2015 Academy Awards

[Dan]

Alright, boys and girls. Here we go.

Best Picture
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Best Director
Alexandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Best Actor
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, Two Days One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Robert Yeoman, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski, Ida
Dick Pope, Mr. Turner
Roger Deakins, Unbroken

Best Foreign Language Film
Ida, Poland
Leviathan, Russia
Tangerines, Estonia
Timbuktu, Mauritania
Wild Tales, Argentina

Best Adapted Screenplay
American Sniper, Jason Hall
The Imitation Game, Graham Moore
Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson
The Theory of Everything, Anthony McCarten
Whiplash, Damien Chazelle

Best Original Screenplay
Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo
Boyhood, Richard Linklater
Foxcatcher, E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness
Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard, Foxcatcher
Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White, Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Original Score
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Mr. Turner
The Theory of Everything

Best Original Song
“Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie; Music and Lyric by Shawn Patterson
“Glory” from Selma; Music and Lyric by John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn
“Grateful” from Beyond the Lights; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me; Music and Lyric by Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
“Lost Stars” from Begin Again; Music and Lyric by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois

Best Animated Feature
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Best Documentary—Short
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper
White Earth

Best Film Editing
Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach, American Sniper
Sandra Adair, Boyhood
Barney Pilling, The Grand Budapest Hotel
William Goldenberg, The Imitation Game
Tom Cross, Whiplash

Best Production Design
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game, Production Design: Maria Djurkovic; Set Decoration: Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar, Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
Into the Woods, Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
Mr. Turner, Production Design: Suzie Davies; Set Decoration: Charlotte Watts

Best Animated Short
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life

Best Live Action Short
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh
The Phone Call

Best Sound Editing
American Sniper, Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman
Birdman, Martín Hernández and Aaron Glascock
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Brent Burge and Jason Canovas
Interstellar, Richard King
Unbroken, Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro

Best Sound Mixing
American Sniper, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin
Birdman, Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga
Interstellar, Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten
Unbroken, Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee
Whiplash, Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

Best Visual Effects
Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy, Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould
Interstellar, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher
X-Men: Days of Future Past, Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer

Best Documentary — Feature
Citizenfour
Finding Vivien Maier
Last Days of Vietnam
The Salt of the Earth
Virunga

Best Costume Design
Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Mark Bridges, Inherent Vice
Colleen Atwood, Into the Woods
Anna B. Sheppard and Jane Clive, Maleficent
Jacqueline Durran, Mr. Turner

[Dacey]

No nomination for The Lego Movie in the Best Animated Feature category?

I knew it all along; the Academy is against movies about bricks!!! I thought we had moved past that.

Joking aside, it is a shame to see The Boxtrolls get a nomination over that. Looks like this is How to Train Your Dragon 2's year to win.

[gaastra]

"Joking aside, it is a shame to see The Boxtrolls get a nomination over that. Looks like this is How to Train Your Dragon 2's year to win."

I don't know about that. Big hero 6 and a studio ghibili film is in the running also!

Shocked about the lego movie! Why was it cut out? Whats this sea movie? Must be a great movie to knock out lego movie!

By the way is the contest again this year? I never win that!

[Ben]

All good with the noms this year...yay, no Lego Movie or Gone Girl!

[Dan]

I expect a giant party atmosphere for the performance of "Everything is Awesome".

[Dacey]

They probably won't perform it.

[Jpcase]

Wow...

This is - definitely not what I was expecting.

So much conflicting emotion right now. I'm elated to see both Song of the Sea and Tale of Princess Kaguya on the list - clearly the Academy voters are paying more attention to the actual films than the Globes did. But it's flabbergasting and obviously really disappointing for me that The Lego Movie got locked out. I mean, I had made peace with the idea that it might not win the award, but that it didn't even get a nomination? Did WB and Animal Logic just completely bungle their campaign? Or what? It makes no sense to me.

This is probably the strangest outcome that I've ever seen in this category.

[Ben]

Well...it's a toy movie, and I know from friends in the business that a lot of people looked down on it as if it was one giant commercial because of that, irrespective of how funny it was or how clever it may be (or think it was). I'm glad the song got a nod...it was the one true funny breakout thing in the film.

[Dan]

They probably won't perform it.

Given how badly the Academy wants ratings, it would be in their best interest to put on a big production number for "Everything is Awesome". The likes we haven't seen since "Blame Canada".

[LotsoA113]

Real shame about The Lego Movie not getting nominated for Best Animated Feature, though the lack of recognition for Selma (especially in Best Director and Best Actor) is a travesty. And where on Earth is Life Itself in Best Documentary? Or Jake Gyllenhaal and Ralph Fiennes in Best Actor?

For the life of me, I'll never understand how those movies got snubbed yet American Sniper recieved all this awards attention. It boggles the mind!

[Jpcase]

I thought that The Lego Movie deserved Picture, Directing, and Screenplay noms, in addition to Animation. Ironically though, the Song nomination seems kind of silly to me. "Everything is Awesome" is hilarious within the context of the film, but as a standalone song, it's nothing more than okay. As far as comedy songs go, "Man or Muppet" deserved its win a few years ago. I'd be seriously surprised though, if there weren't at least five better songs this year.

[Vernadyn]

Anderson, Desplat, and Deakins are all overdue for awards (Deakins especially). So is Fincher, though he didn't get nominated this year.

I, too, am baffled that Lego Movie didn't get a nod. It would make sense if all five of the nominated movies were great, but we have Boxtrolls in there, for whatever reason. (I haven't seen Song of the Sea).

I keep reminding myself that a nomination or win is not an indicator of quality. Yet I still find myself watching the ceremony every year.

[ShyViolet]

Article on the BAF nominees:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblo ... redictions

[EricJ]

I, too, am baffled that Lego Movie didn't get a nod.

Finally watched it this weekend (not in 3D, unfortunately, as it was only a free bonus movie on my UV)--
And like other Phil Lord/Chris Miller works, I found it rather awkward in that they clearly found themselves so amusing, I felt as if I might be personally intruding by laughing.
(It's one of those movies that conjure up one of my favorite MST3K-isms: "Ohh, the humor....The humor... ")

The Song is only up there to try and repeat the Man or Muppet fanboy stunt, except that in this case, it actually DOES play as a good song by the end credits, whereas its more famous smugsy-cutesy predecessor does not. (And I'm sure Batman was disappointed that his song wasn't nominated. )
Although if we want to vote on the actual merit of nominees, Glen Campbell's song from his documentary is reportedly good too.

I'm mysteriously immune to Dragon-mania as well (it's...good, in that they got one of the Disney directors to un-loser it, but there's still something missing), but I think we can wrap ourselves up in voter cynicism and say that if they were too busy to watch the nominees and picked Brave over Wreck-It Ralph, what remotely makes anyone think Big Hero 6 is going to be beaten with a "surprise upset" this year?
Reputation has its privileges.

[LotsoA113]

I'm thinking it's Dragon 2's to lose at this point, though Kaguya or Hero could easily swoop in and take the prize as well.