Welcome to November blog readers! Halloween is in the rearview mirror, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the changing of the year are all ahead. The short, cool days are turning into long, cooler nights. The box office has also changed its guard. The summer saw many big release spectacles. Now its big the big awards contenders, with few exceptions (Hunger Games and sigh The Hobbit are both receiving sequels among other Holiday flair). Film wise this is my favorite time of year. I love watching all the potential awards films and following the contenders during the awards season. In about a month the first round of awards will be nominating their choices for the best of 2014.
Where does everything stand?
First up the early year, the pre summer season. Normally this is a quite time of year for awards contenders. The previous years awards conclude during this time. There are exceptions, for example the best picture winner The Silence of the Lambs was a February release. Certainly February’s release of The Lego Movie will compete in the animation category. If not then something’s not right with the nomination process. March’s The Grand Budapest Hotel has a lot of charm to it and five maybe six years ago would of been a more serious contender. For instance Juno holds up the same umbrella. Budapest Hotel maybe settling for a screenplay nod and I hope one for Ralph Fiennes delightfully fun performance.
Moving on to the summer season. The summer season will be well represented in the technical categories. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Godzilla all beautiful eye candy in which these categories are created to reward.
As the summer season died down August saw the release of the first major awards contender. The film: Boyhood. It’s an ambitious indy movie that seems to do well at the Oscars, especially since the expansion of the best picture category. Ellar Coltrane and Patricia Arquette are both destined to be first time acting nominees for the movie along with the films director and writer Richard Linklater in his respective categories.
Now for the fall, when most of the big time awards contenders arrive at your local multiplex or art house. David Fincher’s Gone Girl I though excelled in many aspects including Ben Affleck’s performance. Jake Gyllenhaal most certainly will be nominated as well for his performance in Nightcrawler. The film itself should benefit from the best picture expansion.
So now I move to sights unseen. As of now I have yet to see Birdman but that will be remedied by the weekends end. I keep hearing buzz around the cast and film. Same goes with future releases Foxcather, The Theory of Everything, & The Imitation Game.
I do wonder about Interstellar, this year ambitious science fiction release. Last year’s ambitious science fiction release, Gravity, scored ten nominations including best picture. While the movie lost the best picture prize it took home seven trophies including one for best director. Christopher Nolan’s work is not uncharted to the academy awards. Inception was a best picture contender and took home four awards despite not winning the evenings top prize. Also his Batman entry The Dark Knight earned Heath Ledger a well deserved posthumous Oscar and is often cited as the film that led the way for the expansion of the best picture category.
I look forward to seeing many more movies in the weeks to come and cordially invite anyone and everyone to join me on my quest to see the Awards contenders. Time will tell what will be snubbed, nominated, and eventually win the Academy Awards. I look forward to watching the evenings festivities unfold as Neil Patrick Harris takes center stage on Oscar night.
