My Oscar Blahhhhg

The 2015 Oscars are a month away. It has been a great year for performances, better than most years.  As soon as nominations are announced, the talk of “snubs” begins.  Although, there are always people/movies that I think deserve nods yet they don’t receive, I don’t think “snub” is the correct word.  To me, a snub implies malicious intent.  In NO WAY do I think there is malicious intent involved in Jennifer Aniston , Ava DuVernay, Angelina Jolie or David Oyelowo not receiving nominations. In the history of the Oscars, I bet you can count on one hand when the term “snub” could be used, and even then I don’t malicious intent was involved. I do think the politics of Hollywood may be involved.  I also do not think race is involved (this year).  You will see why below. I believe we should have more diverse movies to choose from for the nominations. However, I do not think we should have diverse nominations for the sake of it.  I especially do not believe Al Sharpton needed to call an emergency meeting over the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations. Seriously.  Below I will focus on the “snubs” commonly mentioned post nominations along with my personal thoughts on who should win and others I feel were left out.

Let’s take a look at the Best Actor Category.  Who would you take out to put in Mr. Oyelowo in?  I can’t think of one person I would remove. They were all fantastic performances.  In fact, even if we added an extra spot to nominate 6, I am not sure Mr. Oyelowo would make it. I think my vote would be for Jake Gyllenhaal to be in that category. His performance in Nightcrawler was superb.  If we had 7 spots, I would include Mr. Oyelowo.  So, with 7, I think if you could create a mathematic point system for acting---all 7 actors would be separated by .01-1.5 points between them. This is a tight year for Best Actor. Out of the 7, in my opinion the statue belongs to Eddie Redmayne or Michael Keaton.  However, I think they ALL deserve it.   It is not that I didn’t think Oyelow, Carrell, Cooper, Cumberbatch and Gyllenhaal didn’t give fantastic performances, they did. However, I think the complexity of Redmayne and Keaton’s characters stand out more.  I will also state, that during portions of Selma, I felt as if Oyelowo was trying too hard to imitate Martin Luther King Jr. if that makes sense.

Let’s move on to Best Actress. Who would you take out to offer Ms. Aniston a spot?  This is a more difficult category for me to discuss because I have yet to see Julianne Moore’s performance in Still Alice or Marion Coutillard’s in Two Days, One Night. They also seem to be the front runners for the win.  I also have not seen Ms. Aniston’s performance.  I have seen all of the others.  They were all very good. Just based on what I have seen, I would present it to Reese Witherspoon or Felicity Jones.  I hope I love Ms. Aniston’s performance once I view Cake.  However, even though I would so root for her to win an Oscar for all of the reasons not related to her performance, whom would I kick out of the category? I don’t know.

As for Best Supporting Actress, I do have two people I could replace for others (and no one is talking about this category).  Look, Meryl Streep was flawless as the witch in Into the Woods, but I think she was nominated based on the fact that she is Meryl Streep. If Tracy Ullman portrayed the witch and gave the same caliber performance, I don’t think she would have been nominated.  Who would I replace her with?  Carmen Ejogo from Selma.  Her performance as Corretta Scott King, was real, honest and moving.  Surprisingly, no one is discussing her omission from award season.  I think she gave the best performance in the movie.  Now, the second person I would take out of this category, (and believe me, I know, she is the front runner) is Patricia Arquette.  I am sorry, yes she has moving moments in Boyhood. However, her overall performance is not better than the others in this category. In fact, during the first few scenes of Boyhood, I would say her acting was less than award worthy.  She definitely improved as the 12 years went on.  I might replace her with Sienna Miller. She gave a gritty, honest performance in American Sniper.  My clear choice for the winner here is Emma Stone for Birdman.  I believe she is a standout amongst the nominees.  (My second choice for winner would be Ejogo).

Now, director. Al Roker keeps stating how he is surprised Ana DeVernay did not get nominated since the film was nominated. Well, there are 8 films nominated for Best Picture, so three directors will not get the nod.  In my opinion, this award belongs to Alejandro Inarrito, hands down. Not a contest.  In this category, I do think there is room for movement for other directors. I would remove Bennet Miller from the race.  Foxcatcher is a move filled with 3 great performances, but the movie itself, in my mind could have been better.   Who would I replace him with?  I am not sure.  Selma was well directed and from I have read Ms. DeVernay was a driving force behind this movie (once she took the realms).  I also think Gone Girl was well directed by David Fincher. So, likely, I would insert one of them.  It looks like this will be a race between Anarrito and Linklater.  Linklater’s movie was ground breaking in terms of concept.  I just think Mr. Innarito had a more complex movie to direct. (I cannot comment on Unbroken directed by Ms. Jolie because I have not seen it yet.)

Before we move onto Best Picture, I do want to mention that Channing Tatum has been overlooked this award season.  He was brilliant in Foxcatcher. It gets tough when you have two great lead roles in one movie.  By the way, I am purposely skipping over Best Supporting Actor. I will be shocked if JK Simmons does not receive it. (And frankly, although there are numerous choices for Best Actor, I feel there are less for Supporting Actor.)

Okay, my choice for Best Movie is Birdman. It has a power to it unlike many of the other nominees. I think my other choices would be Selma, Theory of Everything and American Sniper. (I have yet to see Whiplash). I would take Grand Budapest Hotel out of this category and replace it with Wild. I loved Wild, I think it is definitely deserving of the nomination.  I enjoyed Budapest, but this how I describe it: I enjoyed it, but if I never saw it, I would be okay with that too. Lastly, I truly enjoyed Boyhood but I do not think it deserves Best Picture.  I love Linklater movies because his dialogue is usually very compelling. I found the dialogue in this movie gave off more of an unplanned, “improvisational” vibe.  The concept is unique and compelling, but I don’t think that should be the driving force behind a win for the Oscar. I will be very disappointed if it beats out Birdman or most of the movies in this category.  

The last “snub” people talk about is the omission of The Lego Movie from Best Animated Feature. I will go one further, I think it deserves a nomination for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The dialogue was crisp and spot on.  

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?