The nominees for 2014, Best Animated Feature Film are:
And the winner is:
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The Lego Movie
The surprise of the year, The Lego Movie was smart and contains the best rendition of Batman on film. Yes, really.
The nominees for 2014, Best Character Creation are:
And the winner is:
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Maleficent – Maleficent
A lot of impressive work in this category, but Maleficent is spectacular. Even the film’s detractors admit the altered Angelina Jolie was breathtaking.
The nominees for 2014, Best Screenplay are:
And the winner is:
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Captain America: The Winter Soldier
It was a battle of clever dialog and Cap edged out the competition.
Alright, so enough of the bad, and onto the good.
The nominees for 2014, Best Song/Use of a Song are:
And the winner is:
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Once Upon a Dream – Maleficent.
This was a tight category, with some really good, in some cases surprisingly good (The Hanging Tree), nominees, but the goth version of Once Upon a Dream perfectly defines the film, plus, it is beautiful.
The nominees for 2014, Most Egregious Exposition are:
And the winner is:
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Interstellar
This film talks where few men have talked before. If something could be said or shown, Interstellar says it. (For more, see Nolan’s 2001)
The nominees for 2014, Most Disappointing are
And the winner is:
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Interstellar
Sure, I should have known it wouldn’t be very good, but I kept hearing how great it was. And you might not have my “Nolan warning.” Interstellar is OK, but massively oversold. Smart? Epic? Confusing? No. Just sappy and mediocre.
The nominees for 2014, Most Ridiculous Time Filler are:
And the winner is:
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Noah – Let’s kill the grandchildren
Sure, others wasted more time (Looking at you The Hobbit) but none stood out so as an obvious insertion just to make the film longer. Why did Noah want to kill his grandchildren? Because otherwise, the film was much shorter. That’s it, and that’s why it won.
The nominees for 2014, Most Painful Performance are:
And the winner is:
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Megan Fox as Drunk & Confused Gal in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Sure, they were all just terrible, but Megan brought something extra to the role–that she had no more idea what she was doing there than we did. Remarkable.
It’s the night before the Oscars, so it is now time for If I Ruled the Oscars 2014 (IIRTO for short). Yes, I can feel the excitement. Please advise affiliates we may run late. We have 10 categories to run through-5 Worst of, 5 Best of. Since we end with Best Picture, it’s only right to start with Worst picture. So let’s get right to it.
The nominees for 2014, Worst Feature Film of the year are:
And the winner is:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
They were all worthwhile–boring, pointless, laughable–but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went that extra yard. Senseless plot. Joke characters. Excessive exposition. Horrible acting, editing, and directing. Really, this film had it all.
With two days left till the Oscars, thus one day left till If I Ruled the Oscars, I wanted to discuss one last category: Most Disappointing. These films are not necessarily bad. Some are quite watchable. Just, for one reason or another, they were a disappointment. My nominees were:
Most disappointing is going to be a more subjective category than the others since it is partly based on expectations. It also includs different kinds of disappointment coming from different sources. So let me take them one by one.
Godzilla. This was disappointing based on the rapid, fanatical announcements from both the filmmakers and fans-supposedly-in-the-know that this film was going to remedy problems with previous Godzilla films. It was set up to be an antidote for the 1998 American film, and was said to be going back to the franchise’s roots. So the expectation was set that this was going to be a substantive film related to the brilliant 1954, Gojira. Or, possibly, it might be a fun romp, like the 1964 Godzilla vs Mothra. But no. What they did is go back to the early ’70s ridiculous snooze-fests, with Godzilla as the savior of mankind and far too much time spent on humans who either watch a screen or take part in pointless military action. If they just said they were replicating the bad old days of Godzilla films, it wouldn’t have been disappointing.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. OK, It seems strange to call this disappointing when, after five films, it was clear what we’d be in for. It was going to be long. It was going to be slow. It was going to be slow. Wait, I said that already. Oh, it was worth repeating. It was going to get off track. So, no surprises. But The Hobbit 3 was disappointing (or rather, part of a three film disappointment) in a different way—in what it could have been. With so much talent on board, The Hobbit could have been an excellent film, if someone would have had a long conversation about restraint with Peter Jackson. But they didn’t, or he didn’t listen, so, it is a nominee.
Interstellar. Here’s a film that earned its nomination the old fashioned way: hype. Confused film critics (who somehow didn’t understand it) and mislead early audience members just got it wrong, and then shouted about how great it was. “Oh, it is so smart.” “Oh, it is so sciency.” “Oh, it’s 2001.” But it’s not. It is slow, and dim, with more exposition than any film I’ve ever seen. Over and over characters spell out everything that is happening. Did Nolan think he was making a radio drama? No, it is not a terrible film. Far from it, but it does not live up to its hype.
The One I Love. This one’s on the list for the same reason as Interstellar, just within a smaller group. Plus, it is actually a good film. Perhaps the best film of the five nominees. But in the indie, hipster, crowd it’s the second coming. It’s good, just not that good.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya. A nice animated feature that could be improved with editing, The Tale of Princess Kaguya got it’s nomination as a disappointment for the same reason it got an Academy Award nomination for best animated feature. It was made by Studio Ghibli. That’s Hayao Miyazaki’s company, and people, myself included, assume that things connected to Miyazaki deserve our attention. But this isn’t his film, and while nice, it is not up to the level of Howl’s Moving Castle or Spirited Away.
And that’s it. Which was the greatest disappointment? That’s for tomorrow.
The nominees for the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation were announced today and I was amused to see how closely they resembled my If I Ruled the Oscars nominees for best screenplay.
My Awards:
Bradbury Awards:
The Bradbury awards have 6 nominations and included one film that wouldn’t qualify for mine due to lacking fantasy/SF content, so if we take theirs down to 5 by eliminated Birdman, the only difference is Predestination vs Interstellar. I suspect that too few people saw Predestination for it to be nominated. Plus, Interstellar can look good if you don’t think about it too hard. The whole incessant exposition thing (so much exposition – see Nolin’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) takes it out of the running so that makes the lists identical where it counts.
I am so proud to announce that Eugie’s short story, When it Ends, He Catches Her has been nominated for a Nebula award. You can read it at Daily Science Fiction and read about the nominations on the SWFA site.
The story was published on September 26, 2014, the day before she died, and contains her thoughts on life and death, both personally, and for everyone. I love the story, even if it makes my eyes water.