Saturday, February 21, 2015

 

Take Them to the Bank Oscar Predictions -- 2015

Here are the big nine:

Best Picture-- American Sniper (Bold Prediction here--everyone else says Birdman, which sucked, and possibly Boyhood--it makes sense for it to be Birdman because that waste of film is about the brave, selfless sacrifices actors, directors and producers make to give us their magnificent art and Hollywood loves to pat itself on the back, but I'm picking American Sniper because I want it to be true)
Best Leading Man-- Eddie Redmayne (good possibility for Michael Keaton to upset here)
Best Leading Lady-- Julianne Moore (Yech!, other than Andie MacDowell, who else has ruined or diminished more good movies by her mediocre presence? but Hollywood loves disease dramas)
Best Supporting Actor-- JK Simmons
Best Supporting Actress-- Patricia Arquette
Best Foreign Film-- Ida (Poland) (tough category)
Best Director-- A.G. Inarritu (but it could and should be Richard Linkletter. Clint Eastwood will never win in this town again after the empty chair/Obama spot on stunt)
Best Screenplay, Original-- Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Screenplay, Adapted-- Imitation Game (but it could be Whiplash)

Easy calls:

Cinematography-- Birdman (bet the house-- Hollywood loves long uncut moving camera takes and this movie seems like it is nothing but those)
Visual Effects-- Interstellar
Animated Feature-- How to Train Your Dragon 2
Sound Mixing-- American Sniper (or Birdman, if I'm wrong about Best Picture)
Sound Editing-- American Sniper
Production Design fka Art Direction-- The Grand Budapest Hotel
Makeup-- The Grand Budapest Hotel
Costume-- The Grand Budapest Hotel

 Here are the not that easy rest:

Documentary Feature-- Citizen Four (film on lefty "hero" traitor Edward Snowden should beat a mediocre field)
Film Editing-- Boyhood
Original Score-- The Theory of Everything


Here are the  next to impossible to call:


Original Song-- Glory (even though Glen Campbell has the disease Moore pretends, poorly, to have)
Documentary Short-- Crisis Hotline
Animated Short-- Feast
Live Short-- Phone Call


I only saw three of the 8 nominations for Best Picture: American Sniper, Birdman and The Imitation Game. Nothing really wowed me in 2014. I liked Guardians of the Galaxy and Edge of Tomorrow (both based on comic books) but other good movies, like Fury, Lucy, Gone Girl, Interstellar, Imitation Game and Nightcrawler, all had very disappointing parts. I should see Boyhood and I want to see Calvary. The movie that really disturbed me but stuck in my head was Under the Skin.

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Comments:
...another year of not seeing any of the nominated movies. I'll see Am Sniper when it goes to DVD; not interested in the big screen experience.
I was looking forward to the Turing movie, until I read this review that points out the historical errors.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/
...seems to me that the actual Turing story is fascinating enough -- why embellish it with gratuitous paranoid-style totally fictitious events? [except to promote a lefty-approved homosexual v. government scenario?]
 
I've known about Allen Turing for a couple of decades now. Fascinating life but hardly the stuff of gay heroism. I think he made the most of it but was underneath deeply ashamed of his homosexuality. Also the only reason he could construct the rotors for his first computer was because smart Poles, with pencil and paper calculations, got the Brits on the right track. No mention of them of course.
 
Yup, I remember reading that the Poles gave the Brits a head start on figuring out Enigma. FWIW, Simon Singh had a good book on the history of codes and ciphers.

Since evidence of homosexuality was sufficient basis for blackmail or social shunning, it seems to follow that hiding one's sexual preferences would be common. I suppose there was a reason they used to be called "queer" -- meaning odd, or abnormal. [what was the origin of "gay" to mean homosexual? Do you know?]

That would typically have led to feelings of shame, I suppose. Dunno. I guess I'm just tired of the whole lefty-good, righty-bad schtick. They've worn me out....
 
I believe the origin of the word "gay" meaning homosexual goes back to the movie Bringing up Baby when Cary Grant is wearing a woman's dressing gown. He says it. I have no idea if that's true but others have said it. As to the up side of the repression of homosexuality, if there is any up side, -- a lot of WWII and Cold War spies were gay because they could submerge their real selves into a made up persona so well (or so I gather) as they did that every day in their normal lives. The downside is self hatred and shame, which was the mainstay of '70s movies on the subject. I see removing the stigma of homosexuality as a good thing. Not important like ending slavery but good.

 
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