Thursday Morning with Chris Pine, JJ Abrams and Alfonso Cuaron

Another year, another award-season. Another year, I'm writing this again. Unlike last year's predictable season, this year is so tight. We have so many great films coming at the same time. We have films keeping momentum from last March, from Cannes, from Sundance. Crazy right? This year marks a history for the Academy for announcing every category. Usually it's just the heavyweight categories, but now all of them. Hence the three presenters. JJ Abrams and Alfonso Cuaron announced the ones that were usually just posted online, while Chris Pine with Academy prez Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced the aforementioned heavyweights. In a surprising move, I watched five out of eight Best Picture noms this year. YEAH EUROPE! Anyway, these are some of the snubs and surprises this year.

SNUBS:
- Biggest one for me is The Lego Movie for Best Animated Film. It's definitely way better than any of the nominees.
- Roger Ebert's doc Life Itself 
- Selma in many categories like Best Director for Ava DuVernay and Best Actor for David Oyelowo
- No Emily Blunt for Best Actress!
- Mr. Turner in four categories and that's neither Best Actor nor Best Director
- James Marsh as Best Director for The Theory of Everything
- JAKE GYLLENHAAL as that creepy unblinking guy in Nightcrawler
- No Jessica Chastain in Best Supporting Actress for A Most Violent Year
- Yeah, no A Most Violent Year at all
- Tim Burton's Big Eyes in any category

SURPRISES
- So much love for Whiplash including Best fucking Picture for 29-year-old Damien Chazelle!
- Bradley Cooper for Best Actor
- Marion Cotillard for Best Actress! She robbed Emily Blunt for sure.
- Steve Carell is back in the game!
- Unbroken got quite a few too
- Bennett Miller as Best Director
- Inherent Vice gets some love so that's great. MOTTO PANEKEKU!
- American Sniper has 6 noms. That's quite a lot.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier is nominated? I'd choose Godzilla over that tho.

Stray observation:
It's clear now that The Hobbit series is way lower in quality than The Lord of the Rings. LOTR scored 17 wins out of 30 Oscar noms, while The Hobbit won 0 out of SEVEN noms.

In conclusion,
It's nine versus nine for Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel
Eight for The Imitation Game
Six for American Sniper and Boyhood
Five for Interstellar, Whiplash, Foxcatcher and The Theory of Everything

Early serious prediction (most likely to happen)
Best Picture: Boyhood
Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne
Best Actress: Julianne Moore
Best Supporting Actor: JK Simmons
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette
Best Director: Richard Linklater

Ideal and happy and fun prediction (unlikely to happen)
Best Picture: Boyhood
Best Actor: Michael Keaton
Best Actress: Felicity Jones
Best Supporting Actor: JK Simmons and Ethan Hawke (in a rare tie)
Best Supporting Actress: Keira Knightley
Best Director: Wes Anderson

Next post
Reviews of four Oscar nominated films! I'll give you clues:
The Hangover
Sherlock Holmes
My Week with Marilyn
Mrs. Pitt