Scarcely a day goes by in the New Year before the buzz for awards season begins to hum around, creating a rather frenzied honeycomb of excitement. The Critics’ Choice Awards introduces the prospective nominees to the awards season, with the Golden Globes nudging them further upwards. The Screen Actor Guild Awards comes next, along with their companion, the Satellite Awards; there seems to be no end to the countless number of film festivals leading up to February 22, the D-day of Hollywood. The Academy Awards provides the highest honors a person can receive for his or her contributions towards film as of today.
This year’s Oscars, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, will see a generous mixture of old timers and new faces in the nominees. There are the veteran Academy attendees; the latest Tolkien film, The Hobbit, received its third award nomination for Sound Editing. However, a few Marvel films gained the Academy’s approval – a rarity in award shows – including the newest Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy. Meryl Streep, the eternally undefeatable woman of nominations, has once again been elected for an Academy Award, this time as Best Supporting Actress as her role in the fairy-tale musical Into the Woods. Simultaneously, Emma Stone shines in her first nomination in Birdman; she is more popularly known for her roles as Skeeter in The Help and Gwen Stacy in the recent Spider-Man movies. She will go up against heavily awarded names such as Keira Knightly and Laura Dern for Supporting Actress.
The actors are not alone in this first award scenario. Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne have both received high praise for their leading roles in, respectively, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything, providing both with their first nominations from the Academy. Surprisingly, Steve Carrell’s name has also made it to the ballots as he leaves his more comedic edges behind and angles for the dramatic and serious persona seen in Foxcatcher. In fact, almost every nominee in the Best Actor sector has never been nominated for an Academy Award, save for the familiar Bradley Cooper.
As for the ever-popular Animated Features, two very recognizable animation companies return to the podium. Disney arrived at the Academy with Big Hero 6, the movie that topped November box offices at second place, while DreamWorks nets a nomination with its summer blockbuster, How to Train Your Dragon 2.
“I’m so glad that Big Hero 6 made it in.” Yuen Wang ’18 remarks. “It’s in tough competition, though, between How to Train Your Dragon 2.”
Indeed, the constant neck and neck competition between DreamWorks and Disney never seems to fade out of style in the Animated Feature. The former set the very foundations of award-winning animation – Shrek was the first film to ever receive the Oscar – but Disney’s works always seem to have an advantage. DreamWorks’s longest winning streak is four years straight, but Disney seems to be putting this record to the test. If Big Hero 6 takes home the award, Disney will have a streak of three years.
The race for Best Picture seems particularly ferocious, and this year’s films have donned their battle gear for the top spot. American Sniper has garnered many clamoring fans, but has simultaneously aroused controversy on social media as critics accuse the movie as propaganda.
“Hurt Locker made $17 million because it was a little ambiguous, and thoughtful,” outspoken satirist Bill Maher blatantly criticizes. “And this one was just, ‘American hero! He’s a psychopath patriot, and we love him.’”
This year might also be the year for the British geniuses to take home the Best Picture Award. Both The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything had critics describing each film as the best film of 2014, and both have strikingly similar plotlines and screenplays. The Imitation Game tells the tale of how cryptographer Alan Turing cracked the German Enigma code and helped the Allies win World War II and was later imprisoned for his bisexual identity. The Theory of Everything portrays Stephen Hawking’s life as a young student who later posits an important theory that black holes started the universe.
It will be interesting to see how the show plays out. Whatever the eventual outcome may be, film enthusiasts must wait with impatience for the eventual Sunday in February to arrive, and in the meantime, ponder which nominations seem the most compatible for taking home the most Oscars.
Vote on the poll for which movie you think should win Best Picture!