On Sunday just gone the 87th Academy Awards were held in LA and this year they were hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. I haven’t watched the full ceremony yet but I had a gander at the list of winners for the usual two reasons.

  • To see if I agree with the choices
  • To find films to add to the ‘watchlist’

So lets go through some of the major categories….

ns = Not Seen

Best Picture

Winner: Birdman

MV5BODAzNDMxMzAxOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDMxMjA4MjE@._V1_SX214_AL_

Nominated: American Sniper (ns), Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma(ns), The Theory of Everything, Whiplash.

Thoughts: The quality of the films nominated here just shows what an excellent year we have had for cinema. All the ones I’ve seen I thoroughly enjoyed and this makes picking a favourite quite tricky. However I do believe I agree with the academy here and think Birdman deserved it. Whiplash and The Grand Budapest Hotel are very close behind it though!

Best Director

Winner: Alejandro G Inarritu, Birdman  

MV5BODAzNDMxMzAxOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDMxMjA4MjE@._V1_SX214_AL_

Nominated: Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Richard Linklater, Boyhood. Bennet Miller, Foxcatcher (ns). Morten Tyldu, The Imitation Game.

Thoughts: My gut reaction to this was to go for Wes Anderson but after some more consideration I changed my mind. While The Grand Budapest Hotel was beautifully directed it wasn’t ground breaking like two of the other nominations. Boyhood, which was filmed over a 12 year period and Birdman which is filmed as a single shot for the entire film. Boyhood was a great film however I’m not sure if the stand out feature of filming it over 12 years counts as direction (I’m not sure what it counts as though, production maybe?) so again I agree with the academy. 2/2 for Birdman! 

Best Actor

Winner: Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

MV5BMTAwMTU4MDA3NDNeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU4MDk4NTMxNTIx._V1_SX214_AL_

Nominated: Steve Carell, Foxcatcher (ns). Bradley Cooper, American Sniper (ns). Benedict Cumberbatch, Imitation Game. Michael Keaton, Birdman.

Thoughts: While Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of Steven Hawking was very good I believe Benedict Cumberbatch deserved this one. His depiction of Alan Turing was very touching and I believe he has helped make more people aware of Alan Turing’s crucial role during the second world war as well as our governments atrocious actions towards homosexuals.    

Best Actress

Winner: Julianne Moore – Still Alice (ns)

MV5BMjIzNzAxNjY1Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDg4ODQxMzE@._V1_SX214_AL_

Nominated: Marion Cotillard – Two Days, One Night (ns). Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything. Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl. Reese Witherspoon, Wild (ns).

Thoughts: As I have seen so few of these films I can’t really comment on the academies choice. However the two I have seen are definitely worthy of the nomination. Wild has been on the watch list for a while (and the book on my to read list in fact) but I wasn’t aware of Still Alive and Two Days, One Night. These will now get added to the watch list! 

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: J. K. Simmons – Whiplash

MV5BMTU4OTQ3MDUyMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTA2MjU0MjE@._V1_SX214_AL_

Nominated: Robert Duball, The Judge (ns). Ethan Hawke, Boyhood. Edward Norton, Birdman. Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher (ns).

Thoughts: J. K. Simmons definitely deserved this one. Whiplash is one of the best films I’ve seen recently and he was unquestionably the stand out actor in it. If you haven’t seen Whiplash then I highly recommend it, its currently #38 on IMDB and cost a measly $3m to make. To put that in to perspective, Interstellar, which is the only other 2014 to currently be in the IMDB top 50 cost $165m to make!

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Birdman

MV5BODAzNDMxMzAxOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDMxMjA4MjE@._V1_SX214_AL_

Nominated: Boyhood, Foxcatcher (ns), The Grand Budapest Hotel, Nightcrawler (ns)

Thoughts: While Birdman was an amazing film it was the direction and acting that made it stand out, not so much the writing. Both Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel stood out for me when it comes to writing and if I had to pick between the two I would probably go for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Best Animated Feature Film

MV5BMjI4MTIzODU2NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjE0NDAwMjE@._V1_SY317_CR0,0,214,317_AL_

Winner: Big Hero 6

Nominated: The Boxtrolls (ns), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (ns), Song of the Sea (ns), The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (ns).

Thoughts: Having only seen the winner here I can’t really say much other than the fact I greatly enjoyed Big Hero 6. Disney is on top form here, this could of easily been released under Pixar and held its own against the classic pixar films!

That will do for my comments, let me know if you agree/disagree! If you want to view the fully list of winners is available on Wikipdia

Now as a random extra here is a Neil Gaiman Poem about the Oscars that I am particularly fond of.

David