Announced as usual very
early in the morning in Los Angeles by directors J.J. Abrams and Alfonso Cuarón
and actor Chris Pine and AMPAS President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, this year marked
the first time ever that every category was included in the live announcement.
This detail might seem insignificant to some, but it shows that the Academy has
a little more respect than they’ve showed in the past for those categories that
aren’t considered the major awards. The announcement was split into two parts,
with the second installment certainly focusing more on the major nominations.
The only categories that have been included in past live announcements to make
it in the first section of nominations were Animated Feature, Documentary
Feature and Original Song.
The complete list of
nominees can be seen at Oscar.com.
All of the front-runners got
their nods, which should result in a very predictable winners ceremony. As for
surprises and snubs, probably the most talked about omission will be the lack
of nominations for the Martin Luther King Jr./civil rights historical film “Selma”.
It was expected that Ava DuVernay would become the first black woman to ever
receive a Best Direction nomination for her work on the film, but that
distinction will have to wait for another year. Also absent from the Best Actor
category is David Oyelowo’s performance as King. “Selma” was included among the
eight Best Picture nominees and received an expected nomination for its
Original Song “Glory” by Common and John Legend.
Stealing Oyelowo’s spot was
the surprise inclusion of Bradley Cooper for his role as the real life American
hero Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper”. Although his nomination
will be considered as steal from Oyelowo and dark horse Jake Gyllenhaal for his
role as a video journalist in critical darling “Nighgtcrawler”, rumor is that
this is a career defining performance for Cooper. The film, which receives its
wide release in theaters this weekend and is expected to be Eastwood best box
office effort to date, also surprised in the Best Picture and Best Adapted
Screenplay categories and received a surprising total of 6 nominations. And
yet, Eastwood himself is notably absent from the Best Direction list.
While Eastwood was expected
to receive a Direction nod even if his movie missed the Best Picture list,
Bennett Miller seems to have stolen his Director spot despite the fact that
Miller’s movie “Foxcatcher”, an expected Best Picture nominee, was omitted. As
one of the ABC GMA analysts sarcastically said, “That makes sense.” Also
missing from the Best Picture race are the high profile pictures “Gone Girl”,
which received its only nomination in the Actress category for Rosamund Pike,
and “Unbroken”, whose hopes were dashed after a harsh critical reception in
late Decemeber. “NIghtcrawler” was another dark horse possibility for Best
picture that didn’t pan out.
Along with Pike, the Best
Actress category produced another welcome surprise with a nod for Marion
Cotillard in what has been said by critics to be the best female performance of
the year, although the award is expected to go to Julianne Moore for her role
as a victim of Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice”. Missing out is Jennifer Aniston
for her lauded work in the movie “Cake”. Perhaps the least awesome omission is the absence of “The Lego Movie” in the best Animated Feature
category. Much of the omissions this year have been blamed on some studios
having difficulty getting screeners out to the Academy voters in time for the
Jan. 8 cut off date for nomination voting.
That may explain the strong
showing for films that were released earlier in the year, like Richard
Linklater’s Best Picture front-runner “Boyhood” and Wes Anderson’s spring of
2014 release “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. Despite wonderful early year reviews
for Anderson’s film, the Academy is historically notorious for having a short
memory, so the film’s award season success has been a surprise for all. It’s
nice to see such a wonderfully fun and smart movie receive 9 nominations 11
months after its theatrical release.
The big winners of this day
are the two high concept independent films and front-runners for multiple
categories, including Best Actor (Michael Keaton), Best Supporting Actress
(Patricia Arquette), Direction, Original Screenplay and Picture for “Boyhood”,
with 6 nominations, and “Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”,
with 9 nominations. Also winning are the unexpected nomination hauls for “The
Grand Budapest Hotel”, “American Sniper” and “Whiplash”, which turned a shoe-in
Supporting Actor nomination (and most likely win) for beloved character actor
J.K. Simmons in a terrifying performance into a 5-nomination wellspring,
including nods for Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay.
“The Imitation Game” also
pulled out 8 nominations, including Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Actress,
Screenplay and Original Score, although word of mouth about it being overrated might
prevent rolling any of those major nods into wins. Also, beyond its surprise
inclusion and omission in the Direction and Picture categories, “Foxcatcher”
received 5 nominations, including an Actor nod for comedian Steve Carell in a
very dramatic role and Mark Ruffalo for Supporting Actor. Also receiving 5
nods, the Stephen Hawking romance “The Theory of Everything” and
“Interstellar”, although the space adventure’s nominations all came in
technical categories providing the only technical category sweep of the year.
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