It\u2019s the Oscars!<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve any interest in cinema, you\u2019ll probably have noticed that in the year of a major Martin Luther King biopic, Academy voters have delivered the least diverse slate of nominees anyone can remember. Every single one of the twenty acting nominees is white and every single director is a white man (okay, one is Mexican and one is Norwegian) and all of the 15 writing nominees are men. Given that the nominees (and indeed the winners) are decided upon by a secret ballot, there isn\u2019t a whole lot anyone can do about this, but there do seem to be some pretty startling omissions, and Selma<\/em>\u2019s failure to get anything beyond Best Picture and Best Original Song (which somehow makes it worse) is chief among these.<\/p>\n Anyway, for new readers of this blog (because my delusion of readership is such that I find it necessary to subdivide my armies of followers into categories instead of, say, counting them on the fingers of a pair of mittens), every year I attempt to ensure that I have seen all the Best Picture Nominees before the Oscars ceremony itself. I first attempted this feat in 2010<\/a> (also the first year the Academy decided to nominate ten films instead of five) but couldn\u2019t bring myself to sit through The Blind Side<\/em>. I\u2019ve not missed a movie since.<\/p>\n They now nominate between five and ten depending on how the voting goes and this year the total is eight, with Birdman <\/em>and The Grand Budapest Hotel<\/em> sharing the most nominations with nine each, although Boyhood<\/em> is the bookies\u2019 favourite to win the big one, despite having only six nominations in total. Even this list is overwhelmingly male and only Selma<\/em> has a squeak of racial diversity about it. Every Best Picture nominee has a male protagonist and only one, The Theory of Everything<\/em>, has a real female second lead (I guess you could make an argument for American Sniper<\/em> or The Imitation Game<\/em>). Look at the nominees for Best Actress \u2013 only Felicity Jones is nominated for starring in a film also nominated for Best Picture despite the fact that there are eight Best Picture nominees and only five Best Actress nominees!<\/p>\n This depressing trend aside, it\u2019s not a bad list, although not a great one either, and at the time of writing, I have seen half of them, so watching the remaining four in the next month should be pretty easy. Here\u2019s a quick list, with my preconceptions, review or a link to my review as appropriate.<\/p>\n American Sniper<\/strong> This has had some pretty poisonous press from the liberal media (i.e. people like me) so I\u2019m not really looking forward to it. I don\u2019t know an awful lot about it, but Eastwood is certainly capable of shooting humane and tasteful movies, so it remains to be seen whether this is sanctimonious gun-loving or a clear-eyed look at warfare or something in between. Also nominated for editing, sound mixing and sound editing, but not Eastwood for director. Just outside contention for the big prize I suspect.<\/p>\n Birdman<\/strong><\/p>\n w. Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, Nicol\u00e1s Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr, Armando Bo (nominated); d. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu
\nw. Jason Hall (nominated), book Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen, Jim DeFelice; d. Clint Eastwood
\nBradley Cooper (nominated), Sienna Miller<\/p>\n
\nMichael Keaton (nominated), Edward Norton (nominated), Zach Galifianakis, Andrea Riseborough, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone (nominated)<\/p>\n