The Disappointment of a Green Book Best Picture Win

We were told this version of The Academy is different. This version is younger, this version is more diverse, and this version is more in sync with Hollywood and culture. That's why we saw films like Get Out and Lady Bird earn major Oscar nominations last year like Best Picture and Best Director. Now we still ended up with another terrible Best Picture winner in The Shape of Water, but hey, they're trying and they're getting better!

The narrative around Get Out felt like that of "you should just happy to be here" but there was no reason it couldn't or shouldn't have won it all. It's widely original and entertaining, it's artfully done, it resonated with the youth and taste-makers in this Country, and it forever cemented itself among the ranks of Brokeback Mountain and Pulp Fiction on the annual lists of "which films deserved to win Best Picture but didn't" that gets written every year.

How The Academy Awards Passed Christopher Nolan By

In 2008, five films were nominated for Best Picture. Those films were: Front/Nixon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Reader, and the winner Slumdog Millionaire. 2008 also saw the rise of one of the greatest films of all time. The film has a 9.0 on IMBD.com and is ranked the #4 film of all time by the site, it has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and, at the time, was the 2nd highest grossing domestic film ever. The film was both a cinematic achievement shaping the way we not only viewed superhero films, but films in general, and a commercial smash. It was nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Make Up, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects and it won the Oscar for Best Sound Editing and Heath Ledger won for Best Supporting Actor.

That film is obviously The Dark Knight. Conspicuously, the three major Academy Award nominations the film did not receive was Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and most notably Best Picture. In fact, The Dark Knight's snub in the Best Picture category famously helped paved the way for the Best Picture expansion we see today where up to 10 films can earn a nomination. Since the expansion, we've seen genre and action films like Avatar and Mad Max: Fury Road earn Best Picture nominations (as well as nominations for their directors). We have also seen the rise of genre and actions shows in television awards as well with Game of Thrones sweeping the Emmys in recent years.

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:

Leonardo DiCaprio and the Extremely Weak Best Actor Oscar Race

Back in October I wrote about Leonardo DiCaprio's career failing to play the Oscar game and how he wasn't going to win an Academy Award for his work in The Revenant. Since the writing of that post, Leo won the Golden Globe and the SAG Award for Best Actor, and it would be nothing short of a colossal upset if he didn't win the Academy Award for Best Actor as well. I am glad to be proven wrong, and nothing would make me happier than to have one of my favorite actors finally earn an Academy Award. At the same time, it sucks that Leo will finally earn his first award for one of his worst roles. DiCaprio was in The Revenant because as Chris Connolly once said in a Grantland video, "Leo makes your dreams come true". He helps difficult projects like The Revenant get made, but I didn't think he was terribly good in it. That's why it will be bittersweet when he finally wins the Academy Award in a few weeks. At least when Martin Scorsese won his first Academy Award it was still for one of his best films (The Departed), but when Leo wins his first Oscar, it will be for a performance that probably doesn't make his career Top 10.

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.

2016 Oscar Preview: Best Soundtrack

Unfortunately, the Best Soundtrack Oscar does not exist. It is a fake category that I first heard about from Alex Pappademas on Grantland, and an idea that I have loved ever since. Mr. Pappademas proposed adding a category to recognize the use of previously already existing songs in film. For the past two years since I have been doing these Oscar Preview posts, I like to throw in a Best Soundtrack post as well. Music and movies have become an indelible part of our culture and the music supervisors that are able to blend the two together deserve to get awards for what they do. I love writing these posts because I am firm believer in the addition of this category. There already is a Best Score category, so why not add one more category to honor those who successfully use original music to score their film?

Click here if you want to read more about why The Academy should add a Best Soundtrack category.

The specific rules for this category have been a bit flimsy over the years. I've "nominated"films that have a great original soundtrack like Frozen and Begin Again; however, I've realized that those nominations go against the spirit of this category. The purpose of the Best Soundtrack category is to nominate films that effectively incorporate already existing songs. Therefore, if your film is full of songs that are eligible for a Best Song Oscar, you're out. I have also decided that music created by the artist that's the source of the film and/or biopic is out. N.W.A. and Kurt Cobain made some incredible music over the course of their careers, but Straight Outta Compton and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck NEEDS to feature their respective artist's music. While those films of course have incredible soundtracks consisting of already existing music (Montage of Heck especially which features unreleased versions of Cobain's music and different versions of his songs so fucking well) they also violate the spirit of this category.

So with all of that being said, here are my personal nominees for the Best Soundtrack category:

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.

The Big Short and Adam McKay's Hatred of Big Banks

Before The Big Short, writer/director Adam McKay has made five films: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Stepbrothers, The Other Guys, and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. Outside of the plethora of semi-colons and Will Ferrell, the one thing these films all have in common is that they're fairly broad, slapstick, goofball comedies.

Then McKay did something incredible and out-of-the-ordinary, he made The Big Short starring four Oscar nominees (and a movie not starring Will Ferrell). The Big Short is based upon the book by Michael Lewis and it earned 5 Oscar nominations including a Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nod for McKay and a Best Picture nod for the film itself. Let's put this into perspective, a film made by the guy who started Funny or Die and the director of Stepbrothers has an Oscar nomination and made an Oscar nominated film, wrote an Oscar nominated script and directed an Oscar nominated performance. It would not be false advertising to say "From Oscar nominated director Adam McKay comes Anchorman 3: The Legend Finally Comes To An End." Yet despite all of the surprises, The Big Short is a great film and the only person who could have made it great was Adam McKay.

Anomalisa vs. Inside Out: The Race for the Best Animated Film of 2015

Coming into 2015, Pixar Animation Studios was having a creative dry spell. Since 2010's Toy Story 3, Pixar released Cars 2, Brave, and Monsters University. While all of those films did make over $190 million, they were not as revered or in the same ballpark as Pixar's other classics such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, or The Incredibles. 2015 changed things for Pixar- not only did it allow The Good Dinosaur to come and go, but it saw the release of Inside Out. Inside Out is a children's film, yet it's so thematically rich and unbelievably creative that it automatically vaults itself into the discussion for one of Pixar's all time best. The film helps explain complex concepts to children while not diminishing story or characters and still remains interesting and wonderful to adults. The movie also makes you cry at the death of imaginary pink elephant made out of cotton candy. I think Inside Out is a work of brilliance and you can easily see why it's the Oscar front runner for Best Animated Film.

Yet as good of a film as Inside Out is, I don't think it touches a candle to Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa. I have Inside Out as my 6th favorite film of 2014 at 3.5 stars, but Anomalisa is solidly in my top five at #3 with 4 stars and could very easily move up to #1 as the longer I think about it the more I love it. Inside Out is a great animated film, Anomalisa is a great film period.

#PoorLeo: Leonardo DiCaprio's Failure Playing The Oscar Game

On January 16, 2014, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for his 4th acting Academy Award for his performance as Jordan Belfort in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street. On March 2, 2014, Leonardo DiCaprio lost his 4th acting Academy Award as Matthew McConaughey beat DiCaprio for his work in Dallas Buyers Club. The Internet exploded after this loss. There was no shortage of memes, .gifs, and tweets surrounding the subject. My personal favorite comment of the night was this comment. After nearly spending his entire life in show business and having zero Academy Awards to show for it, it certainly appears as if The Academy hates Leo. While that's obviously not true as no man with five total Oscar nominations can ever truly say The Academy dislikes him, it does seem that after Leo has tried so hard to win and has come up short every single time that Leo will never win that Golden Statute.

Leonardo DiCaprio has a new movie coming out this Oscar season called The Revenant. It's made by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu- the man who just won two Academy Awards for directing and producing Birdman a few months ago- and the Oscar hype train for Leo has already started. Leo has already stated how grueling and agonizing the filming conditions were, how he ate raw bison meat, and how he actually slept in an animal carcass. He is certainly setting the stage early and creating a narrative for himself in hopes in endear himself to other Oscar voters. Yet the mood that I am sensing from people not in the industry is the same one my wife had after she saw a trailer to The Revenant, "Well, that's another film Leo isn't going to win an Oscar for."

I am not suggesting that Leo will not win an Academy Award for The Revenant just because he hasn't won one before, I am saying that he will not win one for his role in the film because Leo has a fundamental misunderstanding of how The Game is played. I have no idea if Leo will or won't get nominated for his work in Inarritu's latest, but I do know that he will not win.

You can claim talent and performance all you want until you're blue in the face, but talent and quality is not indicative of Oscar success. It's why Dances With Wolves can defeat Goodfellas for Best Picture, why The Social Network can get screwed by The King's Speech, and why Leo won't win for his work in The Revenant. The Academy Awards are not an objective opinion of who or what is best, it's an opinion by a very small, non-diverse, closed-minded group of what they collectively think is best. To The Academy's credit (detriment?), they are consistent on what they determine is best, and for some reason, Leo hasn't figured this out yet.

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2015 Academy Awards

1)      Birdman tied The Grand Budapest Hotel in terms of total Oscar wins with four. Birdman took home the big three (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay) and well as Best Cinematography (which any cinephile knows is also another huge accomplishment, but we’ll get to that in another bullet point). After its SAG, DGA, and PGA win, Birdman and its director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu became the favorite to win the biggies and considering how creative and unique Birdman is, it’s not hard to see how these wins aren’t well-deserved. I personally did not like Birdman, but I respected the hell out of it and I’m not terribly bummed that it won.

2)      Inarritu's (and others) win for Birdman’s screenplay will be considered an upset by many as the general notion was that Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel was going to take the category. However, if you followed me and my advice, this Birdman win should have been expected. Since the film was projected to win Best Picture, it was the favorite (by me) to win Best Original Screenplay as it’s tough to claim a film is the very best without its screenplay also being the very best. If only people listened to me more.

3)      As mentioned earlier, The Grand Budapest Hotel also won four Oscars (Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Make Up and Hairstyling, and Best Score). While all technical awards, Wes Anderson films, especially Hotel, tend to be grand productions so it’s not surprising it won so many technical awards. Again, this is another film I didn’t care for (I actually hated it), but the sets were remarkable, the costumes really were outstanding, and they did such a great job making Tilda Swinton look like a completely different person that I didn’t know she was in the film until much later.

4)      Alexandre Desplat was nominated twice in the Best Score category (for his work on Hotel and The Imitation Game) but since voters only see the name of the movie when they vote, many people thought (including yours truly) that Johann Johannsson would win Best Score for his work on The Theory of Everything. This was one of the few upsets of the night, but an overall well-deserved win by a talented composer. 

2015 Oscar Preview: Best Picture

THE NOMINEES:

- American Sniper
- Birdman
- Boyhood
- Selma
- The Imitation Game
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Theory of Everything
- Whiplash




WHAT SHOULD BE HERE: Nightcrawler

Recently I wrote about why Edge of Tomorrow should have received a Best Picture nomination, Action flicks and superhero flicks can be good and there's no reason we can't say they're one one the 8 to 10 best films of the year when they're done properly. Star Wars was nominated for Best Picture in 1978. The Dark Knight may not have earned a Best Picture nod, but its snub was the main reason The Academy changed how voters choose the Best Picture nominees. Frankly, the way Hollywood is leaning with more emphasis on Marvel and DC properties and less emphasis on "prestige" films, the Academy might as well steer into the skid.

However, there's no way on God's Green Earth that a film like Edge of Tomorrow or Guardians of the Galaxy was going to get a Best Picture nomination in 2015. A film that actually had a chance to earn a nomination was Dan Gilroy's dark and twisted thriller Nightcrawler. The acting in the film was spectacular, the story was so complex, layered, and nuanced, and it sucked you in from the get go. Just an incredible film and a perfect movie to speak to those 30 and under- which of course is not in The Academy's wheelhouse which is why it didn't receive a nomination.

Click here for my full review of Nightcrawler