Oscar Nominees (Almost) Full List

The Oscar nominees for 2015 are in and here is almost the complete list. I'm sorry I missed some as Chris Pine particularly speaks far too quickly for me to make a note of all of these. I'll also have to update with some names at a later date. For now, please feel free to click any of the titles for my reviews (except those I have either not seen or reviewed yet).

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper

Birdman

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

BEST DIRECTOR

Birdman Alejandro Inarritu

Boyhood Richard Linklater

Foxcatcher Bennett Miller

The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson

The Imitation Game Morten Tyldum

BEST ACTOR

Steve Carrell Foxcatcher

Bradley Cooper American Sniper

Benedict Cumberbatch The Imitation Game

Michael Keaton  Birdman

Eddie Redmayne The Theory of Everything

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard Two Days, One Night

Felicity Jones The Theory of Everything

Julianne Moore Still Alice

Rosamund Pike Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon Wild

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

American Sniper

The Imitation Game

Inherent Vice

The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Birdman

Boyhood

Foxcatcher

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Nightcrawler

BEST SCORE

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Interstellar 

Mr Turner

The Theory of Everything

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Ida

Leviathan

Tangerines

Timbuktu 

Wild Tales

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall The Judge

Ethan Hawke Boyhood

Edward Norton Birdman

Mark Ruffalo Foxcatcher

J.K. Simmons Whiplash

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette Boyhood

Laura Dern Wild

Keira Knightley The Imitation Game

Emma Stone Birdman

Meryl Streep Into the Woods 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Birdman

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Ida

Mr Turner

Unbroken

BEST EDITING

American Sniper

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Whiplash

BEST SOUND EDITING

American Sniper

Birdman

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Interstellar 

Unbroken

BEST SOUND MIXING

American Sniper

Birdman

Interstellar 

Unbroken

Whiplash

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Imitation Game

Into the Woods 

Mr Turner

Interstellar 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST ANIMATION

Big Hero 6

The Boxtrolls

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Song of the  Sea

The Tale of the Princess Kayuga

Golden Globe Nominations 2015 for Films

It's time for the golden balls to come out shining again. The Golden Globe nominations were announced today with Birdman soaring above the rest with 7 nominations spanning a range of categories. Selma, The Imitation Game and Boyhood are close behind, each with 5 nominations and just behind them are The Theory of Everything and The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl, each with 4. Others worth a mention are Foxcatcher, Into the Woods and Big Eyes which all managed to land 3 nominations each, while St Vincent and Annie scraped 2 each.

Critics favourites Whiplash, Interstellar and Nightcrawler each have a single nomination to their name with the exclusion of Whiplash from the Best Picture category most likely to cause a stir. I'm also pissed to see that White God isn't up for best foreign language film but hopefully this is just due to its release date in North America. I guess Angelina Jolie will be heartbroken over the complete snub of her second effort as director, Unbroken, which looked like a proper piece of awards bait.

Of course UK audiences will just have to sit here fuming as we have to wait until 2015 for the likes of Birdman, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Into the Woods and Whiplash to be released. At least some of these will have been released by the time Amy Poehler and Tina Fey host the show on Sunday January 11th.

As usual, awards season is the only time of year that I decide to find out what it is like to have a gambling problem. I usually place some bets on the Globes and the Oscars and last year I lost some money on the Globes but won it back (with a little profit) on the Oscars. Hopefully I can continue my tiny little winning streak this year!

At least I've seen a fair few of these this year including Boyhood, Foxcatcher, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Pride, St Vincent, Gone Girl, Interstellar etc etc. As long as I get into early screenings of some of the others, I'll be very happy!

Here are the nominees in full:

Best film

Boyhood

Foxcatcher (click for review)

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Best director

Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Ava Duvernay - Selma

David Fincher - Gone Girl

Alejandro González Iñárritu - Birdman

Richard Linklater - Boyhood

Best screenplay

Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl

Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo - Birdman

Richard Linklater - Boyhood

Graham Moore - The Imitation Game

Best actor, drama

Steve Carell - Foxcatcher (click for review)

Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game

Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler (click for review)

David Oyelowo - Selma

Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

Best actress, drama

Jennifer Aniston, Cake

Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything

Julianne Moore, Still Alice

Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best comedy or musical

Birdman

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Into the Woods

Pride

St. Vincent (click for review)

Best actress, comedy or musical

Amy Adams - Big Eyes

Emily Blunt - Into the Woods

Helen Mirren - The Hundred-Foot Journey

Julianne Moore - Maps to the Stars

Quvenzhané Wallis - Annie

Best actor, comedy or musical

Ralph Fiennes - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Michael Keaton - Birdman

Bill Murray - St. Vincent

Joaquin Pheonix - Inherent Vice

Christoph Waltz - Big Eyes

Best supporting actor

Robert Duvall - The Judge

Ethan Hawke - Boyhood

Edward Norton - Birdman

Mark Ruffalo - Foxcatcher (click for review)

JK Simmons - Whiplash

Best supporting actress

Patricia Arquette - Boyhood

Jessica Chastain - A Most Violent Year

Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game

Emma Stone - Birdman

Meryl Streep - Into the Woods

Best score

Alexandre Desplat - The Imitation Game

Johann Johannsson – The Theory of Everything

Trent Reznor – Gone Girl

Antonio Sanchez - Birdman

Hans Zimmer – Interstellar (click for review)

Best song

Big Eyes – Big Eyes (Lana Del Ray)

Glory – Selma (John Legend, Common)

Mercy Is – Noah (Patty Smith, Lenny Kaye)

Opportunity – Annie

Yellow Flicker Beat (Lorde) – Hunger Games, Mockingjay Pt 1 (click for review)

Best animation

Big Hero 6

The Book of Life

The Boxtrolls

How to Train Your Dragon 2

The LEGO Movie

Best foreign language film

Force Majeure

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem

Ida

Leviathan

Tangerine Manderin

What do you think? Got any tips for my gambling addiction? Where's the easy money at and who are the outsiders that are worth a punt?

My Top 10 of the London Film Festival 2014

Quick disclaimer: some of these I saw at Cannes earlier this year but they were still playing at the LFF so I have included them here even if I didn't get a chance to see them again. I should also mention that I didn't get to see loads of films at the LFF such as The Imitation Game, It Follows, Whiplash or Men, Women and Children to name a few. Sounds like Whiplash may be many people's favourite of the festival but I'm afraid I will have to wait to see it like everybody else!

Anyway, here is my top 10. Click the titles for my reviews:

10. A Hard Day

9. Son of a Gun

8. Timbuktu

7. '71

6. Fury

5. Foxcatcher

4. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

3. Monsters: Dark Continent

2. Wild Tales

1. White God

More reviews from I Love That Film

More top 10 lists from I Love That Film

More from the London Film Festival 2014

PLEASE buy my book on The Blair Witch Project

Foxcatcher Review

It’s true what they say: money can’t buy you happiness or love, and it certainly cannot buy anyone talent. It is, as has so often been noted, the root of all evil and Steve Carrell’s miserable but wickedly wealthy wacko in Foxcatcher proves it perfectly.

Foxcatcher is the story of Olympic champion wrestlers, brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schulz (Mark Ruffalo). Mark is the younger brother who won a gold medal at the ‘84 Olympics while Dave is the smarter of the pair, a loving family man who coaches his brother with care and passion. The blue-collar brothers are an inseparable  team until the magnificently wealthy John Du Pont (Steve Carrell) sends an envoy out to collect Mark and fly him first class out to Du Pont’s beautiful Pennsylvania country house. Foxcatcher Farm is a mansion that would dazzle most but is particularly impressive to working class Mark, and a tour reveals the place is filled with race horses, trophies and Du Pont’s snooty mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

Du Pont is a sickeningly rich, sad little spoiled man-child. Patriotic, lonely and demanding, he manages to charm Mark (mostly with offers of money) and lures him out to live and train in a beautiful training facility on the grounds. Du Pont’s mother does not approve of wrestling and though her son is desperate for her to acknowledge his passion, commitment and talent, it is clear Du Pont is simply throwing money around in order to fuel his own ego and pride. He funds the American national wrestling team in the run up to the ‘88 Seoul Olympics in the hope of some of that gold rubbing off on him in the eyes of his unimpressed mother, but also out of a strangely philanthropic sense of national pride.

Mark moves to Foxcatcher but his brother Dave resists because he is hesitant to shift his happy family around the country. While Mark is the gold medal winner, Dave is smarter, more capable and an essential part of Mark’s success. With Mark keen to step out from the shadow of his brother, and DuPont realising the importance of luring Dave, the three men are about to come into a tragic conflict.

Foxcatcher is a true life tragedy that gifts its central performers with real characters that are an actor’s dream. The central trio of Tatum, Ruffalo and Carrell are superb with the former funny man on particularly fine form and almost completely resisting the urge to turn Du Pont into a caricature. Carrell dials down anything that could make Du Pont too amusing, though there are a couple of awkward moments that raise a laugh (check out his brilliant nickname he asks to be called by Mark) and instead becomes a highly unsympathetic but sadly understandable monster that is the dark heart of the story. Carrell will get all the plaudits due to his impressive physical transformation that is completely lacking in vanity but Tatum and Ruffalo also deserve their fair share of praise. Ruffalo is typically good as the loving family man but both him and Tatum have an incredible physical presence in the film also. Their body language and movement is instantly distinctive but seems to come from a place of years of practice wrestling in the gym.

Director Bennett Miller follows Moneyball and Capote with another fascinating true story filled with attention grabbing performances. Like Moneyball, the idea of money not being necessary for great sporting achievement is revisited but instead of the charismatic Brad Pitt figure, Carrell steals the film as a sad, pathetic, insecure little man who believes money can stop anyone saying no to him.

For those who do not know the real story behind the film, try to avoid spoilers as the ending will likely be a huge shock. For everyone else, the real surprise here is Carrell whose performance as a man a million miles from normal will likely be a strong contender come award season. Catch it.

Foxcatcher is playing at the BFI London Film Festival at the following times:

Oct 16th 7.15pm Odeon Leicester Square

Oct 17th 12.00pm Odeon West End Screen 2

Tickets on sale from 18th September.

More on the BFI London Film Festival 2014

More on the Cannes Film Festival 2014

Reviews of other films being screened at the festival:

White God

Timbuktu 

Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) 

The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue) 

The Salvation 

Goodbye to Language (Adieu au Langage)

Mr Turner