Phillip Seymour Hoffman Best Supporting
Actor
- Robert Duvall – The Judge – He seems to keep getting these “surely this is his last role” nominations, only to come back for more.
- Ethan Hawke – Boyhood – Other than Linklater’s directing, perhaps the most justifiable nomination from this weak movie. I haven’t liked Hawke since Dead Poet’s Society but he carries this movie when everything else, from the pace to Patricia Arquette's boobs, was sagging.
- Edward Norton – Birdman – Putting in his claim as heir to Hoffman’s titular ownership of this category. His role is to be the actor who CAN act, which is a lot to act up to. He does.
- Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher – Like Hawke, Ruffalo is not someone I usually enjoy. But also like Hawke, he’s pretty game for his part. That said, Tatum has a bigger role, has no chance as Best Actor given that this was Steve Carrell’s movie, is actually better than both Ruffalo and Carrell...but has no chance because he’s Channing Tatum.
- J.K. Simmons – Whiplash – One of those instances where it’s hard to distinguish the role from the script, as well as from the question of whether Simmons is even acting or just being himself. Terrific obviously but great acting?
WILL WIN: J.K.
Simmons
SHOULD WIN: Edward
Norton
SNUBS: Ryan
Gage i.e. the uproariously abominable-for-laughs Alfrid in The Hobbit 3, Shia LeBeouf – Fury,
Channing Tatum – The Foxcatcher
Both Simmons
and Norton are deserving. I picked Norton just to be contrary. Speaking of
just-to-be-contrary, a word in favor of
Mr. LeBeouf. Yes, his anti-Hollywood antics make him persona some grata for the
moment: the bag on the head, the anti-celebrity message, the possibly
pretending to be raped. It’s all a bit desperate to be seen as disdaining to be
seen. He’s like my girlfriend’s dog – if you don’t give him positive attention,
he’ll do something just a little bit bad to get negative attention. But on the
screen, he put up one of the year’s best performances as the first religious
guy in war movie history since Sergeant
York who doesn’t go crazy. As a performance, fully worthy. Besides, don't you want to see what he’d do? My
girlfriend’s dog just ate a used tampon to get attention. I wouldn't put it past Mr. LeBeouf to do the same.
Meryl Streep Best Supporting Actress
Award
- Patricia Arquette – Boyhood – Nominated for reminding lecherous Academy voters how big her tits used to be. Their slow deterioration over the course of Boyhood is like a decades-long timelapse of a melting snowman, a comment on human fragility, and the deepest thought to ponder in Linklater’s overrated gimmick film.
- Laura Dern – Wild - A surprisingly memorable performance in a forgettable film.
- Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game – Meekly present in a contender.
- Emma Stone – Birdman – Solidly present in a contender
- Meryl Streep – Into the Woods – As if to underscore the loss of her naming rights to best actress to Cate Blanchett last year, Ms. Streep’s annual token nomination is relegated to Best Supporting Actress.
- WORST NOMINATION: Patricia Arquette, Keira Knightley, Meryl Streep.
- SNUBS: Eileen Atkins - Magic in the Moonlight, Marielle Enos – Sabotage, Eva Green – The 300 2.
WILL WIN:
Patricia Arquette
SHOULD WIN:
Eva Green. (Of those nominated, I’d prefer Laura Dern).
Most of
these nominations are straight chalk – throwing in famous names from good
movies without consideration of the performance. It’s another testament to
Hollywood’s inherent sexism that so many of these nominations are off-base: the
favorite’s best work was in her bra, Keira Knightley is present mostly for
being the token beloved-English actor/actress nominee, and voting Meryl Streep in January is more automatic for Tinseltown royalty than voting Democrat come November. The message
is: you’re just the dame. Pity.
With that in
mind, I scoured the movies I watched for the best actual performances and came
up with a few much better performances with almost no hope of being recognized. Eileen Atkins would make a much more
charming beloved-English actress nominee, especially since Judy Dench took the
year off. Marielle Enos had a terrific time as the secret bad girl in Arnold’s Sabotage (I would say spoiler-alert but you will never see Sabotage. Call it spoiler awareness). But hands down the performance
of the year was Eva Green making The 300
2 her personal playground, perhaps the hammiest, most remarkable
performance yet committed to film by someone not named Kevin Spacey. To borrow
from that old Texas put-down,“he’s all hat,” Ms. Arquette’s performance was all
bra, Ms. Green’s all tit. Figuratively as well as literally.
Best Director
- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – Birdman
- Richard Linklater - Boyhood
- Bennett Miller - Foxcatcher
- Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game
SNUBS: Damien
Chazelle – Whiplash, Ava DuVernay – Selma, David Fincher – Gone Girl,
WORST
NOMINATION: None.
WILL WIN:
Inarritu
SHOULD WIN:
Inarritu
A category
dependent on choices. I already covered Tyldum’s poor choice to stick to the script
and end The Imitation Game, a movie
in minor key, on an off-key major adagio. Linklater deserves credit for
choosing a gimmick a decade ago and managing to see it through; most of the art
must have taken place off-screen in forcing everyone to keep showing up. Miller’s
biggest choice was to leave the sexual misconduct aspect of his story almost
entirely off-screen, a tension of guessing which makes his movie much better
than it otherwise would be. Anderson would stand a better chance if the studio
hadn’t released his movie in the post-Oscar deadzone nearly a year ago – it’s a
testament to how fun it is that everyone remembered it a year later. That
leaves the favorite and deserving winner - Inarritu’s choice to gin up the
whole film as though it was a single shot gives Birdman a kinetic energy that has its actors and ideas slamming
into each other, one after another, like a two-person game of billiards played
concurrently. Not the best film of the year, but certainly the best direction.
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