Oscar 2015 - VFX

I'm having a really bad week (try replacing a CPU fan in an ultrabook with a piece directly ordered from China manufactured following the typical "cable length economy" design & get also a power kill static discharge in the process .. and that's a light experience ...). So I'm not really in mood for long debates. Despite the fact that VFX is one of the few of this years Oscar sections where we actually have decent contenders.

The first nomination is for "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". Although one of the movies that put me to sleep last year while watching in the cinema (no kiddin' = I really got my eyes closing), that was not the fault of the VFX. As usual the guys from ILM did their job and the result looks really good. Still, I wouldn't bet on it considering what follows ...
The first serious contender here is "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes". The first part surprisingly lost the VFX Oscar in 2012 against .. "Hugo". So this year I won't find surprising if what WETA did here is again ignored (especially since the competition is more solid). And that's unfortunate ... because we have more than we had in the first movie, and it's by far ( at least based on my unauthorized :) but objective opinion ) the movie that had the most complex work done on VFX of all the nominees. I think it's probably the most impressive film in respect to motion capture released by now. But, I'm not picking the winner, so ...
"Guardians of the Galaxy" is the opposite of the first nomination above. We have a movie that doesn't let you check out your watch, but where the effects (except some of the characters) do not really shine compared with the usual Marvel movie offering. Still, they're not bad :) ...
And the winner is ... "Interstellar". I'm expecting for this to get the Oscar, despite the lack of objectivity in the decision. This movie was totally snubbed on this year's nominations. I find it unbelievable comparing with last year's position of "Gravity" as a favorite for everything. I don't know if we're gonna witness a "Matrix reloaded" from the Oscar perspective (= long, long ago, in 2000 "Matrix" was getting 4 awards out of 4 nominations, although not on the most important sections), but for VFX I'm almost certain for this result. The fact that the choice is not an objective one relates also to the cinematography. Where, unbelievable, but "Interstellar" didn't get a nomination, and where Hoyte van Hoytema shows why 2D is still far to be dead even in a SciFi. But since "the Academy" is not really able lately to distinguish where VFX ends and cinematography begins (or vice versa) ...
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is the third Marvel movie that got here and the one which sums the negative parts from the other two. More boring than "Captain America 2" (sorry, but for movies involving time travel has also the worst plot line of what I've seen in the last years), and with effects that don't show much more than what we've seen in the previous episodes ...

Oscar 2015 - Nominations

So .. Let's start the Oscar season for 2015 ;) The nominations:

BEST PICTURE

- “American Sniper”
- “Birdman”
- “Boyhood”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Selma”
- “The Theory of Everything”
- “Whiplash”

LEADING ACTOR

- Steve Carell in “Foxcatcher”
- Bradley Cooper in “American Sniper”
- Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game”
- Michael Keaton in “Birdman”
- Eddie Redmayne in “The Theory of Everything”

SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Robert Duvall in “The Judge”
- Ethan Hawke in “Boyhood”
- Edward Norton in “Birdman”
- Mark Ruffalo in “Foxcatcher”
- J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash”

LEADING ACTRESS

- Marion Cotillard in “Two Days, One Night”
- Felicity Jones in “The Theory of Everything”
- Julianne Moore in “Still Alice”
- Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl”
- Reese Witherspoon in “Wild”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

- Patricia Arquette in “Boyhood”
- Laura Dern in “Wild”
- Keira Knightley in “The Imitation Game”
- Emma Stone in “Birdman”
- Meryl Streep in “Into the Woods”

ANIMATED FEATURE

- “Big Hero 6”
- “The Boxtrolls”
- “How to Train Your Dragon 2”
- “Song of the Sea”
- “The Tale of the Princess Kayuga”

DIRECTING

- Alejandro G. Iñárritu for “Birdman”
- Richard Linklater for “Boyhood”
- Bennett Miller for “Foxcatcher”
- Wes Anderson for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Morten Tyldum for “The Imitation Game”

CINEMATOGRAPHY

- Emmanuel Lubezki for “Birdman”
- Robert Yeoman for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski for “Ida”
- Dick Pope for “Mr. Turner”
- Roger Deakins for “Unbroken”

ORIGINAL SCORE

- Alexandre Desplat for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- Alexandre Desplat for “The Imitation Game”
- Hans Zimmer for “Interstellar”
- Gary Yershon for “Mr. Turner”
- Jóhann Jóhannsson for “The Theory of Everything”

FILM EDITING

- “American Sniper”, Joel Cox & Gary D. Roach
- “Boyhood”, Sandra Adair
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, Barney Pilling
- “The Imitation Game”, William Goldenberg
- “Whiplash”, Tom Cross

SOUND MIXING

- “American Sniper”
- “Birdman”
- “Interstellar”
- “Unbroken”
- “Whiplash”

SOUND EDITING

- “American Sniper”
- “Birdman”
- "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies"
- “Interstellar”
- “Unbroken”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

- “Birdman”
- “Boyhood”
- “Foxcatcher”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Nightcrawler”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

- “American Sniper”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Inherent Vice”
- “The Theory of Everything”
- “Whiplash”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

- “Ida” - Polonia
- “Leviathan” - Rusia
- “Tangerines” - Estonia
- “Timbuktu” - Mauritania
- “Wild Tales” - Argentina

PRODUCTION DESIGN & SET DECORATION

- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “The Imitation Game”
- “Interstellar”
- “Into the Woods”
- “Mr. Turner”

VISUAL EFFECTS

- “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
- “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy”
- “Interstellar”
- “X-Men: Days of Future Past”

COSTUME DESIGN

- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Inherent Vice”
- “Into the Woods”
- “Maleficent”
- “Mr. Turner”

MAKEUP

- “Foxcatcher”
- “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy”

ORIGINAL SONG

- “Everything is Awesome” from “The Lego Movie”
- “Glory” from “Selma”
- “Grateful” from “Beyond the Lights”
- “I'm Not Gonna Miss You” from “Glenn Campbell... I'll Be Me”
- “Lost Stars” from “Begin Again”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

- “Aya”
- “Boogaloo and Graham”
- “Butter Lamp”
- “Parvaneh”
- “The Phone Call”

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

- “The Bigger Picture”
- “The Dam Keeper”
- “Feast”
- “Me and My Moulton”
- “A Single Life”

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

- “CitizenFour”
- “Finding Vivian Maier”
- “Last Days in Vietnam”
- “The Salt of the Earth”
- “Virunga”

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

- “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1”
- “Joanna”
- “Our Curse”
- “The Reaper”
- “While Earth”

Next week we'll start taking these one by one ;) ...

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

I've watched "A Most Wanted Man" between the winter holidays. I wanted to write this blog entry last weekend but, of course, I didn't have the time. After the unfortunate events happened this week, I seriously considered to change the topic. But I don't have anything better, and I already took a long break since my last entry. So ...

The movie is an adaptation of a novel by John Le Carre. For who's not acquainted with John Le Carre's work, chronologically: "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold", "The Russia House", "The Tailor from Panama", "The Constant Gardener", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (and maybe others). To summarize, we're talking about a British author of spy thrillers, but on a subgenre that's totally opposed to Ian Fleming and anything related to James Bond. To be more precise, we have stories that relate to the activity of various intelligence services, stories that are placed in a real historical context, and which "feature" less action and more social drama. In "A Most Wanted Man" the setting is Hamburg, where a division of the German intelligence is involved in an operation targeting a possible thread on financial support for terrorist activities. In the middle of their investigation they suddenly get an unexpected help, in the form of ... a Chechen illegal immigrant, suspect of terrorist activities, freshly "unloaded" in the Hamburg docks, and who could finally lead to "the big fish" (to approximately quote the movie). Well, with the minor condition to be left free. Which of course seems to be a problem for the internal security. And I already told the whole story :) Sort of ...

Again, for who's not acquainted with John Le Carre, given also the "mega-spoiler" above, there is high chance to get bored by the movie. As it happened to me long, long ago for instance with "Russia House" (leaving aside that that movie wasn't very good anyway). However, if you know what to expect = a relatively short-spanned action development (with maybe some flashbacks), during which you have a ton of character build-up including a fine touch of psychological analysis, and you might get anytime a life irony hit like the right man at the wrong place (or the opposite), then ... Well, you got the right movie :)

Anton Corbijn, the director, manages to get in "A Most Wanted Man" something that he wasn't able in "The American". I'm not very inspired now to describe the result. But, if you've seen both movies, probably you'll know what I want to say. It's true that the typical John Le Carre based script helps more than the story in the other movie. It's more solid and it has a proper ending, so it shouldn't cause long yawns and a "what was that ?!" after the final credits. But it's also the case for the directing to help the script here. I think it's the best adaptation I've seen for Le Carre. It keeps a good balance between the romantic illusion present in spy novel, and the real life coldness that constantly hits back. To compare with, "The Constant Gardener" had mostly the first, and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" too much of the second. A solid help in all this comes from the exceptional cast, starting with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman unfortunately in one of his last roles, who shows again how wide was the range he had as an actor.

I'll close with a personal remark, getting back to the intro. It's an awkward feeling to write a review for a movie that revolves around the activity of a terrorist cell, in such an unfortunate moment when almost all the media channels are full of debates on similar topics. And the awkwardness doesn't necessarily come from the associated topic, but from the fact that a movie, or well - the book behind it - a fictional piece of work after all, seems to be more decent and even more credible as approach regarding the complexity and the implications of this type of situations compared to plenty talk-shows or briefings I heard on various news channels.

Rating: 4 out of 5