in the UK until the beginning of March) but I really think it would be a shock if Moore didn't win. Like Arquette and Simmons, she's been the runaway winner in her category throughout all the major awards- Golden Globe, SAG, Critics' Choice, BAFTA- so I think she'll finally get her Oscar (on the fifth nomination). 


Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory Of Everything)

With no disrespect to any of the other nominees, the Best Actor plaudits have been shared between Eddie Redmayne and Michael Keaton throughout the awards season. However, Redmayne's SAG win probably puts him in the lead. If I'm being cynical, it ticks all the usual Oscar-bait boxes: it's based on a real person, struggling with insurmountable odds, with a pronounced change in physicality. Whilst I had a few issues with the film as a whole, Redmayne's performance as Stephen Hawking is affecting and poignant. But if it's not him, it'll be Keaton. Any other name called out would be a big surprise.


Best Director: Richard Linklater (Boyhood)
Best Picture: Boyhood

Linklater has taken all bar one of the major directing awards (Independent Spirit, Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA) but the DGA's choice of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (his only win of the major awards) could mean Inarritu gets the Best Director gong. Frankly, the direction of Birdman is excellent and the mesmeric camerawork making it look like one continuous shot is extraordinary, so if Inarritu does win it won't be a bad decision. However, Linklater's passion and dedication to Boyhood cannot be understated. To have the faith to spend twelve years of your life on a project is astounding and the end result is something special. 

Boyhood is a thoughtful, exacting piece. To see Ellar Coltrane literally grow up before your eyes is amazing. The dedication that every actor and member of crew gave to this film cannot be understated. It doesn't feel like a gimmick, it doesn't feel like a cheap trick. It's an authentic, occasionally funny, occasionally moving chronicle of a young man's life and it deserves the big prize.


Last year, I got a clean sweep of 6 out of 6. I think Best Actor and Best Director may be open for debate, as might Best Picture. Birdman and Boyhood have been sharing the Best Picture and Best Director plaudits throughout the awards season, so it'll be interesting to see what happens tonight. This is one year where I won't exactly mind being wrong if my predictions aren't correct.

There'll be a write-up of the ceremony and a full list of the winners tomorrow.

Tez

Review: American Sniper (UK Cert 15)

SPOILER WARNING! This review discusses and/or mentions a few important plot points. If you would prefer not to have these spoiled, please stop reading now and come back once you've seen the film.  

American Sniper is a difficult film to talk about, mostly because it deals with an emotive subject (the war in Iraq and America's part in it) and also because it is based on a true story. Any criticism of the film feels like a criticism of the person and that isn't exactly fair on those left behind. 

As much as it is possible, I am going to limit myself to talking about the film as a film- as a fictionalised account of Chris Kyle's life and work- and try and stay out of the bigger picture or wider context of the war, the military and even what Kyle was like as a real person (or what the book he wrote, which the screenplay is based on, says). This might be a bit of a cop-out but it's probably safer. For an interesting look on the historical accuracy (or otherwise) of the film, this is a good article to start with.

Kyle (Bradley Cooper) was raised by a devoutly religious family, initially becoming a cowboy and then signed up to the US Navy SEALS and acted as a sniper in Iraq, completing four tours of duty. He is credited with over 160 confirmed kills although the figure may be much higher. He married and had children and, once he left the Army, he helped injured soldiers in rehabilitation. He was shot and killed in 2013 at a shooting range in Texas by a young army veteran he was trying to help, who was suffering from PTSD.

First things first: there is a lot I didn't like about American Sniper.

Mostly, the bellicose, jingoistic, America-f*ck-yeah, hoo-rah attitude espoused by Kyle. Things were black and white: America is the greatest country in the world and anyone threatening it needs to be put down with extreme prejudice. The world operates in shades of grey, sadly, so this tunnel-visioned narrowmindedness is utterly alienating- not to mention wearying in the extreme. There's no discussion, nothing wavering from that message. They're evil, they're savages, they deserve to die. That's that. Done. I understand that some people see the world thus and that's how they operate- and no doubt for soldiers, they have to see the world in such terms in order to do the things they sometimes have to do- but, as a narrative, it's not something I can get behind.

A secondary issue is the (over)use of war movie cliches that infect the plot. A colleague talking about marriage once he gets home? Dead or injured at least. A shadowy doppelganger of the lead character, doing the same thing but on the other side? Present. That said, Eastwood has an eye for detail and does create some tense moments (such as the section of the film shown in the trailer where Kyle must decide on taking down a child armed with a missile). But after that, it does go down hill and occasionally felt like watching someone play a first-person-shooter.  

Cooper's performance is decent. Kyle is a man of few words, a lot goes on behind his eyes and the subtle hints (underplayed) that he may be suffering from PTSD work well without any histrionics. Kyle appeared to be a man unrepentant about his work- claiming that he would meet his Maker with a clean conscience- and that's a difficult sell without coming across as a psychopath, but the film just about does it. The rest of Kyle's platoon are sadly unremarkable cannon-fodder and those characters are not fleshed out at all. 

The best performance of the film comes from Sienna Miller who plays Kyle's wife, Taya. Her uncertainty at getting into a relationship with a SEAL is played well and she and Cooper have a real potent chemistry together. She is the emotional anchor of the film and absolutely sells it without going over the top. At times you feel like screaming at her 'why don't you just leave him?' but Miller's performance brings across the deep love that Taya has for her husband, which makes the end of the story even more devastating.

Kyle's time away from the forces and his work with rehabilitation is perhaps more interesting than a lot of the previous stuff, but it gets glossed over with a shortish 20-minute coda, with a presentation of the fateful day that Kyle was killed. The action takes place off-screen, with a succinct one-line text to sum it up. The mid-credits then show real-life footage from Kyle's memorial service and the end credits then roll in total silence to let you absorb the tragedy. It's undeniably powerful but utterly manipulative at the same time.

As a film, American Sniper is not without its issues. You either have to get behind the black-and-white view of the world its main character has, or be able to see past it, to engage. It's probably one of the stronger films that has been made about the war in Iraq but it's still not the Iraq war equivalent to, say, Platoon or Saving Private Ryan.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Tez

Awards Season 2015: Academy Award Nominations

As announced earlier today, here is a selection of the nominations for this year's Academy Awards:

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper

Birdman

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory Of Everything

Whiplash

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)

Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher)

Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game)

BEST ACTOR

Steve Carell (Foxcatcher)

Bradley Cooper (American Sniper)

Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game)

Michael Keaton (Birdman)

Eddie Redmayne (The Theory Of Everything)

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night)

Felicity Jones (The Theory Of Everything)

Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)

Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall (The Judge)

Ethan Hawke (Boyhood)

Edward Norton (Birdman)

Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher)

J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Laura Dern (Wild)

Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)

Emma Stone (Birdman)

Meryl Streep (Into The Woods)

A full list of nominees can be found here.

I got 27 out of 33 (which I make as 82%) which is the same as last year. Not too bad.

Meryl Streep gains her nineteenth nomination for Into The Woods. There's a lot of love for American Sniper, and both Morten Tyldum's and Bennett Miller's nod for Best Director are interesting to see. The Lego Movie misses out on a Best Animated Feature nod but does get a nomination for Best Original Song ('Everything Is Awesome!') whilst one of Studio Ghibli's last films The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya does get a nomination.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: Days Of Future Past get nominated for Best Visual Effects along with Guardians Of The Galaxy and Interstellar.

The 87th Academy Awards will be handed out on Sunday February 22nd in a ceremony hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. 

Congratulations to all nominees!

Awards Season 2015: Tez's Official Academy Award Nomination Predictions

Tomorrow, the nominations for the the 87th Academy Awards will be announced. But they're doing things a little differently this year.

At 5.30am PST, directors J.J. Abrams and Alfonso Cuaron (last year's Best Director winner) will take to the stage and announce the first twelve categories, which will be mostly technical (Best Sound Design, Best Visual Effects and such). Then at 5.38am PST, Cheryl Boone Isaacs (president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and Chris Pine (Star Trek, Into The Woods) will announce the other twelve categories (which will include Best Picture and the acting awards). It is the first time that all 24 categories will reveal their nominations in the broadcast- usually it's just the major awards with the technical awards being announced by a press release shortly afterwards.

As has been my practice for the last few years, I like to try and predict who will be nominated (this is done for Best Picture, Best Director and the four acting awards). Below is my list of who I think will be named on Thursday.

NB. Just like the last few years, the Academy rules state that there could be anywhere between five and ten Best Picture nominees. I have selected ten films. If the total number of films nominated is less than ten, but one of the movies selected is named in my list of ten, I will count it as a successful prediction.

BEST PICTURE

Birdman

Boyhood

Foxcatcher

Gone Girl

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Nightcrawler

Selma

The Theory Of Everything

Whiplash

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Ava DuVernay (Selma)

Clint Eastwood (American Sniper)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)

Richard Linklater (Boyhood)

BEST ACTOR

Steve Carell (Foxcatcher)

Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game)

Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)

Michael Keaton (Birdman)

Eddie Redmayne (The Theory Of Everything)

BEST ACTRESS

Jennifer Aniston (Cake)

Felicity Jones (The Theory Of Everything)

Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)

Reese Witherspoon (Wild)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall (The Judge)

Ethan Hawke (Boyhood)

Edward Norton (Birdman)

Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher)

J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year)

Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)

Emma Stone (Birdman)

Meryl Streep (Into The Woods)

American Sniper could well sneak in a Best Picture nomination (with Selma looking to be the most likely replacement if it does). Best Director has been a bit of a crapshoot, given the DGA's announcement yesterday; I've still included Ava DuVernay but it's open.

Best Actor could see Steve Carell bumped in favour of David Oyelowo or possibly Ralph Fiennes. It could well be that Academy voters see Carell's performance as more of a supporting role and place him accordingly. The Academy do have previous on this; the year that Kate Winslet won, in every other awards ceremony, she'd been a Best Supporting Actress nominee for The Reader. The Academy bumped her to Best Actress. If Carell does get placed in Supporting Actor, the most likely casualty will be Robert Duvall. 

Best Actress seems fairly settled, although a surprise nomination for Amy Adams (Big Eyes) or Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night) in place of Jennifer Aniston could happen. Similarly, whilst the Supporting Actress category is pretty fixed, Carmen Ejogo (Selma) or even Rene Russo (Nghtcrawler) could get named. 

Usually a score of 15 is adequate, but given the fact that there could be anywhere between 5 and 10 Best Picture awards, I'ill be happy with a prediction of 18 or higher. Last year, I got 28 out of 34. I'm not that confident this year.

I'll add the official nominations once they're announced on Thursday afternoon.

Tez