The 2014 Academy Awards were announced this morning, and as with every year, there are snubs and surprises. I'll only post the "top" categories here, but a full list can be found at http://oscar.go.com/nominees
Best Picture of the Year
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street
12 Years a Slave
Best Director
Find out what's happening in Plymouthfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
Alexander Payne, Nebraska
David O. Russell, American Hustle
Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Find out what's happening in Plymouthfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Chiwetel Ojiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Meryl Streep, August: Osage County
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
June Squibb, Nebraska
When talking "snubs", it's opinion. All of this year's nominees are strong and certainly deserve the praise, but there's always something you wish would be different. Let's try to make sense of it, shall we?
The first noticeable shutout would have to be two Hollywood favorites, Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips and Robert Redford for All is Lost. Many claimed Hanks’ performance was the best of his career, and receiving an Oscar nomination was a sure bet. Others found his performance simply on par with what they expect from him, save for the last 15 emotional minutes, where Hanks truly pulls off some of the best acting of his career. My personal favorite Hanks performance was from Cast Away.
I am most annoyed that Meryl Streep was nominated for August: Osage County instead of say Greta Gerwig for Frances Ha or even Emma Thompson for Saving Mr. Banks. At this point in her career I'm becoming all too aware of Meryl in every role she plays. She does not vanish into her roles and it becomes entirely too obvious that she's Acting.
The tipping point for me was her role in Doubt in 2008. A movie I loved, but that's when I started to notice her subtle, or with the character she played, no-so-subtle nuances. Every twitch, every movement became too calculated for me to handle. But let's shift gears back to today.
I was really rooting for James Franco to be nominated for the misunderstood Spring Breakers, one of my favorite films of the year. Barkhad Abdi, Bradley Cooper, Michael Fassbender, and Jared Leto were all expected to secure a nomination, and while Jonah Hill's nomination for The Wolf of Wall Street is a welcome surprise -- he was terrific -- part of me was still hoping for Franco to take the spot.
To my surprise Blue is the Warmest Color wasn't nominated for Best Foreign film. The film was all the talk when it opened, but slowly seemed to lose traction. The film will be available via the Criterion Collection February 25th.Two of my favorites of the year were nearly shutout. Prisoners and The Place Beyond the Pines. Pines received nothing. Prisoners received one, a cinematography nomination for Roger Deakins. This makes his 11th nomination. This year I believe Emmanuel Lubezki will win cinematography for Gravity. He is one of my favorite working cinematographers and I desperately wanted him to win for Malick's The Tree of Life, but I do not want him to win for Gravity. If he does, it will be the third in a new trend of special effects photography that I haven't warmed up to. Avatar, Life of Pi both won the award; movies shot with a lot of green screen. If anything, lets split this into two categories again, like the Academy did with Color and Black & White from the 30s to the 60s, making a film photography award and digital photography award. This year I would like Roger Deakins to finally take the award for cinematography. His work on Prisoners was most impressive.
I'm winding down here, but for me, one of the most disappointing revelations this morning was that Themla Shoonmaker did not get a Best Editing nomination for her rigorous work on The Wolf of Wall Street. This is made all the more disappointing because the film received many top nominations: Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, but no love for the woman that had to make sense of the mess. I will admit, it took a long time for me to warm up to the Scorsese / Shoonmaker style of editing, but Scorsese would -- in part -- not be who he is today if not for the woman that compiled his madness into a cohesive unit.
To end this, the following are my favorite films of 2013.
1. The Place Beyond the Pines
2. Blue Jasmine
3. Spring Breakers
4. Nebraska
5. 12 Years a Slave
6. Frances Ha
7. American Hustle
8. Upstream Color
9. Mud
10. Her
11. The Great Gatsby
12. Prisoners
As you can see The Wolf of Wall Street nor Gravity appear on my list. Gravity gave me momentary joy, but the more I thought about it, the more I became aggravated with the choices made in the film. It's not fair to judge a movie based on what I wanted it to be, but I cannot help myself with this one. As for Wolf, I'm still working my brain around it. I can appreciate parts of it, but I need to give it a second chance. As always, I haven't seen all 2013 films, so this list is subject to change.