2014 Oscar Preview: Best Director

NOMINEES:
- Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)
- Alexander Payne (Nebraska)
- David O. Russell (American Hustle)
- Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street)
- Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave)

SHOULD BE HERE: Spike Jonze (Her)

Her is one of the best films of the year, and when you make one of the best films of the year, you deserve to get a Best Director nomination. Sure, it's mainly bolstered by Spike Jonze's amazing script, but his script in the wrong hands is easily nominated for a butt load of Razzies. Plus, Jonze deserves a nomination solely for making Joaquin Phoenix lovable and easy to root for.

13 Best Oscar Nominated Performances of 2014

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2014 Oscar Preview: Best Actor

NOMINEES:
- Bruce Dern (Nebraska)
- Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave)
- Christian Bale (American Hustle)
- Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
- Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

SHOULD BE HERE: Joaquin Phoenix (Her)

The hipster in me wants to say Michael B. Jordan for his work in Fruitvale Station, but Phoenix was just too good to ignore (unless you're the Academy of course!). Phoenix has been doing such outstanding work recently, that he's bordering Daniel Day-Lewis status for excellence.

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress

Nick Davis tweeted recently:

This year's Best Picture nominees covered 16 of the 20 acting nods, the most since 1943. Pic, Dir, Acting races comprise of only 11 titles.

This inspired's Grantland's Oscar expert Mark Harris to write an excellent article about how expanding the Best Picture race has hurt the chances of outsider nominations. As a casual movie goer, I do my best to see all the Oscar nominated films that I can, but as a result, I fall victim  to what Harris talked about in the article- I really only see the films that "I have to see". As a result, when I'm searching through films to watch between January and March, I really only watch films that have multiple Oscar nominations.

Films like Blue Jasmine and August: Osage County make up 40% of these two categories, but they have only one other Oscar nominee among them outside of these categories. Needless to say, I missed both films because I feel I could (and both look boring anyways).

Basically what I'm trying to say, is that I have not seen many of these nominations, and for that, I apologize. Every year the Female Acting categories are easily my weakest category to write about, and this year is no exception. 

BEST ACTRESS

NOMINEES:

- Amy Adams (American Hustle)

- Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

- Judy Dench (Philomena)

- Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

- Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

SHOULD BE HERE: Scarlett Johansson (Her)

Screw Hollywood and their pompous attitude against solely voice acting. Her falls apart without Johansson's terrific performance. And if Hollywood thinks anyone can do voice acting, think again. Johansson actually replaced Samantha Morton after director Spike Jonze realized Morton was not right for the part. What Scarlett Johansson did with her voice alone was better than what most actors did with their entire body in 2013.

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Supporting Actor

NOMINEES:
- Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
- Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)
- Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
- Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street)
- Michael Fassbender (12 Years A Slave)

SHOULD BE HERE: James Franco (Spring Breakers)

Franco might not have gotten a nomination anyways because I can't imagine many people in the Academy even saw (or attempted to see) Spring Breakers, but since his performance as Oscar host a few years back was so bad, he's probably never getting a nomination again. It's a shame too, because when he actually tries and doesn't mail in performances, like when he portrayed the gangster Alien in Spring Breakers, he can be the best actor on the planet. James Franco has the acting chops to fill the void that Philip Seymour Hoffman has unfortunately left behind, but only if Franco continues to make bold and wonderful acting choices like he did in this Harmony Korine picture. James Franco is easily the best part of this pretentious film, and probably did some of, if not THE best, acting of 2013.

However, out of the actors that did have a legitimate shot, I think either Will Forte or Stacy Keach (mainly Forte) from Nebraska should be here. It's crazy to me to think that very few people other than Will Forte could have done what he did.

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).