10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2014 Academy Award Winners

1) Gravity was the big winner at last night's Academy Awards. It walked away with the most awards- seven, including: Best Director (Alfonso Cuarson). The vast majority of the Oscars are technical awards; it's why The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Titanic were able to walk away with a bajillion awards. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the biggest technical achievement of the year took home so many Golden Statutes. As a good friend of mine stated for his Oscar pool, "when it doubt, just pick Gravity" It also won Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Score.

2) 12 Years A Slave won Best Picture (thus giving director Steve McQueen and Brad Pitt Oscar wins). The film won 2 other awards including Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley) and Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o) I don't have an inherent problem with the latter two, but I strongly disliked the movie 12 Years A Slave as a whole. Just from a film making perspective, it was just "eh". If you didn't fall asleep in the middle of the film and constantly look at your phone, then you're lying. If it was truly between Gravity and 12 Years A Slave, it's Gravity for the win for me.

The Best and Worst of the 2014 Academy Awards

I love the Academy Awards. For any bitching and moaning that I do, I do it because I love this award show so much. The winners of each Oscar category gets their name etched in stone forever, and I just want that etching to be correct. Oh yeah, and the award ceremony itself can be fun as well. Here are my brief thoughts:

WINNER: Gravity

Gravity walked away with 7 total Oscars, the most out of any movie of the night, including Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, and Best Score. Plus, Alfonso Cuaron's acceptance speech was just fabulous, funny, and heartfelt. Oh, and bringing in a bajillion dollars in box office sales doesn't hurt either. 

LOSER: John Travolta

Say it with me Johnny, "Eye-Dee-Na Man-Zell". You had one job! If Jennifer Lawrence could learn to properly pronounce "Chiwetel Ejiofor" along with four other names, then you can learn to pronounce the wonderful singer you're introducing. 

Final Predictions For The 2014 Academy Awards

Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Picture nominees

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Director nominees

Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Actor nominees

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Actress nominees

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Supporting Actor nominees

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Click here to check out my thoughts on the Best Supporting Actress nominees

Should Gravity Be The Favorite To Win Best Picture?

With the Academy Awards just a few days away, it seems that the winner of the major categories are already set. All of the the pre-award shows like the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and BAFTAs have already taken place, and all of the Guilds like the Screen Actors Guild and the Director's Guild of America have all cast their ballots. Based upon all of the build up and hype, 12 Years A Slave is predicted to win Best Picture and Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Gravity, is predicted to win Best Director.  You can check out all the odds at www.oddschecker.com.

However, in the history of the Academy Awards, it is extremely unlikely that the Best Picture and Best Director are not from the same movie. Since 1983 (the past 30 years), the director of the Best Picture winner has not won Best Director six times. Here are the examples:

The 15 Best Oscar Winning Performances of The Past 15 Years

15) Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius (Gladiator)

Category: Best Actor
Year: 2001
Reasoning: Maximus' most memorable line from the film is after he has slain another opponent in the Colosseum and he screams, "Are you not entertained?!" We were all entertained by Crowe's performance, and the Academy was as well. Crowe plays a war hero who gets captured as a slave and is forced to win the hearts and minds of the people by winning in "cage matches" in the Colosseum in order to take down the Emperor Commodus played by Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix.

14) Reese Witherspoon as June Carter (Walk The Line)

Category: Best Actress
Year: 2006
Reasoning: Joaquin Phoenix was really good as Johnny Cash, but Reese Witherspoon was amazing as June Carter. I think Phoenix is an incredible, incredible actor, but Witherspoon blew him off of the screen every time they appeared together. It also helped that Phoenix was doing an imitation of Johnny Cash, whereas Witherspoon WAS June Carter. Who knew the ditz from Legally Blonde had it in her?

13 Best Oscar Nominated Performances of 2014

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2014 Oscar Preview: Best Screenplay

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

NOMINEES:

- Before Midnight (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater)

- Captain Phillips (Billy Ray)

- Philomena (Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope)

- 12 Years A Slave (John Ridley)

- The Wolf of Wall Street (Terrence Winter)

SHOULD BE HERE: The Place Beyond The Pines (Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, Darius Marder)

The main reason The Place Beyond The Pines is such an excellent film was because of the script. The style used throughout in combination with the unconventional story telling makes this script easily one of the best of the year. I could go into all sorts of detail about how great the script is, but then I'd ruin the movie for you. Just go rent it now.

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Documentary

Luckily, 4 out of the 5 nominees in this category are currently streaming on Netflix. Not only is this good for me, because that means I can (decently) accurately judge and write about these films, but so can you if you so choose! The 5th film (20 Feet From Stardom) is available to stream/rent via Amazon.

NOMINEES:
- 20 Feet From Stardom
- Cutie and The Boxer
- Dirty Wars
- The Act of Killing
- The Square

SHOULD BE HERE: Blackfish

I thought Blackfish was the 3rd best film of 2013. The movie digs deep into Sea World (and other amusement parks like it) and how they treat their animals. I am certainly not one of those people who you would call an animal lover in the least, yet I was up in arms about the horrible treatment of whales and dolphins after seeing this film. This documentary is captivating, informative, and riveting. It is also currently steaming Netflix as of this writing, and this is the first film mentioned in the article that I would watch (spoiler alert: really the only 2013 doc I've seen worth watching).

7 Things The Academy Awards Got Correct

Award season is almost over. The Academy Awards, the last of them, airs this Sunday, and then the Award season is finally ov-ah! You've probably read a lot of articles about previous Oscar snubs, and things the Oscars got wrong. Hell, we here at The Cover 3 love that sort of thing! But this is not one of those articles. As much as bitching about the Academy is what we deep down love about the Oscars, this article is dedicated to the things that the Oscars have done right.

7) Argo Defeats Lincoln For Best Picture in 2013

While I personally did not think Argo was the best film of 2012, I did think it was the 3rd best. I personally ranked my 2 four stars films- Looper and Wreck-It Ralph- ahead of it. I did however, have Argo as my top 3.5 star film of the year, and clearly ahead of Lincoln- a film I didn't even rank. The race last year came down to Lincoln vs. Argo, and at the beginning of the award season, it looked like Lincoln was going to sweep the Oscars. However, once the award show actually came and went, Lincoln only walked home with 2 Oscars. It lost Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay to Argo, and Best Director to Ang Lee and Life of Pi. And that's the way it should have been.

I suspect Lincoln will be on many lists to come about how it got screwed, and the better film lost right along with Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, and Brokeback Mountain. I saw Facebook statuses after the Oscars last year saying as such. Well, I'm here to set the record straight. The best film nominated won that night.

Can Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto Both Win An Academy Award This Year?

The Academy Award nominations were recently announced, and both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto were nominated for their work in Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey for Best Actor and Leto for Best Supporting Actor. Both won the Golden Globes for their respected races, and both are probably the favorites to win the Oscars come March 2. However, I wanted to see how often it is for two males to win the Oscar from the same movie.

Since the Best Supporting Actor award was created in 1937 for the 9th Academy Awards, two male actors from the same movie winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor has happened only four times, and only once since 1960. Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald first did it in 1945 for Going My Way, and Fredric March and Harold Russell did it two years later for their work in The Best Years of Our Lives. The next time this phenomenon occurred was in 1960 when Charlton Heston and Hugh Griffith both won for Ben Hur. The next and last time this happened was 44 years later when Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won for their work in Mystic River.

The fact that an acting duo from the same film won only a decade ago bodes well for McConaughey and Leto, but the fact that it's only happened about as many times as a film won Best Movie without having its director even nominated isn't something to be thrilled about. Yet Argo won Best Picture last year, so maybe we're in a new era of Hollywood...

But the fact that this occurrence happens so infrequently isn't necessarily a bad sign for McConaughey and Leto. It could just be that the deserved winner from each category just so happens to star in different movie. It's very possible that the person who deserves to win does win, and it's irrelevant if they star in the same movie or different ones. So I went and looked back at recent history at the possible and realistic chances where an actor and his co-star should have both won, but did not.

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2014 Academy Award Nominations

1) My absolute favorite movie of 2013 was This Is The End. But there was no way in hell it was going to get any Oscar nominations. My second favorite movie of the year was The Wolf of Wall Street. It earned many nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Hill), and Best Adapted Screenplay. While Wolf was getting some Oscar buzz, many predicted it was going to be the last man standing in many categories (like the 2 acting ones and Best Director). I can confidently say I was not one of those people.

2) Tough day for Tom Hanks. He seemed like a lock to get a Best Actor nomination for Captain Phillips and had a decent shot of Best Supporting Actor for his work in Saving Mr. Banks. Not only does Hanks not get any Oscar nominations this year, neither did Saving Mr. Banks (OK, technically they got one for Best Score, but really, that doesn't count). Serves Disney right for Disney-fying a story where they screw an author out of her original work.

I know many people are going to claim that Tom Hanks is a true snub for Captain Phillips but a) let's be honest, Hanks was good, but not great in the movie, b) does Tom Hanks really need any more Oscar nods?, and c) between Christian Bale's performance in American Hustle and Hanks's performance, I choose Bale every day of the week.

Predictions for the 2014 Academy Award Nominations

BEST PICTURE
- 12 Years A Slave
- American Hustle
- Captain Phillips
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Gravity
- Her
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Nebraska
- Saving Mr. Banks
- The Wolf of Wall Street

SUPER, DUPER LOCKS: 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle, & Gravity

LOCKS: Captain Phillips, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, & The Wolf of Wall Street

STRONG EDUCATED GUESSES: Saving Mr. Banks, Dallas Buyers Club

I think Saving Ms. Banks gets a nomination just because a large portion of the Academy are old fuddy-duddies who love to reminisce about the "Good Ol' Times" of Hollywood, and Saving Mr. Banks fits right into their wheelhouse. As for Dallas Buyers Club, even though it did not get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture, it did get a PGA and SAG nomination for Best Film- and those factions mean a helluva lot more than the Hollywood Foreign Press of the Golden Globes. It has a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and the likely Best Actor win for Matthew McConaughey doesn't hurt either.

WHAT I'M PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT: Inside Llewyn Davis

On one hand, Inside Llweyn Davis earned a Golden Globe nomination and was one of AFI's top ten best films of the year. On the other, neither the SAG (not that surprising) nor the PGA (super surprising) awarded it with a nomination. However, I think it gets nominated just because it's a Coen Brother's flick. Three out of their past four films (True Grit, A Serious Man, & No Country For Old Men) have all gotten nominated, and I think the super boring and dull Inside Llewyn Davis does the same.

DARK HORSE: Philomena