Non-Best Picture Best Pictures

Pixar’s Best Animated Feature Film

• ·         Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran – Charlie Kaufman already made a movie about writer’s block. So did the Coens – it was Barton Fink. They seem to have rebounded. The point is – Charlie Kaufman may have nothing left to say.
• ·         Boy and the World, Alê Abreu – A Brazilian movie originally released in 2013. Seriously.
• ·         Inside Out, Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera – Pixar reclaims the throne.
• ·         Shaun the Sheep Movie, Mark Burton and Richard Starzak – Semi-annual charming British Claymation entry.
• ·         When Marnie Was There, Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura – Semi-annual vaguely inaccessible Japanese anime+ entry.

SHOULD WIN: Inside Out. Should be competing for the top prize.

WILL WIN: Inside Out. Instead Pixar walks away with the award created to ease the embarrassment we all feel that its animation catalogue is better than many of the winners. Seriously - you want to watch any Pixar movie at random or The English Patient? 

WORST NOMINATION: Anomalisa. The category was created in part to create interest in the Oscars among kids and family-friendly audiences. Instead Charlie Kaufman has his bad script animated and it gets nominated. I guess they have to fill out 5 nominations. It’s not like there was a nationally beloved, high-grossing, meme-inducing mega-franchise that delighted the world’s children for 80 minutes.

BIGGEST SNUB: Minions.

Best Foreign Film

I took a pass on all of these. Instead, go watch Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales). It's a Brazilian/Argentinian series of 6 shorts, most of which blow any American variety comedy movie since Amazon Women on the Moon out of the water. Given the Academy's arcane rules about foreign release versus domestic I have no idea whether it was eligible this year or last year, and I have little doubt that it would not matter. Who cares? Not you. You want to be entertained. Go get yourself a copy of this movie. 

Best Documentary, Propaganda, or Advertisement – Feature

• ·         Amy, Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees – The geniuses behind Senna turn their icon-making magic to Amy Winehouse. It’s almost as good.
• ·         Cartel Land, Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin – A surprisingly balanced portrayal of everything drug war related, from the gangs to the minutemen. The footage is incredible – astonishingly, it’s more vivid than the much more heavily camera’ed Winter on Fire. The year’s best, “I can’t believe they got that on camera,” documentary by far.
• ·         The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen – An honest to goodness documentary sequel. That makes this the second longest running documentary feature film series, right after “Michael Moore Relentlessly Self-Promotes”. This one is not as good as the first, but is masterfully shot. Give this man a script and a budget and let's see what he can do.
• ·         What Happened, Miss Simone?, Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes - Not a lot that was happy, that's what. Even her moment to shine during Dr. King's funeral seems oddly unemotional and unhappy. 
• ·         Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor - Russia Sucks! Russia Sucks!
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WILL WIN: What Happened, Miss Simone? – Betting odds heavily favor Amy, not without reason, but I think the political pressure from #oscarsowhite forces the voters to crown the Nina Simone documentary. Part of Hollywood’s un-ending quest to document the life of every musician ever except the Beatles, this movie is poorly researched, interviewing almost no one. It’s subject matter is also remarkably unpleasant, unfortunately jumping straight into a troubled, violent woman’s descent into madness almost immediately upon becoming famous. Not recommended watching, nor in any way deserving, but I think a chastened Hollywood would rather see this win than hear Chris Rock answer the question its title poses when it loses. 

SHOULD WIN: Cartel Land – An old-fashioned documentary that lets its subjects talk and its cameras roll. Fearless journalism without preaching. It never stood a chance.

BIGGEST SNUB: Best of Enemies, Montage of Heck. Best of Enemies is a boisterous re-run of Vidal v. Buckley which manages, despite its intentions, to make Buckley seem the better man. Montage of Heck is a far more interesting two hours than any movie made about music this year – fiction or documentary. Where Amy Winehouse comes off as trite, and Nina Simone supercilious, Cobain is celebrated for being brilliant, strange, and wildly creative with a documentary that captures all of that in a wonderful spirit of invention of its own. Plus Cobain changed music. Oh well, nevermind.