Just when you thought you had this whole thing figured out, leave it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to shake things up. If ever there was a bittersweet morning it was today.
Congratulations you got six nominations including Best Picture, BUT sorry Clint, they snubbed you in the Best Director category denying you the chance to become the oldest nominee ever.
Congratulations Foxcatcher for catching five nominations in key categories including Directing, Writing and Acting, BUT sorry Foxcatcher somehow not one of those five nods was for Best Picture.
Congratulations because you did land a Best Picture nomination, BUT sorry that other than that (and “Glory” for Best Song) you were AWOL, racking up one of the lowest overall totals ever for a Best Pic contender.
Congratulations on that awesome Best Song nomination, the very first movie announced for all 24 categories, BUT sorry, that was the only time you got a lego-up on the competition and your shocking shutout in Best Animated Feature, where many thought you would win, was the talk of the day.
Congratulations Ava DuVernay, James Marsh, Damien Chazelle and Clint Eastwood. According to the entire Academy you directed one of the eight Best Pictures of the year, BUT sorry, apparently the directors branch didn’t agree.
It was that kind of day, one of ups and downs delivering happiness and heartbreak as only Oscar can. And despite attempts in widening the Best Picture race to a possible 10 nominees to bring more popular films into the competition, the Academy has again used the opportunity to go almost all indie on us.
In the Best Picture race, there are only two major studio films—Warner Bros and Village Roadshow’s American Sniper and Paramount’s Selma—out of eight, and the latter feels indie.
It may be up to Eastwood to save the day for the Academy as his Sniper is looking like a blockbuster in advance of its national debut tomorrow. That can help goose audience interest in the February 22 ABC broadcast, which usually sees ratings trouble when the actual movies nominated don’t generate a lot of audience interest.
Although they are very fine films, Fox Searchlight’s leading pair of Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, Sony Pictures Classics’ Whiplash, Focus Features’ The Theory Of Everything, and IFC Films’ Boyhood aren’t the sort of fare that gets Middle America jazzed up with a rooting interest. The Weinstein Company’s The Imitation Game with eight key nominations—just one behind the Searchlight pair with nine each—is certainly indie too, but one like The King’s Speech that seems to be gaining favor with the popcorn crowd as well, with $40 million to date and just really getting rolling.
