The Oscars 2015: My thoughts

The biggest awards night in Hollywood has come and gone and it’s time I gave a few of my thoughts on a few of the major winners. I won’t go into much detail over the general gossip that occurred on the red carpet, just some of the major awards themselves and my opinions on each as well as the major surprise that happened on the night.

Choices I agreed with

• ·      American Sniper winning best sound editing, rather than best picture

As some of you have seen from my review of the film, I was not very impressed by American Sniper’s one sided approach and was glad to see far superior films trump it in most of the award categories. Granted the film’s technical presentation was fairly well done so the film was at least deserving of its sound editing win but did it really deserve nominations for best actor and best picture?

Standing at a stark contrast to my less than favourable reception of the movie, many individuals (especially in the US) have made their frustrations known over the fact that American Sniper did not win best picture or best actor. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but personally I believe there are two things that are incredibly amiss about the outrage. Firstly, a film being both successful and popular with audiences everywhere does not automatically mean it deserves top accolades across the board; that would be like giving awards to a terrible film like Transformers: Age of Extinction simply because it made more money than other films last year. Secondly, (with no disrespect to soldiers overseas who sacrifice so much to serve in the armed forces) the prime reason why American Sniper was such a hit with American audiences and critics was because it was heavily biased towards that demographic; failing to fully delve into the complexities of soldiers and the struggles they face whilst maintaining a fair look at the opposing side of the conflict. In short, the film was all black and white, portraying American soldiers as the heroes of the story; yet somehow that was good enough for a spot at the Oscars. Hopefully in the future the awards will not be so hasty in giving these kinds of films top nominations which could easily be filled by other better films. Nightcrawler anyone?

(Sourced from www.heart.co.uk)

• ·         Eddie Redmayne winning best actor

While the likes of Boyhood and Birdman were being tipped for best picture, the best actor category went to a performer who most definitely deserved it more than anyone else at the show. Eddie Redmayne gave a phenomenal performance as Stephen Hawking, perfectly capturing his enormous frustration and subsequent battle with motor neurone disease. It was simply a masterclass in both emotion and facial expression that earned Redmayne high praise from many; even Professor Stephen Hawking himself was very impressed by the actor’s portrayal in The Theory of Everything.

After seeing Redmayne’s awful performance in Jupiter Ascending, I was afraid that this may have affected his chances to win the award. But as we saw, when a fantastic performance stays in the minds of audiences and critics alike, that’s more than enough to forgive a major misstep. This is undoubtedly an excellent leap forward for Redmayne’s acting career and I hope that he continues to put out some brilliant performances in the future.

(Sourced from www.cultjer.com)

• ·         Interstellar winning best visual effects

Christopher Nolan’s space epic Interstellar stands at the peak of my favourite films of 2014 and while I was a little disappointed that it didn’t manage to get nominated for the more coveted awards, it was great nonetheless to see it take home best visual effects. On a side note, some of the people who worked on the effects for Interstellar (and also fellow nominee Guardians of the Galaxy) are graduates of where I’m studying, Bournemouth University; it would have been really interesting to talk to some of those individuals but as it stands, I greatly applaud their work on visual effects. Given how the science fiction setting allowed Interstellar to do much more with its special effects, other nominated films may have had little chance against it at the awards.

The big surprise

(Sourced from www.express.co.uk)

• ·         Boyhood getting snubbed by Birdman for best picture

In terms of major surprises at the awards, there was only one real candidate. For a while it seemed as if Boyhood was unstoppable when it came to winning awards. A boon for critics everywhere, the film scooped numerous awards and accolades, including best film at the BAFTAs earlier this month. But when it came to the ultimate prize, the honour went instead to Birdman; a film can claim to take a few steps beyond what Boyhood has done.

Birdman does a rare thing, in that it takes on a cinematic style that has never really been done in Hollywood before. Add to this the well-rounded characters and engaging plot and you have a film which was more than worthy of standing alongside Boyhood in the nominations. Perhaps that was what compelled the judges to bestow Birdman with the most coveted prize in the movie business.

That just about does it for my thoughts on this year's Oscars. Maybe I'll get round to watching and reviewing the films I didn't get to including Foxcatcher and Whiplash next month.