2016 Oscar Preview: Best Picture

THE NOMINEES:

- Bridge of Spies
- Brooklyn
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Room
- Spotlight
- The Big Short
- The Revenant
- The Martian

WHAT SHOULD BE HERE: Creed

Creed is the seventh installment in the Rocky franchise from director Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan- the duo behind the great Indie film Fruitvale Station. The film is basically a re-telling of the original Rocky, yet done through today's modern lens. Michael B. Jordan plays Adonis Johnson, the illegitimate son of the late, great Apollo Creed. Unlike Rocky Balboa, Adonnis comes from great wealth thanks to his father. Yet he still walks around with a chip on his shoulder (again, thanks to his father). He moves to Philadelphia and convinces Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to train him to become a great fighter and to make his own name.

Creed is electric and it sparkles thanks to Coogler and Jordan. The cinematography is spectacular and the camera moves with grace and beauty. But most importantly, you become invested in Adonnis' journey thanks to Jordan's charisma and Coogler's script based upon Aaron Covington's drafts. It's the time of film that you can't help but fall in love with, and it's a shame that Warner Bros. didn't realize what kind of film they had on their hands until it was too late in the Oscar game. If the studio's believed in Creed like they should have from the get go, then Creed would have a butt load more nominations that it actually received.

QUICK THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Actor

THE NOMINEES:

- Bryan Cranston (Trumbo)
- Matt Damon (The Martian)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
- Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)
- Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

WHO SHOULD BE HERE: Johnny Depp (Black Mass)

If Creed had campaign properly then Michael B. Jordan would be here as well, but I want to spend this section discussing Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Whitey Bulger in Black Mass. Despite the film being a huge disappointed and a wasted opportunity, Depp does a phenomenal job playing the menace that Whitey Bulger was.  Bulger terrorized Boston, and basically under the FBI’s blessing as well, and Depp just oozed evil. He was able to be charming when he needed to be, but Whitey Bulger ran Boston with an Iron First, and the guy who previously was nominated for an Oscar while dressing up like a flamboyant Keith Richards was able to effective turn around and be the bad guy.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Supporting Actress

THE NOMINEES:

- Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight)
- Rooney Mara (Carol)
- Rachel McAdams (Spotlight)
- Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
- Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)

WHO SHOULD BE HERE: Daisy Ridley (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens)

I was not as big on The Force Awakens as the vast majority of the country was since I felt like much of the film was just a rehash of Episode IV. However, the film did have plenty of redeeming qualities, including everything new and original this go around. One of those new and original aspects was Finn and Rey. While they were mainly an amalgam of characters in the original trilogy, they were still their own, unique thing. That in turn made them the best part of Episode VII. Daisy Ridley’s portrayal of Rey was particular exciting as we got to see a female protagonist actually have some agency and be a bad ass. Ridley brought instant likeability to Rey while also convincing you of her journey towards being this new trilogies version of Luke Skywalker.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Supporting Actor

THE NOMINEES:

- Christian Bale (The Big Short)
- Tom Hardy (The Revenant)
- Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)
- Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies)
- Sylvester Stallone (Creed)

WHO SHOULD BE HERE: Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation)

You can maybe make an legitimate argument that the reason for #OscarsSoWhite is because Creed led a horrible Oscar campaign and Straight Outta Compton really wasn’t that good of a movie. However, there is no good excuse for why Idris Elba (or even Jason Mitchell who plays Easy-E in Compton, aren’t here) Obviously Compton ran an Oscar campaign considering the other nods it got, and I find it hard to believe Netflix didn’t run a fierce campaign for Beasts (Netflix even ran the film in traditional theaters just so it was Oscar eligible).

in Beasts of No Nation, Idris Elba plays The Commandant, a warlord in a fictionalized war-town African country that leads a group of very young boys into battles. Elba’s charisma that inspires his “troops” also sucks you into and engages you throughout the entire film. He’s a despicable man and does horrendous things (both to the opposition and to his own soldiers), yet you’re never not entertained. Elba gave one of the best acting performances of the year (even his fellow actors thought so) and it’s a damn shame The Academy didn’t recognize it.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Original Screenplay

THE NOMINEES:

- Bridge of Spies (Matt Chairman & The Coen Brothers)
- Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
- Inside Out (Pete Docter, et. al)
- Spotlight (Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy)
- Straight Outta Compton (Jonathan Herman & Andrea Berloff)

SHOULD BE HERE: Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman)

In an era where Hollywood is making pictures based upon already existing name brands, the contenders that have a legitimate stake at being a snub in this category is deep. People love Mad Max: Fury Road and I would champion for films like The Hateful Eight, Creed, and Dope. However, one of my favorite films of the year is Anomalisa. A lot of the success of the film is through the final direction by Kaufman and the use of only three voices in the film, but even without that, Kaufman wrote a brilliant script about a man struggling to deal with the banalities of life. I think it's an incredible script and has several little nuances to it that I didn't realize until after I started thinking of the film days later.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Actress

THE NOMINEES:

- Cate Blanchett (Carol)
- Brie Larson (Room)
- Jennifer Lawrence (Joy)
- Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)
- Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)

WHO SHOULD BE HERE: Queen Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

For the first time since I can remember, the female nomination pool is crazy deep and the male nomination pool is pretty shallow. Rooney Mara (Carol) and Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) had to wade in the Best Supporting Actress pool just to earn a nomination. However, the one person who really got screwed over was Charlize Theron. Despite not having her name in the title, Theron’s Furiosa is the star of the film and almost entirely the reason (outside of George Miller’s incredible vision) the film is as excellent as it is.Theron is great at everything she touches (well, maybe not this Snow White nonsense) and considering how many other nominations Mad Max: Fury Road received, I'm surprised all acting nods got left out in the dust. 

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINEES:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Director

THE NOMINEES:

- Lenny Abrahamson (Room)
- Alejandro G. Inarritu (The Revenant)
- Tom McCarthy (Spotlight)
- Adam McKay (The Big Short)
- George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)

SHOULD BE HERE: Ryan Coogler (Creed)

Ryan Coogler took a franchise that was dead in the water, and turned it into a (semi) fresh story that not only pleased the Rocky faithful, but also casual fans like myself and my wife who have seen one Rocky film between the two of us. It was expertly directed (I mean, that first fight scene alone should have forced Coogler on this list) well-acted, and told a tight and entraining story that pleased all. Ryan Coogler doesn’t deserve an Oscar nomination because he’s black, he deserved a nomination because he directed the hell out of Creed.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINEES:

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Adapted Screenplay

THE NOMINEES:

- The Big Short (Adam McKay & Charles Randolph)
- Brooklyn (Nick Hornby)
- Carol (Phyllis Nagy)
- The Martian (Drew Goddard)
- Room (Emma Donoghue)

SHOULD BE HERE: Steve Job (Aaron Sorkin)

I completely understand why Steve Jobs received a "meh" response from America. It was the third movie released about Apple's co-founder since 2011 and the overt three-act, playwright, Sorkin-esque style of the film is initially jarring. But I found the style fascinating and bold in all the right ways.

Steve Jobs is a non-traditional biopic that explores Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) relationship with the most important people in his life throughout three separate product launches in his career. Each product launch (Macintosh in 1984, NeXT's "Cube" in 1988, and the iMac in 1998) not only explores Jobs' vision of technology, but the culmination of his life and the people in it. Of course Steve Jobs never had multiple heart-to-heart's and arguments with all of these people at the separate product launches, but it was a clever and interesting device in order to tell the life story of Steve Jobs. Certainly knowing the structure of film going into it helped me like the structure (and the film as a whole) more, but I thought Sorkin (and his dialogue) created an excellent script.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS ON THE NOMINATIONS:

Using Oscarmetrics to Rank The Eight Best Picture Nominees' Chances

I love to use Oscarmetrics to determine winners at the Academy Awards. Most writers who cover awards season love to talk about the inside information they get, and I just sit here and use my numbers to out-predict them. Not only do I not have the access that most award season writers have, but that information either tends not to be accurate or that information just seems to confuse the situation. I have been extremely accurate in my predictions the past couple of years once I have learned the ins and out of the system. If you had listened to me last year when I told you to bet on Birdman for Best Picture and Best Director in mid-January when Boyhood was the favorite or to bet on Eddie Redmayne when Michael Keaton was the favorite, then you would have won a handful of shekles.

2016 has been a crazy Oscar season, and one that hasn't felt so up in the air since 2006 when Martin Scorsese and The Departed snuck in under the wire to steal the entire she-bang. On one hand, that leaves me feeling the least confident I have in a while in my selections; however, on the other hand, that means the betting is ripe for the taking. So if you would like to bet on the Best Picture Oscar race, here is my helpful guide:

8) Brooklyn

Brooklyn does not have: an Oscar or a Director's Guild of America (DGA) nomination for Best Director (two keys necessary for a Best Picture win), an Oscar nomination for Best Editing (surprisingly, but not really, necessary for a Best Picture win), a BAFTA nomination for Best Picture, or a Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) nomination for "Best Picture". Further, it only has three total Oscar nominations. To the film's credit, it is an acting nomination for Saoirse Ronan and a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, both of which are good nominations to have if you want to win Best Picture, but the few total nominations it has plus the minuscule buzz there is surrounding the film means that Brooklyn unfortunately is not really in contention- which is a shame because it is a great film.

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Cinematography

THE NOMINEES:

- Ed Lachman (Carol)
- Robert Richardson (The Hateful Eight)
- John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road)
- Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant)
- Roger Deakins (Sicario)

SHOULD BE HERE: Maryse Alberti (Creed)

Former Hitfix.com and current Variety writer Kristopher Tapley creates a list every year of the best shots in film of the year. Wouldn't you know it, Creed ended up at the very top of the list. Almost everyone currently nominated for an Academy Award earned a spot on Mr. Tapley's list, but one of the very best films of the year ended up at #1. I personally would have gone with the oner fight scene in the middle of the film- a piece of technical mastery that instantly rose to the top as one of the best fight scenes in the history of cinema (not a hyperbole)- but that's just me. Alberti's camera work in Creed is just incredible, much like everyone who worked on the film, and her nomination would have not only made the Oscars not so white, but would have been well deserved.

Room and The Benefits of the Oscars Nominating Films That Make No Money

Even in a year that saw Guardians of the Galaxy and one of the Hunger Games films being released, the highest grossing film of 2014 was American Sniper. Despite earning multiple Oscar nominations last year including a Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor nomination, American Sniper's only win came for Best Sound Editing. This of course caused outrage among conservatives claiming that Hollywood was out of touch with "the real America".

That being said, it wouldn't be an unfair criticism of The Academy to say that they're out of touch with the vast majority of the movie going public. Jurassic World, Furious Seven, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, grossed a gazillion dollars between the three of them in 2015 (rough estimate), and have a combined 0 Oscar nominations. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the highest grossing domestic film of all time, and it didn't earn a Best Picture, Best Director, Best anything Actor, or Best Screenplay nomination. The original Star Wars is the second highest grossing domestic movie all time when adjusting for inflation, and did earn a Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay nomination in 1977, but lost all three to friggin' Annie Hall.

Brooklyn: The Most Charming Film of 2015

Maybe because I saw Brooklyn immediately after watching the incredibly dark and somewhat boring The Revenant and Room, or maybe because Brooklyn is just a great film that stands on its own in its own right, but I really enjoyed this film. Brooklyn is a romantic tale starring Saoirse (rhymes with inertia) Ronan as an Irish immigrant coming to America in the early 1950's. A girl with lots of potential, but no promise, Ronan's Ellis hops on a boat to find a better life for herself in New York City. She gets a job at a local retail store and eats up meeting a nice and incredibly charming Italian boy played by Emory Cohen. The two meet and fall in love. There's not a whole not to the story itself, but it's the execution that makes it so exquisite.

Part of the charm of Brooklyn is that there's very little that goes wrong. Normally tension and drama are necessary for a story to work, but the lack of it in Brooklyn that makes it so endearing and watchable. You see Ellis grow stronger as she comes into her own in The Big City, and you see how that affects her relationship not only with Cohen's Tony, but with her housemates. Ellis lives in a boarding house, and the scenes where Ellis and her housemates (most notably the banter between the characters played by Emily Bett Rickards and Eve Macklin and the Den Mother played by Mary O'Driscoll) eat dinner are some of the best parts of the film. Brooklyn is a film about living and enjoying your life, and by having these characters grow and charm their way into your hearts, you'll love it from not giving you the normal melodrama you'd expect from a romantic movie.

Brooklyn is what Nicholas Sparks adaptions should aspire to become; romantic without feeling cheesy or forced. A film where you root for the main characters to get together and where you know the main characters will get there without being forced to watch unnecessary obstacles. There most certainly are obstacles to Ellis's and Tony's relationship, that's the entire third act of the film, but it feels earnest and earned in Brooklyn.

Ultimately, Brooklyn is a film that will just make you happy. It's pleasant and enjoyable, and I'm glad it got nominated for Best Picture. The original intent of expanding the Best Picture nominees was so that great tent pole films like The Dark Knight wouldn't get snubbed. Ironically, the big tent pole film of 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road, probably would have gotten a Best Picture nomination no matter what and it's the smaller Brooklyn that ended up being the beneficiary of The Dark Knight Rule. Brooklyn is the reason that I love being an Oscar competitionist. It's the type of film I wouldn't have probably seen normally, and I film I would strongly recommend to all.

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The Underrated Spotlight? How 2015's Best Film Feels Like Its Fading Fast

Prior to The Golden Globes, Spotlight was the front-runner to win Best Picture at the Oscars. It is this fuel that caused 19 out of the 21 "experts" at GoldDerby.com to predict Spotlight to win the Golden Globe for Best Film (Drama). The other two "experts" predicted Mad Max: Fury Road. Throughout the entire awards season, Spotlight had already been anointed the winner. Sometimes being the Top Dog early works out well as shown by 2011's  The Artist. Sometimes it's better not to pique early as we saw with Boyhood last year. Unfortunately, Spotlight is starting to feel more than Boyhood than The Artist. As Spotlight came out with exactly zero wins at The Golden Globes and as The Revenant and even Mad Max: Fury Road feels like it's gaining steam, I fear that Spotlight is going to be one of those great movies that history ends up leaving behind thanks to getting shut out come award season. Sure Spotlight did earn plenty of top tier Oscar nominations such as Best Director, Best Editing, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, and of course Best Picture, but it still feels like it is being left out of the conversation. (And for the record, Boyhood also earned all of those nominations last year and its only winner was for Award Season favorite Patricia Arquette for Best Supporting Actress.)

How The Dark Knight Helped Mad Max: Fury Road's Oscar Hype

In 2008, the greatest American film of all time was released: The Dark Knight. It was a cinematic wonder. Not only was it an amazing achievement for the superhero and action genre, but it was an amazing achievement for film in general. Director Christopher Nolan pushed and changed the boundaries of what an action film can do and should look like. Further, at the time, it became the second highest grossing domestic movie ever behind Titanic. Yet when the Oscar nominations were announced, Christopher Nolan wasn't nominated for Best Director and the film did not receive a nomination for Best Picture. The film did receive five nominations and ended up with two wins which isn't nothing, but we all knew that The Dark Knight deserved more recognition than it received. The Academy knew it as well, and the next year it announced a rule change making up to ten films eligible for Best Picture as opposed to the hard and set rule of solely five films. The thinking was that if 8 - 10 films were eligible to be nominated for Best Picture in 2008, The Dark Knight would have earned a Best Picture nomination. To me that thinking is a bit silly because The Dark Knight should have been in the Top Five no matter what; however, this Oscar rule in the wake of The Dark Knight's snub has at minimum helped pushed the stodgy old white male thinking of what an Oscar movie should look like and has at maximum helped bring more prestigious exposure to films that were otherwise considered "genre films".

Using Oscarmetrics To Win Your Oscar Pool

I'm a huge proponent of using numbers to analyze sports data in football and baseball, and that carries over into how I predict Academy Award winners. I use numbers to analyze data in order to seek the truth. You can claim emotional reactions, but at the end of the day, numbers never lie. That's why these numbers are going to help you predict the winners of the 2015 Academy Awards.

THE BIG TWO

BEST PICTURE: Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, John Lesher, & James W. Skotchdopole)

BEST DIRECTOR: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

WHAT DO THE OSCARMETRICS SAY: Whether you want to claim that the Director's Guild of America (DGA) awards (12 out of the past 15 years correct) or the Producer's Guild of America (PGA) awards (11 out of the past 15 years correct) is the best predictor on who will win Best Director and Best Picture, Birdman won both major guild awards this year. Further, a film winning both the Best Director and Best Picture Academy Award is extremely common- 62 out of the 86 previous award shows had that happen. This makes sense because the reason a film is good is because of the director and the way you know a director is good is because of how amazing the film is,

ACTING CATEGORIES

BEST ACTOR: Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)

BEST ACTRESS: Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

WHAT DO THE OSCARMETRICS SAY: All four of these actors not only are the favorite to win their respected category (which always helps), but these people have won BOTH a Golden Globe and a SAG award for their work. The percentage of the people who have won both awards since 1994 (the first year the SAG wards existed) that also went on to win an Oscar is just incredible. Listen to this: 100% (14 out of 14) of the Best Actor nominees, 85% (11 out of 13) of the Best Actress nominees, 90% (9 out of 10) of the Best Supporting Actor nominees [1], and 92% (11 out of 12) of the Best Supporting Actress nominees [2] who won both a Golden Globe and a SAG award also went on to win an Academy Award. It's extremely rare that a person wins both a Golden Globe and a SAG award yet doesn't take home the gold. Bet on the boring.

[1] Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) won the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe and Oscar, but won the Best Actor SAG award

[2] Kate Winslet (The Reader) won the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe and SAG award, but won the Best Leading Actress Oscar.

Why You Should Care About The Academy Awards

I care way too much about the Academy Awards. I get legitimately upset when an actor like Jake Gyllenhaal does not get a Best Actor nomination for his work in Nightcrawler. Not just write-in-all-caps on Twitter upset, but actually upset because I take it as a personal slight. I understand in the grand scheme of things that this type of stuff does not matter. Genocide exists, America’s economy is still not doing great, there is still an inordinate amount of gender and racial inequality, but I still get upset at The Academy Awards. They matter to me. I know that I care about films too much and I watch too many films than I care to admit (or rather freely admit). I write about films, I talk about films, and sometimes I can’t even enjoy a simple film because I have to over-analyze it. It is this love and passion for what filmmakers do that cause me to unnecessarily care about what The Academy does and does not do. Even if you do not share the same passion that I do (which frankly you should not), you should still care about The Academy Awards.

No other award show has an impact over its medium than The Academy Awards do over films. The Academy Awards have an incredible impact on not only the habits of movie goers, but also the types of films that get made. Many roles that actors choose to take or projects that producers choose to undertake are the result of trying to win an Academy Award. You may not care about who wins an Academy Award, but actors, directors, and producers certainly do. There is nothing more prestigious than having that advertisement say “starring Oscar nominated So And So”. It brings instant credibility to your craft and eternal gratification for yourself. Sally Field famously said while accepting her Best Actress award for her work in Places of the Heart “You like me! You really like me!”. More recently, Matthew McConaughey wiped away 10-15 years of terrible work by winning an Oscar for his work in Dallas Buyers Club. While of course actors would also like to get paid, and the pool of actors starring in a superhero franchise seems to be growing exponentially, the old adage of “one for me, one for the studios” still seems to hold true. Whether studios keep this mindset to appease the actors or the other way around, there’s no denying that actors still chose “juicy” and “challenging” roles- which translates to “attempting to win an Oscar”.

6 Brilliant Acting Performances That Were Almost Nominated For An Academy Award

There is a really funny film by Christopher Guest called For Your Consideration about a small-budget movie that happens to get Oscar buzz early on in its production. The movie follows its producers as they attempt to change the movie to gear up towards Awards Season and how even a whiff of potentially being nominated for an Oscar affects the actors. It's very enjoyable if you like dry humor or if you're an Oscar nut like myself. In the end, nobody who expected to get an Academy Award nomination ends up getting one. It's unfortunate, but that's the way the world works sometimes. Look how upset the director of Force Majeure was when he found out he was snubbed. Jake Gyllenhaal gave an all-time great acting performance in Nightcrawler this year and his performance was nominated by the SAG, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs, yet the Oscars screwed him over. Sometimes greatness gets passed over. even performances that garnered Oscar buzz. These 6 Brilliant Acting Performances That Were Almost Nominated For An Academy Award are the perfect examples of that.

Jeff Daniels (The Squid and The Whale) BEST ACTOR
78th Annual Academy Awards (2006)

The 12^th annual Screen Actors Guild nominated Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Joaquin Phoenix (Walk The Line), David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck), and Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man) as their five nominees for Best Male Actor. Before Awards Season began, these five men seemed like the five front runners to earn an Oscar nomination, so the SAG awards did not seem all that surprising. However, as the Season dragged on, Russell Crowe started losing steam. The BAFTA’s nominated Hoffman, Ledger, Phoenix, and Strathairn but they also nominated Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardner) instead of Crowe. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that Crowe wasn’t going to get an Oscar nomination. Maybe it was because people started realizing that Cinderella Man was generic garbage, maybe people were getting sick of Russell Crowe’s shit, or maybe James Braddock wasn’t a good enough boxer in real life. However, if Crowe wasn’t going to get a nomination, then who would?

6 Recent Oscar Nominees Who Were Nominated In The Wrong Category

We live in an era full of category fraud where "Orange Is The New Black" can be considered a comedy and where "True Detective" is a TV program and not a mini-series. We live in an era where Steve Carell in Foxcatcher has the same percentage of screen time as J.K. Simmons in Whiplash but the former is considered a Lead Actor but the latter is a Supporting Actor. We live in an era where Whiplash is considered an adapted screenplay because it was adapted from a scene from its own script.

Category fraud is more rampant at the Emmy's because the TV shows themselves can determine what category they choose to place themselves in. With the Academy Awards, studios can just campaign for a particular category but ultimately it is The Academy themselves that determine which category to place movies and actors into. There have been instances where a studio will campaign for one category and been placed in another. Therefore, in theory, category fraud shouldn't exist at the Oscars. Unfortunately, it does. Here are 6 Recent Oscar Nominees Who Were Nominated In The Wrong Category.

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2015 Academy Award Nominations

1) The fact that Jake Gyllenhaal wasn't nominated this morning is a damn travesty. He not only gave the best acting performance of the year but he gave the best acting performance ever since Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. He was so freaking good.

What's even worse is that there was a very good chance that he was going to get a Best Actor nomination. According to the statistic expert at the Huffington Post- there was an 87.7% chance Gyllenhaal was going to get a nomination- tied for the third highest chance. Grantland's Oscar Expert Mark Harris stated that there really only seemed like there was enough room for one of two "nutcases" in this category; Gyllenhaal or Steve Carell for his work in Foxcatcher. In turns out the Old Fogie group that is the Academy voting committee went with the movie that fell in their category as opposed to the better film (and one meant for Millennials and Generation X) as Carell earned his first Oscar nomination and Gyllenhaal was left snubbed.

2) Speaking of snubs, The Lego Movie failed to earn a Best Animated Feature nomination- which seems absolutely insane. Almost everybody thought The Lego Movie was the frontrunner to win, so to be completely shut out is mind boggling. However, as a strong proponent that How To Train Your Dragon 2 is infinitely better than The Lego Movie, I'm secretly happy as that means HTTYD2 is now the heavy favorite to win.

3) The last snub that "broke" Twitter was that Jennifer Aniston failed to earn a Best Actress nomination for her work in Cake as her "spot" seemingly went to Marion Cotilliard for her work in Two Days, One Night. Not only was Jennifer Aniston's nomination by far and away the least secured out of the five predicted nominees, but from everything I've heard, Cotilliard actually gave the better performance. I'd bet you that anyone who claims Aniston was snubbed has either a) never seen Cake, b) never seen Two Days, One Night, or both.

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Song and Best Soundtrack

BEST SONG

NOMINEES:

- "Happy" (Despicable Me 2)

- "Let It Go" (Frozen)