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How Many of the Best Picture Nominees Have You Seen?
So, the Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture are: Boyhood, Birdman, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma, and Whiplash.
I’ve seen half of them (Boyhood, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Whiplash); Boyhood is my favorite so far.
The great omission I see is Guardians of the Galaxy not being nominated for Best Picture. More surprising, The Lego Movie was not nominated for Best Animated Feature. That’s not awesome.
So any of your favorites up for the big prize? Or do you really not care?
Published in Culture, General
None and do not care.
Agree with Kay.
Also agree RE Lego Movie – that should have gotten a nomination.
I’ve seen Birdman, The Imitation Game, and The Grand Budapest Hotel.
I’ll likely see American Sniper soon.
Perhaps, I’ll someday see The Theory of Everything.
There was something oddly compelling about The Grand Budapest Hotel, even though I did not laugh a single time. I was not impressed by Birdman or The Imitation Game.
Dittos re. The LEGO Movie.
I really don’t go to many movies these days. As I think I’ve mentioned before, unless there are Jedis, Hobbits, or Klingons in it, I tend to wait for the “home video” release. Exception: some awesome movie that the whole family will enjoy.
For example, The LEGO Movie, which far exceeded my expectations. (And if there are people here who haven’t seen it yet, avoid spoilers.)
Best animated feature? I’d give it “Best Picture!”
Let’s call it an exploration on film of “the perfect law that gives freedom.”
Do any of these award shows mean anything anymore? Seems like they are just marketing activities for a declining industry.
Yep. I used to watch a lot of them when I was a kid. I can’t remember the last time I actually watched any award show.
But if I had to pick just one, it would probably be the CMA Awards. (Because at least I’d kind of enjoy it, I think.)
I’ve seen none of them and the Oscars stopped being of interest to me since 1980. I was 12 then if anyone is interested.
Wow! I’ve seen none of these movies. I need to get out more.
I have not seen any of the nominated movies. I want to see Boyhood.
I have seen both Guardians of the Galaxy and The Lego Movie. Guardians was a hoot and has the best soundtrack.
Lego was terrific. That it was not nominated for the Best Picture is a shame. That it was not nominated for Best Animated Picture is a travesty.
*All the above being true, I do not regard the Oscars or its nominations as any indication of how much I will enjoy a movie or not.
Haven’t seen any of them.
If I go to the movies these days, it’s usually to watch one of the live RiffTrax events.
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It’s okay. Made my own!
Interesting that there seems to be a core group of Ricocheti who aren’t terribly interested. Judging by the comments, it’s also the case that we didn’t realize that there are so many of us who don’t really care.
I’ll get to ’em when they hit Netflix.
Maybe if they let me snuggle up to my girlie under a big fluffy duvet while wearing flannel pajamas, like I can when I watch a movie at home, I’d go see movies in the theatres again.
Really, I was soured mostly by the experience of seeing the first Hobbit movie in 48 frames-per-second 3D and being disappointed. I get more enjoyment from a good story than I get from spectacle these days, and a good story is enjoyed just fine on a big-screen tv with a warm girlie under a big fluffy duvet.
And booze. Can’t forget that there’s no booze allowed at the theatre.
Caveat: I make an exception for grindhousey b-movies, which I like to go see with other fans of quality schlock at my local independent threatre.
They’ve been screening The Room every month for 65 MONTHS straight!
Saw Birdman and Grand Budapest Hotel. Both enjoyable, neither Best Picture material.
Birdman is a lacerating look at the nature of fame. It lost me, however, with the elements of magical realism, a trick I’ve always abhorred (I’m still angry about the scene where it rains frogs in Magnolia). Ed Norton’s performance is very good and Emma Stone’s is amazing. She’d get my vote for Best Supporting Actress, though the only one of her competitors I saw was Meryl Streep in Into the Woods.
Grand Budapest has its charms (foremost of which is a great performance by Ralph Fiennes) but suffers from the same defect of virtually all Wes Anderson movies — an ironic distance from the characters that keeps you from ever really investing in them. Ironically, the one film of his that avoids this trap is the one that doesn’t include humans: the underrated Fantastic Mr. Fox. That probably has to do with the Roald Dahl children’s book that provided the source material.
One another note on Budapest: it deserves the makeup award for the transformation of Tilda Swinton into a dowager. I’m sort of shocked that Foxcatcher got nominated in that category too. The makeup on both Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo is so overdone as to be a constant distraction throughout the movie.
Most theaters here now are selling beer, still not enough to get me to go but an improvement nonetheless.
On a cold winter’s night, I like to pause the flick and make hot chocolate with some Bailey’s or brandy thrown in, slurp it down, and loudly proclaim, “MMMmmmmm, that is SOOOOOO gooooood…”
That is not something one can do in a theatre.
;-)
The “meaning” of the Oscars hasn’t really changed since its founding. There’s no way to argue, IMHO, that it’s somehow gone “downhill”. It’s the same as it ever was.
The Emmys, on the other hand, has started to get better since it allows cable and internet shows for consideration. I like the Emmys.
Does it matter that every single face of the Oscar nominees is Caucasian?
(Even the poster for Selma shows the back of a black man’s head.)
Apparently this is the whitest Oscars year since 1995 (when Shakespeare in Love was the darling, for some reason).
http://www.fandango.com/movies/awards/showcase/oscars
I realize that counting by race has become very common in the U.S. nowadays. But is that a good thing? And should we encourage it?
I’ve seen Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Hotel was funny, Boyhood ended oddly, was interesting visually seeing them all age in movie real time.
None.
There was a time in my life I saw 50+ movies a year. The kids were small and it was a perfect two-hour vacation per week.
Don’t go at all anymore. Combination of not needing a break and Netflix being too good.
But I will see them all. AMC theatres have a showcase every year with five movies shown back to back on one Saturday and the remaining five nominated movies shown the following Saturday.
It is a fun, fun way to see all the movies. We’ve been going with friends for years and have gotten to know other attendees.
I’ve been unusually remiss in going to theaters this year, so the only of the nominees I saw was Grand Budapest, which I thoroughly enjoyed (I’m a general fan of Anderson, though not a knee-jerk one).
Okay, I saw both of these and — while I enjoyed them both — I’ve never quite understood the hoopla around either. Very fun, very entertaining movies, but neither seems worthy (to me) of half the hoopla they’ve received.
My wife and I save our theater money for the big spectacle films, so while I plan on seeing The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything and possibly Selma at some point, I have not seen them yet. With very few exceptions, I don’t watch Rated-R films, so I probably won’t ever watch Birdman (though it did look very well-done to me), Whiplash, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, or American Sniper (though Sniper does GREATLY tempt me).
As far as the animated films go, I’ve seen How to Train Your Dragon 2 (liked it) and Big Hero 6 (loved it), but I’m a bit miffed that Lego Movie was not nominated, as I’d take it over either HTTYD2 or BH6. I definitely want to see Song of the Sea (as the studio behind it has previously made the wonderful Secret of Kells) and Princess Kaguyo.
I personally loved Interstellar, but I get why it was a divisive film and am not upset it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture (it’s a still a travesty that The Dark Knight was not nominated back in its year). I’m glad Hans Zimmer’s score for it (which I loved) is nominated.
I plan to see them all before the Oscars. But I’ll only watch the show (as Bart Simpson says) when it’s hosted by that delightful Billy Crystal.
“Boyhood” was an achievement of film making, but it could have used a stronger script.
“Grand Budapest Hotel” was enjoyable from start to finish, but doesn’t strike me as best picture material because, as others have stated, it lacks sufficient emotional punch.
The Academy voters do not all get together and decide “These will be the movies, these will be the actors”. No, they each individually vote on the ones they like, according to whatever criteria they consider, then send them in. Then the votes are totaled. I’m sure that many black actors got many votes, just as every year. This time it transpired that when the independent, separately cast, one-at-a-time votes were counted, the top five (or however many it was) totals happened to go to actors who are white. It’s possible that choices six through ten were all black, who knows? How many Hispanic, how many Asian, how many, I don’t know – transexuals were considered, and why aren’t they all complaining?
This is not planned, for crying out loud. It can not even be predicted. The fact that it turned out all white this time is simply one of the possible results when adding up a bunch of ballots, and HAS no way to be caused by racism.
The only way to avoid it would be to have a category for best BLACK actor and actress, I suppose, but that is a nauseating, insulting idea. Can Al Sharpton PLEASE shut up?
(Ehem, to the question at hand. Didn’t see any, would like to see them all. I’ve started listening to a podcast called “Filmspotting”, and it’s so good they have totally revived my interst in seeing movies, including all of these. The best movie I’ve seen in a while is “Ida”, which I heard about on that podcast. Lego movie was also, well, I guess “awesome”, but isn’t everything when you’re part of a team?)
As did I.
I’ve only heard of one of those. I guess I don’t get out too much.
Grand Budapest was quite fun, but — yeah…best picture? Mmmm. I watched the Lego Movie in the company of my obsessed grandson, who has seen it several times. He was building with his uncles’ “classic Legos” all through the movie. He’s eight. ‘Nuff said. But the Lego movie was quite wonderful, too. Can’t believe it wasn’t nominated for the animation award.