INTERMISSION | Oscars Catch-Up

At the beginning of this week I set out a task to watch all of the films nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars. I'm half-way through and thought I'd provide a little break from reviews and talk about my favourites. 

The Grand Budapest Hotel  |  Dir. Wes Anderson   (Source: film captures)

To catch up, I've watched and reviewed, Boyhood, Whiplash, Selma, and The Imitation Game. Each film has the certain tropes one would expect from a Best Picture nominee, yet I feel the next four films display even more. I still have to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel, American Sniper, The Theory of Everything, and Birdman. I can't wait to watch Budapest and Birdman, and I'm rather dreading American Sniper and Theory of Everything. 

Likely to win Best Picture: If I didn't have clues from the way the awards season is going, I would still have to guess Boyhood would be favourite. It has won numerous Best Film awards at the BAFTAs, SAGs and Golden Globes, but it does scream Academy Award. I'm struggling to find many reasons why Linklater would film it, without one of the main goals being an award. 

The disappointment: The Imitation Game for me is the biggest disappointment, I wanted more.

Whiplash  |  Dir. Damien Chazelle  (Source: the guardian)

Deserves to win: Whiplash by a country-mile. The editing, acting, cinematography, sound, and character development was immense in this film. The colour was rich and the sound perfect. The editing, whilst obvious was at worst outstanding. It is by far the best piece of cinema out of this list. The only thing it lacks is this huge narrative that each of the other three films posses. Maybe that's why it stands out so much? 


I'm very excited to gauge a final opinion once I've watched the next group of nominees. Let me know your opinions on the eight films nominated, and which has been your favourite.