Thursday Morning with Chris Hemsworth

A sequel to last year's Thursday Morning with.. post. It's another year and another day for the Oscars nom. In keeping with the so-called Heroes theme, the Academy had Chris Hemsworth announcing this year's noms with the Academy prez. By the way, the only category that I watched all the films in it is Best Visual Effects. In a year full of notable contenders, there's bound to be quite a few upsets. Most of my picks were there, but the notable snubs and surprises are:
SNUBS:
- No love for Inside Llewyn Davis, I guess Philomena or as DiCaprio said, Philomania overlapped the Coen Bros pic. No love even for the songs too!
- No Tom Hanks, not even one. I guess Christian Bale robbed Hankses here.
- Her, thank God it scored Best Pic nom. But it failed to gain  noms for director Spike Jonze and master actor Joaquin Phoenix.
- Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda in Rush, in what might be one of the best performances of the year.
- Also, Rush in any technical categories.
- In what seemed to be the bravest role since Tom Hanks in Cast Away, Robert Redford for All is Lost.
- Blue is the Warmest Color has no nom for Best Foreign Language Film!
- Paul Greengrass got robbed by Alexander Payne!
- The king of 2013's awards bait, Saving Mr Banks didn't get Best Pic, Best Actress and the previously mentioned Best Actor noms.
- No ILM skill show off Pacific Rim!
- Man of Steel in ANY category.

SURPRISES:
- Any noms for August: Osage Country. The buzz for this film isn't that big, but it landed two major noms for awards' queen Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts
- Jonah Hill for The Wolf of Wall Street. 
- Philomena which actually becomes Philomania late in the game
- Two noms for Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster! and one isn't Foreign Language Film.
- One film from Cambodia. When's your turn, Indonesia?!
- Biggest surprise of all, Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa is now an Academy Award-nominated film.

I'll post my predictions (and eventually, winners) next month, after I watched most of the nominated films. As of this post, for Best Pic, I've only watched three out of nine.

BOONUUUS! Reviews of Oscar-nominated films Her and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug!
Her
A very beautiful film. It started out unlike your expectations on the film. You expected it to be kinda Wes Anderson-like hipster-ish, but not at all. Joaquin Phoenix is super great as Theodore who fell in love with his intelligent OS named Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. In the end, Her is a roller coaster ride; you might kinda feel awkward when Theodore and Samantha first had 'sex', then you hated Theodore for being a freak, then you understood and rooted for Theodore and felt happy for him, and then you feel his pain towards the end, but above all you found hope again like he did. Her looks like a futuristic film, but it's the film for our times. A very up-to-date film about our current condition. I loved everything about Her: rated 4/4.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
A continuation of the leave-you-hanging An Unexpected Journey. It's best if you see the film back-to-back, because you got to feel the characters more. We have more dwarf action in this film, but also have cooler action by Legolas and Peter Jackson-created she-elf Tauriel. The set pieces in the film are all amazing. It made you breathless and at the edge of your seat. And the titular dragon, omg, it's amazing, it's stupendous. The effects on the dragon alone guarantees an Oscar nom (although in overall, no), and the stellar voicework by Benedict Cumberbatch makes the dragon a joy to watch and experience. I loved the epic scene involving Smaug in Erebor. It was actually beyond epic. I also loved seeing Thorin and Bilbo because we got more into their characters but most of all, I loved Tauriel for her badassness and her strong profile too. It's definitely a slight improvement from the first film, although it still never reaches the heights set by the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. Also the effects in overall still looks fake compared to LOTR. Nevertheless, it still leaves you hanging for the third film. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: rated 3.5/4.