(my list of) The Oscar Winners of 2014!

To be honest, this year's Oscar nominee choices were a bit irritating.  There's been too much sucking-up to the A-listers and not nearly enough attention on others. I'll be up front, I thought Wolf of Wall Street was a complete flop.  What critics see in it beyond the fact that it is directed by Scorsese and it's an attack on Wall Street stock brokers (oh wait, that's all they need!) I don't know.  Gravity? Really?  I mean I get it, it was fun, but people saw it for the same reason they flocked to Avatar: technical innovation.  But you didn't see Avatar getting Oscar nods...why? Because the story was awful, just like Gravity's. So why is Gravity getting so much Oscar attention?  American Hustle was technically brilliant, but my goodness I can't remember the last time I cared less about the outcome of the story's characters.  I think David O. Russell lost the audience badly with a script that was made for himself and his actors, without any consideration for the audience.  Once again though, critics aren't admitting these flaws, and here we are with Gravity and American Hustle with 10 nominations each.

But! my grudges aside, there are still plenty of great films, performances, and other aspects of film production that are getting the attention they deserve.  So, let's start off with the big one!


 
Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave

I truly want to give this one a tie between 12 Years and Her, but 12 Years just barely beats it out for best picture.  12 Years a Slave is such an important, necessary film that everyone should see.  Director McQueen manages to go way beyond the over-told story of American slavery and capture just how cruel it is to degrade another human being to a sub-human level.  It's brutal, relentless, and entirely unapologetic, just as it should be.  No film has ever captured the cruelty of slavery better than 12 Years a Slave, and so, for it's importance, I give it a slight edge over Her for best picture this year.




Best Actor in a Leading Role: Matthew McConaughey
While there wasn't much else I loved about this movie, McConaughey's performance is totally spellbinding.  The screenwriters excessively preached their agenda through the script, and I think McConaughey saw that and tried to transcend it.  He did it well, because while the filmmakers were focused on the message, he was focused on portraying a man facing the worst death he could have possibly imagined for himself, and overcoming it.  For me, McConaughey pretty clearly had the best performance this year, although I give a tip of the cap to Bruce Dern for his wonderful performance in Nebraska.

(It's worth noting that McConaughey's performance in Mud, a movie released in early 2013, could have received a nomination too.  He was on fire this year!)




Best Actress in a Leading Role: Cate Blanchett

This is by far the easiest choice in the list.  Blanchett is magnificent in her difficult role portraying a woman who's high-class life turns entirely upside down, and suddenly faced with not only poverty, but largely-avoided family conflicts.  This is nowhere near Woody Allen's best film, which puts me in the surprising position of giving both leading actors the award for acting in only slightly above-average movies.  Nonetheless, I agree with most critics that Woody Allen is the best dialogue-writer of the modern era, and he doesn't disappoint in Blue Jasmine.  Blanchett seizes her lines and makes her character her own.  It's definitely worth a watch just for her performance.








Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Michael Fassbender

Fassbender's role as a cruel slave master in 12 Years a Slave is possibly the most overlooked performance this year.  He had the best acting performance in the movie, and I can't stop comparing it to Ralph Fiennes' infamous performance as an SS officer in Schindler's List.  It's so unbelievably cruel and inhuman, yet perfected by Fassbender's devotion to the part.
 
(I just can't leave this section without noting Barkhad Abdi's performance in Captain Phillips.  He gets a close runner-up for best supporting actor in my opinion.)




Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Lupita Nyong'o

While I think the supporting actress roles were probably the weakest section in this year's awards, Nyong'o still does an exceptionally good job portraying an enslaved woman that has any chance of hope slowly stolen away from her.  Your heart absolutely breaks for her, and her expression of pain during the now-infamous whipping scene (that makes Passion of the Christ look G-rated) brought me to tears.  Her performance, (and especially that scene) is scarring in the best way possible: It's a necessary scar, and the lesson learned from it is irreplaceable.







...NOW TO MY FAVORITE FILM THIS YEAR!...

 

Best Documentary Feature:  The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing is one of the best pieces of work ever captured on a camera. 

I mean it.

This documentary follows the famous executioners, (murderers) during the Indonsian killings of 1965-66, which was an anti-communism purge that led to at least 500,000 executions in under 2 years.  Director Joshua Oppenhiemer asked these killers to re-enact their murders for a "film", and the results are sickening to your core.  It will leave you breathless, screaming at your screen as you watch all your preconceptions about morality fall to pieces.  I can't give it best picture because, by being a documentary, there is no script or any writing involved, but! That said, it is (to borrow a critic's quote) the most innovative masterpiece of documentary film-making in history.

SERIOUSLY. GO WATCH THIS MOVIE.



And now for the rest of categories:

Best Animated Feature: Monsters University 
- Seriously it wasn't even nominated. Like what is that nonsense.

Best Cinematography: Her (Hoyte Van Hoytema)
- Yes, there are a lot of close-up shots of Joaquin Phoenix's face, but I loved each shot.  Her is yet another masterpiece for the highly-accomplished Hoyte.  He's my personal favorite cinematographer in the business today, with other great accomplishments like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Fighter, and Let the Right One In.

Best Directing: 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
- Easy choice. I don't know why the Academy separates this from Best Picture...they really should always go hand in hand.  If not, that's like saying the best painting of the year wasn't done by the best painter of the year.  ...Just doesn't make sense haha.

Best Costume Design: The Great Gatsby (Catherine Martin)
- I liked this movie way more than most critics, especially the surreal "feel" or "style" of the film, which I attribute largely to Costume Design and Makeup/Hairstyling.  However, considering most of the film sets were CGI, (animated), I can't give it best production design.

Best Film Editing: Captain Phillips (Christopher Rouse)
- It's amazing how I knew the ending to this film and still had sweaty hands for an hour.  Film editing was the main reason behind all that intensity.

Best Makeup & Hairstyling:  The Great Gatsby (Ashley Johnson & Wizzy Molineaux)
- Like I mentioned above, I loved the style of this film.

Best Original Score: Her (William Butler, Owen Pallett)
- It wasn't loud or inspiring like a summer blockbuster's score, but it was absolutely perfect for Her.  It gave an incredibly precise atmosphere to Jonze's already amazing movie.

Best Original Song:  "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" by Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis)
- The biggest movie snub of this year was the exclusion of the Coen Brother's Inside Llewyn Davis, which was easily better than American Hustle, Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club, and Gravity. This song, performed beautifully by Oscar Isaac, is one of my favorite songs released this year by any music artist.

Best Production Design: American Hustle (Judy Becker)
- While I mentioned earlier that I think this movie contains some critical flaws, I do think it deserves best production design. Each set (1) looked wonderful and (2) told a story in and of itself. Director David O. Russell packed a heaping amount of symbolism into his sets, and I happened to catch it and reveled in the genius subtleties.

Best Sound Editing: Inside Llewyn Davis (Skip Lievsay)
- The movie is practically a musical with the amount of folk songs sung in full in this movie, (all songs are great.) The editing on the songs and the dialogue was technically flawless to me.

Best Sound Mixing: Lone Survivor (Wylie Statemen)
- Another Oscar snub this year was Lone Survivor.  While there were certainly a few flaws I took issue with, it was still incredibly moving.  This was an easy award choice considering half of the film is essentially a firefight.

Best Visual Effects: Gravity (Tim Webber) 
- Nobody denies the technical innovation displayed in Gravity. You should look up the visual effects crew for this movie on iMDB...seriously its ridiculous haha.

Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave (John Ridley)
- Incredible true story perfectly captured on film. Another easy pick.

Best Original Screenplay: Her (Spike Jonze)
- I wish I could put this at the top of the list.  This script, and the way it was executed on film, is by far the main reason I want to give Her best picture.  It's just so impressive and thought-provoking on so many levels that I feel it deserves more recognition then it will receive.