2015 Oscar Nominations

Filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and JJ Abrams, actor Chris Pine and Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the nominees in all twenty-four categories at 5:30am Pacific, 8:30am Eastern time at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, CA. Cuaron and Abrams read the nominees for Animated Feature Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Film Editing, Original Song, Production Design, Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects. Then at 5:38am, Pine and Boone Isaacs unveiled the nominations for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Costume Design, Directing, Foreign Language Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Score, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay and Best Picture. Typically only the most popular categories (acting, directing, writing and best feature) are announced in the press event and this year it was a first to release all twenty-four live.

Birdman, Boyhood, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything were each anticipated to earn several nominations. Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel received the most nods with nine for both films. The Imitation Game was close behind with eight, Boyhood had six nominations and American Sniper surprised with six as well. Receiving five nominations were Foxcatcher and Interstellar. Another surprise, the film Mr Turner about British painter JMW Turner was nominated four times for Cinematography, Costume Design, Original Score and Production Design.

I usually do not focus on snubs, but I was very disappointed that Jennifer Aniston was not nominated for Best Actress for Cake and that the Lego Movie was not nominated for Best Animated Feature. It helps soften the blow that "Everything is Awesome" from the Lego Movie was nominated for Best Original Song.

The same night on A and E, Michael Strahan hosted the Critics' Choice Movie Awards which aired on television for the first time.

Without further adieu, this years Academy Awards nominees are...
BEST PICTURE
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro G Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
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
JK Simmons, Whiplash

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Robert Yeoman, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski, Ida Dick Pope, Mr Turner
Roger Deakins, Unbroken

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Ida, Poland
Leviathan, Russia
Tangerines, Estonia
Timbuktu, Mauritania
Wild Tales, Argentina

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
American Sniper, Jason Hall
The Imitation Game, Graham Moore
Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson
The Theory of Everything, Anthony McCarten
Whiplash, Damien Chazelle

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Birdman, Alejandro G Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr and Armando Bo
Boyhood, Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, E Max Frye and Dan Futterman
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness
Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard, Foxcatcher
Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White, Guardians of the Galaxy

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Mr Turner
The Theory of Everything

Best Original Song
“Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie; Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson
“Glory” from Selma; Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
“Grateful” from Beyond the Lights; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me; Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
“Lost Stars” from Begin Again; Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois


BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper
White Earth

BEST FILM EDITING
Joel Cox and Gary D Roach, American Sniper
Sandra Adair, Boyhood
Barney Pilling, The Grand Budapest Hotel
William Goldenberg, The Imitation Game
Tom Cross, Whiplash

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game, Production Design: Maria Djurkovic; Set Decoration: Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar, Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
Into the Woods, Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Mr Turner, Production Design: Suzie Davies; Set Decoration: Charlotte Watts

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh
The Phone Call

BEST SOUND EDITING
American Sniper, Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
Birdman, Martín Hernández and Aaron Glascock
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Brent Burge and Jason Canovas
Interstellar, Richard King
Unbroken, Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro

BEST SOUND MIXING
American Sniper, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
Birdman, Jon Taylor, Frank A Montaño and Thomas Varga
Interstellar, Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
Unbroken, Jon Taylor, Frank A Montaño and David Lee
Whiplash, Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy, Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
Interstellar, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
X-Men: Days of Future Past, Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Citizenfour
Finding Vivien Maier
Last Days of Vietnam
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Mark Bridges, Inherent Vice
Colleen Atwood, Into the Woods
Anna B Sheppard and Jane Clive, Maleficent
Jacqueline Durran, Mr Turner

Looking forward to...

Just caught the trailer for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. It looks good! The Bad Robot logo was the first strong sign (JJ Abrams' production company). I liked seeing Simon Pegg (who also popped up as Scotty in Abrams' Star Trek), Josh Halloway, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner. The Lost full-circle-ness of it all is still blowing my mind; Evangeline Lilly was Renner's wife in the Oscar winning Hurt Locker, and we all know her as Kate. Abrams is producing this installment and Brad Bird is directing. Bird is best known for his work in animation (the Iron Giant, the Incredibles).
Guess I need to see the third one from 2006. That was at the height of Tom Cruise's craziness and I was relishing in it. I almost saw if for JJ's direction and Felicity, I mean Keri Russell's role in the flick.
Tom Cruise is the true work of some modern PR genius.

The new movie arrives in theaters December 16th. Even at the height of the summer movie season and knowing that mid-December is when the Oscar race gets going, I love it when I am energized and excited by a trailer.

Laura's cousin Mary was an extra in Salvation Boulevard. She is third from the left at the 1:44 mark, the girl with dark hair during the protesting, angry crowd scene. http://youtu.be/TYiYHfciJwE. Movie is out July 15th. Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly and Marisa Tomei are all in it. Looks wacky fantastic. I had actually never heard or read of it. Love new stuff.

Super 8

In the spirit of the filmmakers' (writer/director JJ Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg) efforts to keep details of this project to a minimum, my comments will be brief.

This is the best movie that I have seen in I do not know how long. Go. See. It.

The film takes place in 1979, the music, the fashions, the sets, the sense of the 70s meeting the 80s, it's all there. There is humor, it is constantly laugh out loud hilarious, even in the tensest of moments.

To quote Miss Emily Ficker, who so graciously shared her passes for this sneak peek with me, "It's ET meets Stand by Me for the 21st Century." And might I add, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, with some serious dashes of Goonies. We also agreed that this will go down as the best movie we ever see with passes. This movie is MINT! There are classic Spielbergian elements and the strength of Abrams directing and writing are evident. Any Lostie can tell you the man is genius.

I would like to stand on a limb and say this will be the best movie of the summer. I should hope that America makes this movie number one at the box office for the next several weeks. Heck, this may be the best movie of the year. It is everything a movie should be. I just hope it is recognized for technical awards at the very least come Oscar season. Throughout the experience of watching this film, I kept marveling at how good it is.