There’s a lot to talk about regarding this years Oscar Nominations, but lets just get the “elephant” in the room out of the way. There’s been a lot of talk about how this year’s Oscar nominations are very white washed and how Selma deserved an Oscar nomination. As an Asian woman and someone who’s never seen Selma, I have my own thoughts on this as well as the other nominations.
The problem isn’t that the voting is “white washed” or racist. The problem is that save for one movie there weren’t many roles for actors of color to choose from in the voting process. It’s not like everyone in Selma was nominated for an Oscar but David Oyelowo. I’m not saying his performance wasn’t Oscar worthy, I’m not saying the movie was a dud, I’m not saying he SHOULDNT have been nominated. What I am saying is this year’s Best Male Actor Category was TOUGH and David Oyelowo wasn’t the only snub.
The Best Male Actor Nominees: I thought Bradley Cooper was so great in American Sniper, and while I haven’t see Theory of Everything, Eddie Redmayne won a Golden Globe so he was a shue-in for a nomination. In the words of Zoolander, Benedict Cumberbatch is so hot right now and Michael Keaton was fantastically Oscar-worthy in Birdman, and my vote to take Oscar home.
However, one of these things is not like the other and that thing…or person is Steve Carrell. We all know the Academy is a sucker for appearance changes. They like their nominees slimmed down or prosthetic heavy so of course he would get a nomination for Foxcatcher, but in my opinion Channing Tatum’s performance affected me more than Carrell’s. That being said, that last slot belonged to Jake Gyllenhaal. Arguably, Nightcrawler as a whole isn’t very Oscar noteworthy, but Gyllenhaal’s performance. It still gives me the creeps even though I saw the movie months ago. In my opinion, Gyllenhaal was robbed.
The rest of the nominations were pretty expected after the Globes. I know many people felt The Lego Movie was snubbed, but honestly, except for the ending the movie was pretty annoying. It definitely was not awesome. So I’m okay with the “Snub” though the technological/stop motion animation aspect of the movie is something to be recognized. Compare that to the deeply rich and emotional Big Hero 6 or the claymation Box Trolls however…Plot will always win the day in my book.
This year’s Oscars will be a mish-mash of winners. Though Boyhood may win Best Picture, Michael Keaton should (better) win for Birdman and Julianne Moore deserves to win for Still Alice. Link later could win for best director even though I really want Inarritu to win. Lubezki will most likely win for Birdman, but you never know. The days are over with one picture sweeps the Oscars in the 5 main categories.
For a complete list of the nominations, click here.
Rants Of A Crazy Person 