Oscars 2015!

[Relaxing Dragon]

It's a difficult year to judge. On the one hand, a Wes Anderson movie is tied for the most nominations, Boyhood is a pretty solid lock for the major wins it deserves, and Whiplash is getting genuine recognition. I've even got some sort of stake in the Best Song category, in that at least three of them are ones I like quite a bit. All of which is pretty great! Even if Birdman ends up taking more than it should, it's still something to celebrate.

On the other hand... The Lego Movie snubbed? Selma basically snubbed (something that has garnered much discussion, and for good reason, because it's really a bad thing)? Forgettable fluff (at best) like The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything getting massive kudos? Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton getting forgotten altogether? It's like for everything they got right, they get something even more outrageous wrong.

But then, par for the course I suppose. The Academy never has so much a finger on the pulse of modern film as a finger fumbling around on the wrong side of the wrist. Which is kind of okay, since the awards fade pretty quickly once all is said and done (as they generally should, what with this being just a big self-congratulatory ceremony more than anything else). But for most folks, it's a mix of award winners and box office leaders that show what's "Right" in mainstream cinema. When both of those categories are filled with so many blemishes, what does that say about the state of the majority of filmmaking as a whole?

[ScottotD]

It's a difficult year to judge. On the one hand, a Wes Anderson movie is tied for the most nominations,

Are you saying this as a positive? 

[Edward J Grug III]

It's a difficult year to judge. On the one hand, a Wes Anderson movie is tied for the most nominations,

Are you saying this as a positive? 

Stop trying to convince everyone they don't like Wes Anderson.

[ScottotD]

It's a difficult year to judge. On the one hand, a Wes Anderson movie is tied for the most nominations,

Are you saying this as a positive? 

Stop trying to convince everyone they don't like Wes Anderson.

They don't, it's mass hypnosis from his dumb colour palettes 

[anais.butterfly]

What's wrong with The Theory of Everything? I thought that movie was beautiful.

[Relaxing Dragon]

A tricky question to answer without being mean on my part, because everyone need need needs to like the movies the like and love for the reasons they do, and not because of what anyone else says about them. With my disclaimer done, I just found it to be an entirely pedestrian and average full-life biopic that puts more effort into having its lead actor play someone disabled than it does actually explaining who this person is or why they're important (if someone who knew nothing of Hawking walked into that movie, they'd leave thinking he was a guy stuck in a chair who loved his wife for a little while and also did some physics on the side). More to the point here, it's one of those average movies that gets a buffed up awards season release date (and follow-up campaign, all the best that studio money can buy) to push its way into awards shows.

Then the lights fade, the Oscar nominee/winner list gets sorted into a trivia folder, and these movies just fade away into nothing. It isn't even that these are bad movies, because in general, they aren't. They're perfectly fine, and plenty of folks get plenty of enjoyment out of them. But they still aren't anything more than that, which isn't much. What does it say when movies like this get so much accolades each year, only to be totally gone from the cinema landscape after a few years (does anyone still talk about The Artist), while stuff that is genuinely special and really becomes a representation of that year in film usually goes unnoticed until it's down the line. Which is to be expected, because after all, it takes the passing of history to actually cement in what is truly great, and what's just a flash-in-the-pan.

Someone somewhere suggested that the best way to do the Oscars would be a decade or more after the year in question. Picture if the Academy was right now deciding what was really "Best Picture" of 2000. Would it still go the Gladiator?

But, all that's just me. I don't know why I keep getting worked up over Awards Season. Unless you're in the industry (where having the label Oscar Nominee attached to your resume is a massive career boost), they have no real bearing on me, and certainly not over what the best/worst/other of movies are in any given year. Beyond the point, trying to just quantify everything and pick a single "Best" movie is just being needlessly anal, since there are always great movies that are so far different from each other than comparing them in any real way is an exercise in futility.

[JimJ]

The worst thing about these nomination is that now I have to watch The Judge.

[Kete]

Someone somewhere suggested that the best way to do the Oscars would be a decade or more after the year in question. Picture if the Academy was right now deciding what was really "Best Picture" of 2000. Would it still go the Gladiator?

I like it! Let's do it right now. 2004 in Film 77th Oscars
Best Picture
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Kill Bill Vol 2
Shaun of the Dead
Napoleon Dynamite
Spider-Man 2
Garden State
Primer
Incredibles
Sideways
Layer Cake

Best Actor
Jim Carey - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Don Cheadle - Hotel Rwanda
Paul Giamatti - Sideways
Ethan Hawke - Before Sunset
Bruno Ganz - Downfall

Best Actress
Uma Thurman - Kill Bill Vol 2
Hillary Swank - Million Dollar Baby
Kate Winslet - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Bryce Dallas Howard - The Village

Best Supporting Actor
Alfred Molina - Spider-Man 2
Wilem Dafoe - The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Jon Gries - Napoleon Dynamite
Thomas Hayden Church - Sideways

Best Supporting Actress
Sarah Vowell - The Incredibles
Virginia Madsen - Sideways
Daryl Hannah - Kill Bill Vol 2
Natalie Portman - Garden State

[anais.butterfly]

Are those the actual nominees from that year?

[Kete]

Are those the actual nominees from that year?

Nope.  They are all my picks.

[Edward J Grug III]

I hate to be the one to tell you this, Kete, but we've just kicked you out of the Hypothetical Academy.

[Kete]

Please retort

[Edward J Grug III]

Please retort

Sure, but you understand I could put literally anything in there in place of Garden State and it would be the correct answer, right?

I could put Catwoman in there and call it a day

[Edward J Grug III]

Managed to watch a big pile of Oscar movies over the weekend.

Birdman - Amazing film! I don't think it'll beat Boyhood for best picture, but it's currently my favourite picture. In fact, I have a feeling this will be one of those films that gets nominated for everything and walks away with very little.

The Imitation Game - Fun and very watchable. The first 30 minutes especially. Then I went and read about the historical inaccuracies and the film is Argo-ed for me. Actually, it's not QUITE as egregious as Argo, but it's more perplexing - Almost all of the changes didn't add to the film. So why make them?

Whiplash - Extremely stressful, but very enjoyable film. JK Simmons is tremendous. Of the Best Supporting Actors I've seen so far, I think he has it in the bag. The ending deflates my enjoyment of it a little bit.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 - I liked it a lot. Beautiful animation, great and dark story. Not quite as great as the first one, but a worthy sequel for sure.

So far none of the films have been a chore to watch, though I think I see a couple of them coming up (Wild, American Sniper...). Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.

[Edward J Grug III]

Apparently I have only seen about 64 films from 2004. If I was really putting a list together, I would of course do the reasearch and watch more of the higly regarded films. (I would also revisit quite a lot of them, as of course my tastes have changed since I was 24).

I started making a list for real, but I couldn't fill the categories in a way that wasn't full of un-deserving nominations.

I will say that I think The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Aviator and I Heart Huckabees all were missing from your list, Kete, and that I agree with very little of your list besides.