My Academy Awards Wrap Up

This past weekend my annual Oscar party went off without a hitch.  This was number twelve.  Twelve consecutive years doing the party and it has been a great twelve years worth of celebrating movies.  

The first awarded basket of the night.

This year was no exception.  The party started at its normal time with ballots being filled and food being grazed upon.  Once party goers got comfortable the trivia games started.  Prior to Neil Patrick Harris’ brilliant opening number and the first Oscar was handed out approx. half a dozen trivia games had been won with their prize baskets awarded.  Many more would be won during the course of the night.  The three balloted contests, the prediction contests, were judged after the party and prizes awarded the day after.

During the course of the evening everyone cheered for their favorite movies and appeared to be having a great time.  Regardless I did.  It was a years worth of work ending in one spectacular evening.  It was a years worth of gathering prizes, researching trivia, designing envelopes, mass printing ballots, and of course seeing the movies.  It was well worth it.

Me preparing to give a prize.

The telecast itself was incredible.  Neil Patrick Harris was a natural as host.  I can not speak enough at how much I loved him.  He was a true showman, singing, dancing, and telling a classy joke.  I eagerly await his return to this position.  I love that Robin Williams was quoted during the presentation of the first award, supporting actor.  The quote was “Your only given a little spark of madness, you mustn’t loose it” and it is truly a great quote.  

There were many moving speeches including Patricia Arquette’s acceptance speech for supporting actress for Boyhood.  The most moving speech was the recipient of the adapted screenplay award for The Imitation Game.  I loved how he spoke about staying true to oneself.

I was thrilled with many of the winners.  Birdman was a brilliant movie and well deserved champion in the best picture category.  I had it on my prediction ballot taking the big victory, secretly hoping American Sniper would win.  It was a powerful and engaging movie that looked at multiple aspects of war.  Not only did the film explore the battlefield but also explored the pain that the battlefield causes on those fighting the war and those loved ones of the troops.

I walked out of Boyhood saying Patricia Arquette would win supporting actress for her performance and it was a well deserved victory. 

Interstellar was my favorite film of 2014 and I was glad to see it take home the visual effects award.

The only award I was really disappointed in was the documentary feature category.  Citizen Four took home the award.  I refuse to see this movie based upon what it is about.  Not only that but Finding Vivian Maier was incredible movie about a truly fascinating character.  One out of twenty one awards, I can’t complain about though.  (There are twenty four awards I’m subtracting the three short film categories because I don’t follow short films.)

For those who attended the party and filled out the ballots the Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda and 2014@the movies nominees lists are below.  The winners are in red.

SHOULDA/WOULDA/COULDA NOMINEES

The night goes on and on and on...

PICTURE: Gone Girl, The Homesman, Interstellar, A Most Wanted Man, Nightcrawler, Pride, Unbroken
ACTOR: Ben Affleck Gone Girl, Jake Gyllenhaal Nightcrawler, Philip Seymour Hoffman Most Wanted Man, David Oyelowo Selma 

ACTRESS: Scarlett Johannson Under the Skin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw Belle, Hilary Swank The Homesman

DIRECTOR: David Fincher Gone Girl, Angelina Jolie Unbroken, Christopher Nolan Interstellar

SUPP. ACTOR: Neil Patrick Harris Gone Girl, Bill Nighy Pride, Alfred Molina Love Is Strange

SUPP. ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain Interstellar, Melissa McCarthy St Vincent, Imelda Staunton Pride

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Chef, Interstellar,  The Lego Movie, Pride,  Selma, St Vincent
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Gone Girl, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Homesman, A Most Wanted Man, Unbroken

DOCUMENTARY: Art & Craft, Bears, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Fed Up, Tim’s Vermeer, Unknown Known

ANIMATED FEATURE: The Book of Life, The Lego Movie,  The Nut Job, Mr Peabody & Sherman

FOREIGN FILM: The Admiral: Roaring Currents (South Korea), Chinese Puzzle (France), The Lunchbox (India), The Raid 2 (Indonesia)

2014 @ THE MOVIES NOMINEES

WORST FILM: Annie, The Hobbit 3, The Identical, In Secret, Le-Weekend, Ride Along,Transformers 4
PREQUEL/SEQUEL:300:Rise of an Empire, Annabelle, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Jack Ryan, Trip to Italy

DRAMA: Boyhood, The Drop, Gone Girl, Kill The Messenger, The Homesman, The Imitation Game, A Most Wanted Man, Selma

COMEDY:22 Jump St, Chef, Grand Budapest Hotel, Million Ways to Die in the West, St Vincent, Trip To Italy

SCI-FI: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, The Last Days on Mars,The Signal, Under the Skin

HORROR: Annabelle, As Above So Below, Deliver Us From Evil, Haunt, Open Grave, The Quiet Ones

Putting things together.

INDY FILM: Chef, The Grand Budapest Hotel, I Origins, Land Ho, Pride, The Trip to Italy, Under the Skin

FAMILY FLICK: Draft Day, Hundred Foot Journey, Maleficent, Muppets Most Wanted, Night at the Museum 3 

FIGHT: Navy Battle The Admiral:Roaring Currents, San Francisco battle Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,Stallone V Mel Gibson The Expendables 3, Godzilla v both Muto: final showdown Godzilla, Batman V Bad Cop Lego Movie

HERO: Andrew Garfield The Amazing Spiderman 2, Chris Evans Captain America2, Chris Pine Jack Ryan

SIDEKICK: Kevin Costner Jack Ryan, Scarlett Johansson Captain America 2, Robin Williams Night at the Museum 3

VILLAIN: Kenneth Branagh Jack Ryan, Jamie Foxx Amazing Spiderman 2, Eva Green 300 Rise of An Empire

MUSIC (soundtrack OR score): Boyhood, Chef, Get on Up, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jersey Boys, Whiplash

ENSEMBLE: Birdman, Chef, Gone Girl, Grand Budapest Hotel, The Homesman, Interstellar,  Monuments Men, Selma

VOICEOVER: Vin Diesel Guardians of the Galaxy, Michael Keaton Birdman, Andy Serkis Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

KISS: Andrew Garfield/Emma Stone Amazing Spiderman 2, Andy Serkis/Judy Greer Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Aaron Taylor Johnson/Elizabeth Olsen Godzilla, Jon Hamm/Lake Bell Million Dollar Arm

FINAL PERFORMANCE: James Gandolfini Drop, Phillip Seymour Hoffman Most Wanted Man, Robin Williams Night at the Museum 3

TRUE LIFE PERFORMANCE: Chadwick Boseman Get On Up, Benedict Cumberbatch Imitation Game, Bill Nighy Pride

CAMEO: Matt Damon Interstellar, Christopher Lloyd Million Ways to Die in the West, Mickey Rouney Night at the Musuem 3

LINE: ‘‘After all its 1959 we still think Liberace is theatrical’ Jersey Boys, ‘Come with me if you want not to die’ Lego Movie, ‘We were born on Earth, we were never meant to die here’ Interstellar

CGI CHARACTER: Caesar Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Godzilla Godzilla, Groot Guardians of the Galaxy, Tars Interstellar

REVIVAL: Monty Python & the Holy Grail(75) Rocky Horror Picture Show(75) Jaws(75) Ghostbusters(84)