87th Oscars Winners
Last night was the 87th Annual Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars). With an exciting, albeit controversial, selection of nominations, this year's Oscars featured a lot of question marks going into last night's telecast. The 72nd Golden Globes set the bar for the two picture fight between Boyhood and Birdman, my personal top two films of 2014. However, while the Golden Globes tend to indicate the Oscars winners, there were a few major differences. Birdman ended up with four wins for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography; Boyhood, meanwhile, only ended up with one win for Best Supporting Actress. Other highlights include hometown hero Common and John Legend winning the Oscar for Best Song for Selma's "Glory," with Common delivering an impassioned speech, which you can watch below. You can also find the full list of 87th Oscars winners past the video.
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Best Picture:
American Sniper
WINNER: Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Best Actress:
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
WINNER: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Best Actor:
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman
WINNER: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Best Director:
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Best Supporting Actress:
WINNER: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into The Woods
Best Supporting Actor:
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
WINNER: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Best Animated Feature:
WINNER: Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How To Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Best Original Screenplay:
Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness, The Grand Budapest Hotel
E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher
Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler
WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr, Armando Bo, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Jason Hall, American Sniper
WINNER: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
Anthony McCarten, The Theory of Everything
Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice
Best Original Score:
WINNER: Alexandre Desplat, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat, The Imitation Game
Johann Johannsson, The Theory of Everything
Hans Zimmer, Interstellar
Gary Yershon, Mr. Turner
Best Original Song:
"Everything is Awesome," The Lego Movie
WINNER: “Glory,” Selma
"I’m Not Gonna Miss You," Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
"Lost Stars," Begin Again
"Grateful," Beyond the Lights
Best Documentary Feature:
WINNER: Citizenfour
Last Days In Vietnam
Virunga
Finding Vivian Maier
The Salt of the Earth
Best Film Editing:
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Imitation Game
WINNER: Whiplash
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Cinematography:
WINNER: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Ryszard Lenczewski and ?ukasz ?al, Ida
Dick Pope, Mr. Turner
Robert D. Yeoman, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Roger Deakins, Unbroken
Best Production Design:
WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Into The Woods
Mr. Turner
Best Animated Short:
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
WINNER: Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life
Best Visual Effects:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
WINNER: Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Best Sound Editing:
WINNER: American Sniper
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Birdman
Unbroken
Best Sound Mixing:
American Sniper
Birdman
Interstellar
Unbroken
WINNER: Whiplash
Best Live Action Short:
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
WINNER: The Phone Call
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh
Best Documentary Short:
WINNER: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper (La Parka)
White Earth
Best Foreign Language Film:
WINNER: Ida (Poland)
Leviathan (Russia)
Tangerines (Estonia)
Timbuktu (Mauritania)
Wild Tales (Argentina)
Best Costume Design:
Colleen Atwood, Into The Woods
WINNER: Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jacqueline Durran, Mr. Turner
Anna B. Sheppard, Maleficent
Mark Bridges, Inherent Vice
Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Foxcatcher
WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy
Selma's Oscar Snub: Why Awards Strategies and Hollywood Politics Are a More Likely Factor Than Gender and Race
As with every year, the big story following the announcement of the Academy Awards nominations is who got snubbed. This year, the most glaring omission was Selma.
The critically acclaimed film about the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches snagged two Oscar nominations: Best Picture and Best Original Song ("Glory" by John Legend and Common). But nothing for Selma's director Ava DuVernay, or its star David Oyelowo, or cinematographer Roger Deakins, or screenwriter Paul Webb.
The optics of the snub are bad. As The Hollywood Reporter noted yesterday, the field of nominees for the major awards is predominantly white (and exclusively white in the acting categories). It's left a number of people wondering if racism and/or sexism was involved with Selma's snub, or if the controversies involving Selma's depiction of President Lyndon Johnson were also a factor.
After exchanging emails with my friend Steve Kopian who runs Unseen Films, I think there's something else going on even though race and gender are important to consider. It seems like the main reason Selma was snubbed had to do with its late release and poor awards season campaign, because in the end, the Academy Awards are a PR battle.
Selma was delivered to Paramount on November 26, which left limited time to get a robust award's season strategy in motion. Given that, the main factors that led to the Selma snubs are probably the following:
- DVD screeners for Selma were only sent to Oscar and BAFTA voters; none were sent to voters of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the Screen Actors Guild (SGA), the Producers Guild of America (PGA)
- Selma didn't have a world premiere at one of the major year-end film festivals (i.e., the Toronto International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival)
- Selma's limited Christmas release in select markets came too late to build the necessary Academy voter buzz
Earlier this week, Variety had a good rundown of the importance that DVD screeners played in all this. There's the possibility that major industry players didn't get their eyes on the film in time, or that they saw the film too late to change their minds about other films they saw earlier.
Production of official watermarked DVD screeners takes a while. Since the film was delivered late in November, the screener DVDs weren't even ready to go to voters until December 18. By then, SAG's voting period had passed and the PGA voting period was in full swing. Buzz and chatter back and forth between different groups of voters just wasn't there, so no chance for little suggestions of award buzz being transferred from one set of industry voters to the next.
Sadly, despite the gambit, Selma wasn't nominated for any BAFTAs.
Had Selma been completed earlier, some of this industry buzz could have been generated sooner at one of the major last-quarter film festivals. A movie can be elevated in the eyes of the industry simply by a major debut at a film festival, and it can help a movie in a unique way that a high-90s Tomatometer score can't.
Since Selma was completed in late November, there was no chance that a satisfying version of the movie would be ready to play at Telluride or Toronto (both take place in September) or at the New York Film Festival (which takes place in October).
A working version of Selma played at the AFI Fest on November 11, two weeks before the final version of the movie was delivered. While the early buzz at AFI Fest was positive, again, it may have been too late to knock out earlier award season frontrunners, like Richard Linklater's Boyhood (which debuted at Sundance), Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (which debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival), Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher (which debuted at Cannes), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Birdman (which debuted at the Venice International Film Festival), and Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game (which debuted at the Telluride Film Festival).
Of course, Clint Eastwood's American Sniper also played at AFI Fest, and despite the controversies around that film's factual errors, it garnered six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. So what gives there? In terms of award season, I think there's a unique case of Eastwood's clout making a big difference, because clout goes a long way in the Oscar PR battle.
Eastwood's an esteemed fixture in Hollywood given the longevity of his career. A late release by Eastwood has a better chance of crashing the awards season than a late release by someone new in the eyes of Hollywood like DuVernay. Had Selma been released by The Weinstein Company rather than Paramount, perhaps Harvey Weinstein would have glad-handed it into the major awards somehow. That's the power of clout.
But after the behind-the-scenes industry stuff, we're left with the nominations themselves and a look at how they reflect or are interpreted through the lens of real-world politics regarding race and gender. And I can't deny it looks bad.
The Selma snub seems especially egregious since this year's nominees play into a particular and persistent narrative about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS): they are a bunch of out-of-touch old white men. In fact, the Academy voters are 93% white, 76% male, and their average age is 63. (These stats come from a report by NPR from February last year.) Current AMPAS President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, an African-American woman, is pushing for diversity in AMPAS membership, but the push will take time.
The disappointment in this year's Selma snub—maybe in most awards snubs, regardless of the medium—comes back to a narrative of blandness and the taste of the status quo getting reaffirmed, namely that the safest and least challenging works tend to be the ones that win; or in large groups of voters, it's the consensus winner that gets the award even though voters felt more passionate about another set of works. (First is the worst, second's the best, third is the nerd with the hairy chest, but fourth gets the award this year because it's all right enough probably I guess.)
I don't know if blandness is necessarily the case this year, though, given the strength of several of the movies that have been nominated for Oscars. But it's weird to think that a movie like Selma might have fared much better at next year's Academy Awards, given a whole 12 months to roll out a well-planned campaign rather than just one rushed and chaotic month. If Selma debuted at the Sundance Film Festival later this month or at Berlin in February, and if it rode that acclaim through 2015... but even then, who's to say?
87th Oscars Nominations
In case you missed this morning's live stream announcement of the 87th annual Oscars nominations, here's a quick list of all of them! We'll have more on The Oscars soon.
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Steve Carell in “Foxcatcher”
Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper”
Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game”
Michael Keaton in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”
Eddie Redmayne in “The Theory of Everything”
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Robert Duvall in “The Judge”
Ethan Hawke in “Boyhood”
Edward Norton in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”
Mark Ruffalo in “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash”
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night”
Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything”
Julianne Moore in “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl”
Reese Witherspoon in “Wild”
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Patricia Arquette in “Boyhood”
Laura Dern in “Wild”
Keira Knightley in “The Imitation Game”
Emma Stone in “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”
Meryl Streep in “Into the Woods”
Best animated feature film of the year
“Big Hero 6” Don Hall, Chris Williams and Roy Conli
“The Boxtrolls” Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable and Travis Knight
“How to Train Your Dragon 2” Dean DeBlois and Bonnie Arnold
“Song of the Sea” Tomm Moore and Paul Young
“The Tale of the Princess Kaguya” Isao Takahata and Yoshiaki Nishimura
Achievement in cinematography
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” Emmanuel Lubezki
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Robert Yeoman
“Ida” Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski
“Mr. Turner” Dick Pope
“Unbroken” Roger Deakins
Achievement in costume design
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Milena Canonero
“Inherent Vice” Mark Bridges
“Into the Woods” Colleen Atwood
“Maleficent” Anna B. Sheppard and Jane Clive
“Mr. Turner” Jacqueline Durran
Achievement in directing
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” Alejandro G. Iñárritu
“Boyhood” Richard Linklater
“Foxcatcher” Bennett Miller
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Wes Anderson
“The Imitation Game” Morten Tyldum
Best documentary feature
“CitizenFour” Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky
“Finding Vivian Maier” John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
“Last Days in Vietnam” Rory Kennedy and Keven McAlester
“The Salt of the Earth” Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and David Rosier
“Virunga” Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara
Best documentary short subject
“Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1” Ellen Goosenberg Kent and Dana Perry
“Joanna” Aneta Kopacz
“Our Curse” Tomasz Sliwinski and Maciej Slesicki
“The Reaper (La Parka)” Gabriel Serra Arguello
“White Earth” J. Christian Jensen
Achievement in film editing
“American Sniper” Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach
“Boyhood” Sandra Adair
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Barney Pilling
“The Imitation Game” William Goldenberg
“Whiplash” Tom Cross
Best foreign language film of the year
“Ida” Poland
“Leviathan” Russia
“Tangerines” Estonia
“Timbuktu” Mauritania
“Wild Tales” Argentina
Achievement in makeup and hairstyling
“Foxcatcher” Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier
“Guardians of the Galaxy” Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Alexandre Desplat
“The Imitation Game” Alexandre Desplat
“Interstellar” Hans Zimmer
“Mr. Turner” Gary Yershon
“The Theory of Everything” Jóhann Jóhannsson
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (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 motion picture of the year
“American Sniper” Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan, Producers
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole, Producers
“Boyhood” Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland, Producers
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson, Producers
“The Imitation Game” Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky and Teddy Schwarzman, Producers
“Selma” Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
“The Theory of Everything” Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce and Anthony McCarten, Producers
“Whiplash” Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook and David Lancaster, Producers
Achievement in 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 film
“The Bigger Picture” Daisy Jacobs and Christopher Hees
“The Dam Keeper” Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi
“Feast” Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
“Me and My Moulton” Torill Kove
“A Single Life” Joris Oprins
Best live action short film
“Aya” Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis
“Boogaloo and Graham” Michael Lennox and Ronan Blaney
“Butter Lamp (La Lampe Au Beurre De Yak)” Hu Wei and Julien Féret
“Parvaneh” Talkhon Hamzavi and Stefan Eichenberger
“The Phone Call” Mat Kirkby and James Lucas
Achievement in sound editing
“American Sniper” Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” 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
Achievement in sound mixing
“American Sniper” John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” 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
Achievement in 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
Adapted screenplay
“American Sniper” Written by Jason Hall
“The Imitation Game” Written by Graham Moore
“Inherent Vice” Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson
“The Theory of Everything” Screenplay by Anthony McCarten
“Whiplash” Written by Damien Chazelle
Original screenplay
“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo
“Boyhood” Written by Richard Linklater
“Foxcatcher” Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” Screenplay by Wes Anderson; Story by Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
“Nightcrawler” Written by Dan Gilroy
87th Oscars Nominations Announcement Live Stream
With the Golden Globes officially under wraps, the film industry is preparing for the 87th Academy Awards. This year, The Oscars nominations will be announced live online via video stream, and we have the announcement video below. Will Boyhood maintain momentum following the Golden Globes and net nominations in the major categories, or will other highly-nominated films like Birdman come in and sweep the Oscars? The road to The Oscars begins right here!
[youtube id="U1G_C6ygtRA"]
Multiple Recent Deaths Puts Extra Pressure On Academy
The Oscars are a time in which not only great achievements of acting, directing, writing, and other filmmaking aspects are recognized, but also a period in which reflection takes place. The event is a cause for great celebration for the films that have been able to ascend above the other productions in the past year, and overall it can be looked upon as a fantastic gathering and honorable evening. While filmmakers may be so good at their craft that they may come across as invincible walks of life, the improbable fortune of death faces us all as humans, and the recent deaths of many cinematic greats has the Academy scrambling for the In Memoriam portion of the Academy Awards.
Early 2014 has brought a whole lot of misfortune to filmmakers. Just in the past two months Philip Seymour Hoffman, Shirley Temple, Tom Sherak, and Harold Ramis have left this earth for the great unknown. Many people are expecting their talents to be recognized in this highly regarded segment of the Oscars, and these names alone are not including other deaths from the past year such as James Gandolfini, Peter O’Toole, Deanna Durbin, Joan Fontaine, Roger Ebert, Ray Dolby, Ray Harryhausen, Paul Walker, and Elmore Leonard.
There is only so much time that can be dedicated to this portion of the awards ceremony, and the order of sequence in which these names will appear for viewers and even the simple fact of the matter of who will make the cut has people biting their nails. It's an emotional sequence of the ceremony, and a lot of people find that certain selections of applause and silence when names flash on the screen make it unfair and almost like a celebrity popularity contest. While the distribution of the little golden statues should be of utmost importance for the Academy, it seems that these deadlines may be the cause of controversy with the awards handed out this year.
[via Variety]