2014 "Cinema & Stadium" Film Awards
I liked how last year's year-end film posts worked out - one concentrating on the films overall, and one on Oscar-style awards. I've already posted my look at the films of 2014 here, with my top 10 of the year, miscellaneous awards and blurbs about films I saw on Netflix. Now here are my picks for traditional categories within films - acting and so on. Like last year, the nominees are picked only from movies I've actually seen and that were released widely in 2015 (I'll mention which Oscar nominees I haven't seen - or saw but would leave out anyway). Let me know if you agree (winners in bold, runners-up underlined)!
Acting Awards
Best Actor:
Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game)
Robert Downey, Jr. (The Judge)
Bill Hader (Skeleton Twins)
Michael Keaton (Birdman)
Bill Murray (St. Vincent)
Jack O'Connell (Unbroken)
(haven't seen Carell's Foxcatcher or Redmayne's Theory of Everything; Cooper's American Sniper was released in 2015)
Honestly, this year's roster of top actors is lower quality overall than last year's. O'Connell makes it on for the sheer physicality of his performance. Hader did a quirky, real, nuanced but not elite job in his dramedy. Robert Downey, Jr. is always very entertaining and he's also quite good in The Judge. Bill Murray is a very respectable 3rd place finisher here. However, this was really between Keaton and Cumberbatch, and I give the slight edge to Benedict. (Note: if Selma had been released in 2014, David Oyelowo would be the winner - his snubbing by the Academy is outrageous)
Best Actress:
Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow)
Eva Green (300: Rise of an Empire)
Melissa McCarthy (Tammy)
Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
Kristen Wiig (Skeleton Twins)
Shailene Woodley (Divergent)
(*gulp* Pike's Gone Girl is the only best actress-nominated film I've seen...)
I'm sorry to say the available performances I had to choose from was particularly bleak this year for best actress, due to my seeing only a handful of the (very few) 2014 films with elite woman leads. That said, each of the nominees had very good performances. Emily Blunt stood toe-to-toe with Tom Cruise last summer, and Eva Green was the only good thing about the 300 sequel, playing a gonzo but entertaining villainess. Woodley was far more impressive playing a YA heroine than Lawrence has been, and McCarthy showed she has acting chops far beyond comedy. Kristen Wiig continues to show that she is one of the most talented entertainers in the world, man or woman - but Pike's performance in Gone Girl was the best, going from innocent victim to terrifying predator.
Best Supporting Actor:
Adam Driver (This Is Where I Leave You)
Mark Duplass (Tammy)
Robert Duvall (The Judge)
Matthew Goode (The Imitation Game)
Edward Norton (Birdman)
Vincent Piazza (Jersey Boys)
(haven't seen Hawke's Boyhood, Simmons' Whiplash or Ruffalo's Foxcatcher)
Normally there's a wealth of great supporting actor roles for me to choose from but I was surprised how fast the options dropped off after the Oscar nominees. Duplass did fine but really not worthy of a nomination. Piazza gave some real fire to the pop musical and was very entertaining. Driver also had a charismatic part, although it bordered on hammy; Goode, on the other hand, was rock solid and steady but not a stand out. Duvall is a fine runner-up, and he worked well with the more entertaining RDJ. But Norton blew everyone else out of the water with an outstanding performance in Birdman - he's the winner, no contest.
Best Supporting Actress:
Rose Byrne (Neighbors)
Tina Fey (This Is Where I Leave You)
Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game)
Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: Days of Future Past)
Melissa McCarthy (St. Vincent)
Emma Stone (Birdman)
(haven't seen Arquette's Boyhood, Dern's Wild, or Streep's Into the Woods yet)
Now the ladies get to turn the tables on the men in the supporting category, as I witnessed an abundance of admirable female roles and performances in 2014, just not so many as leads. Rose Byrne was far from Rogen's straight wife in Neighbors; she's probably the funniest actor in the film. Meanwhile, McCarthy tones her usual humor way down for a very strong dramatic turn in St. Vincent. Tina Fey gives perhaps the best performance I've ever seen from her in This Is Where I Leave You, while Jennifer Lawrence again shows that her best role in fantasy is as X-Men's Raven, not Katniss. Knightley was tremendous in The Imitation Game in a role that was begging to be cliche; she instead brought it to life. And Emma Stone was the best of them all, with an intense performance - sometimes simmering, sometimes bursting out - in Birdman.
Other Awards
Best Director:
Peter Berg (Lone Survivor)
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman)
Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow)
Christopher Nolan (Interstellar)
Ira Sachs (Love Is Strange)
Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game)
(haven't seen Linklater's Boyhood or Miller's Foxcatcher; did not think Anderson's directing of The Grand Budapest Hotel was worthy of a nomination)
As I mentioned last year, I don't know enough about filmmaking to identify exactly what makes a well-directed film, so I try to choose the films that either A) had a high degree of difficulty and/or B) made best use of performances, script, etc. All of the nominees this year did outstanding jobs. Berg created a super tense film that somehow avoided being jingoistic (IMO) and somehow made me relieved to get a Hollywood-type ending. Nolan took my breath away again with his sweeping vision and created the kind of unique tone and world that no one else in Hollywood can right now. Sachs took a pretty dull premise and brought it to moving life, bringing out real, incredible performances that were grounded. Tyldum deftly avoided the pitfalls of a Historical Oscar Bait film, keeping the audience riveted on the story, not on its award chances. Liman created a near flawless action film, nailing the pacing when that was exactly the most difficult and important thing to do; then letting Cruise do his thing. But Inarritu was the king this year, creating an entirely new (to me) movie in which everything worked and (literally) flowed together as one for a spellbinding experience.
Best Screenplay:
Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past)
Steven Knight (Locke)
Alejandro Inarritu, et. al. (Birdman)
Phil Lord, Christopher Miller (The LEGO Movie)
Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent)
Graham Moore (The Imitation Game)
I'm not sure if the directing or screenplay (or both) is the highlight in the new X-Men film, but for being able to crunch in so many characters and such a complex plot so well, it gets a nod here. Oscar front-runners The Imitation Game and Birdman obviously benefit from great scripts; I don't rank films that highly in my top 10 if they don't. While Locke overall isn't the best, it was an impressive feat to get something even watchable from a man driving his car for an entire movie - it's sort of like reading a book, but you're watching a movie. And The LEGO Movie directors, who also wrote the film, deserve highest honors for writing a super clever script on top of a plot that didn't try to get to tricky yet subtly worked in LEGO themes and an appropriate, touching emotional element.
Best Visual Effects:
The LEGO Movie
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Interstellar
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Well, I hope you've enjoyed reading about what I think were some of the most impressive aspects of 2014's films. Check back in this weekend for my first review of 2015 movies!
"Academy Award trophy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Awards#mediaviewer/File:Academy_Award_trophy.jpg
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