Scene
Thursday, February 19, 2015
NorthernStar.info/DeKalb_Scene H @NSScene H 815-753-5606
The Associated Press
“Grand Budapest Hotel” is nominated for Best Picture, among eight other categories.
7
The Associated Press
“Birdman,” starring Michael Keaton, will compete for nine Academy Awards 6 p.m. Sunday.
Academy Award Face-Off
Arthur Aumann Columnist T @ArthurAumann
Tight competition in Best Picture and Best Director will highlight the 87th annual Academy Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. “Birdman” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” lead the way with nine nominations each. Best picture A Best Picture nominee should be an experience, a movie you can’t wait to see again; but, half of this year’s eight nominees are formulaic and, in some cases, uninspired biopics. “The Imitation Game,” “The Theory of Everything” and “Selma” are all well-made and well-acted movies per se, but they lack in the storytelling department. “American
Sniper” is even worse and certainly isn’t deserving of being nominated, but being directed by Clint Eastwood, an Academy favorite, managed to secure it a nomination. The other four nominees are excellent and capture what a great year 2014 was for movies. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” showed us how fun movies can be. Starring an entourage of A-list celebrities, Wes Anderson’s vibrant and eccentric comedy is over the top and at times quite dark, but it is definitely the most charming movie of the year. “Birdman” was one of the most original and stylized movies in years as it satirized the superhero culture Hollywood has become enveloped in and partially mirrored star Michael Keaton’s career. “Whiplash” was the most surprising movie of the year. It showed a young drummer who didn’t want to be just good; he wanted to be the greatest and would stop at nothing to achieve
that. It’s like if Daniel from “The Karate Kid” teamed up with the drill sergeant from “Full Metal Jacket” and they formed a jazz band with the drill sergeant firing vulgarities and insults at Daniel to push him beyond his potential. “Boyhood” is the movie of the year and the ultimate time capsule. Riding on the strength of its concept and the nostalgia it provokes, the movie is one of the most audacious experiments in the history of film and will likely win Best Picture. The most glaring omission for Best Picture is Dan Gilroy’s seedy and unnerving “Nightcrawler,” which introduced viewers to the underground world of crime journalism and showed us a side of Jake Gyllenhaal we had never seen before. The Academy can nominate up to 10 movies for Best Picture, yet it only chose eight. This implies it was a weak year for movies when it was quite the opposite. Other movies that deserved nominations are “Foxcatcher,” “Gone Girl” and “Interstellar.”
Enter for a chance to win a $25 Movie Theater Gift Card
Best director The Best Director category has several veteran candidates who have been nominated in the past but never won. Bennett Miller is nominated for “Foxcatcher,” which is somewhat surprising because “Foxcatcher” got snubbed in the Best Picture category. Although winning this award may be a long shot, the direction of the movie itself is almost flawless, so the nomination is much deserved. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is the best movie West Anderson has directed. Anderson’s work as a director has always been visually pleasing and his latest movie is no exception. While it might seem like a two-horse race between Alejandro González Iñárritu and Richard Linklater, Anderson could be a sleeper to take home the Oscar. Morten Tyldum is nominated for “The Imitation Game,” but I’m not quite sure why. It wasn’t poorly directed, but if we’re talking about
More information What: 87th Academy Awards When: 6 p.m. Sunday Where: ABC directing, David Fincher and Damien Chazelle did much better jobs with “Gone Girl” and “Whiplash,” respectively, and would have been better choices. Iñárritu has been crafting beautiful movies for more than a decade and “Birdman” is the most masterfully directed movie of the year. If the Academy decides to hand out the accolade based on pure direction, Iñárritu should win. Linklater will likely be the winner of the award for “Boyhood” primarily based on the fact that it took 12 years to make. It would be surprising to see the architect of such an ambitious and successful project go unrewarded.
Read Online | Bit.ly/1FwAysj
Make your way to NorthernStar.info and attempt to guess the winners of the Academy Awards You have until Noon on Sunday February 22nd Winner will be contacted