NO NOMINATION FOR THE LEGO MOVIE

WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO

Seriously, this is disappointing.  It's further destroyed my faith in the Academy Awards and made even more blatantly obvious that they're just a popularity contest.

I'm surprised that TLM wasn't nominated, but I haven't seen any of the animation nominees so I can't really complain.

Looking over this list, I haven't seen any of the nominees in any category other than TLM and Days of Future Past. Should probably go to the theater every once in a while...

The LEGO Movie's snub is disgusting.  The only other film I saw on the list was Dragon 2, which was good, but not especially original nor as delightful as The LEGO Movie.  I thought it would win for sure.

But, on the bright side, it seems as though a decent portion of people across the Net are also disappointed about this news, not just the people who sit in dark rooms taking pictures of tiny plastic men.  So we're not entirely alone.

But at least The Grand Budapest Hotel got some nominations, as it was one of the few Oscar films I've seen this year and I did like it a lot.  So I'll just root for that one.

The LEGO Movie is a horrific snub, yes, but these nominations as a whole are just awful, probably one of the most disappointing nominee lists out of the Academy in many years.

Hard to swallow the fact that Selma, one of the years' most critically-acclaimed films, barely squeaks by with 2 nominations (and frankly, with those stats, its Best Picture nomination now just feels like a bad joke). Also very disappointed by the lack of Jake Gyllenhaal in Best Actor for Nightcrawler (or anything else for Nightcrawler, really). I haven't seen American Sniper yet, but the Academy seems to have a lot of unexpected love for it.

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Eh, I'm not a huge fan of biopics and would much rather see more original films get attention, so I'm not too bothered by Selma (which, to be fair, I know almost nothing of to begin with).  Conversely I'm annoyed that The Imitation Game and particularly The Theory of Everything seems to be hogging a lot of the attention, particularly as the latter strikes me as being the sort of movie that is blatantly pandering towards the critics and pretentious Oscar-bait.  (Well, I suppose it's not too surprising, but still...).  I still need to see Birdman and Nightcrawler, so I can't judge on those counts, but I hear both are really, really, good, and I've been particularly wanting to go see Nightcrawler for a while now.

I've never even heard of 2 of the animated ones.
TLM snub is horrific.
I think using a limited release to get your movie in at the end of the year is kind of cheap.

This is horse !@#$. Pure !@#$ horse !@#$.

In no real competition of film making merits could Big Hero 6 and the Boxtrolls every objectively stand up to the LEGO Movie in terms of originality, story, technical expertise, and just FUN. It can be assumed that Big Hero 6 was picked because DIDNEY WORL, but I think most can agree that it's a pretty disappointing and underdeveloped film, especially when compared to what Disney's been doing the past couple of years. It's to short for the story it should tell, it has two kind of interesting characters paired with several who COULD be interesting, but they just get pushed to side comic relief. Yeah, the particle, nanobot things are MILDLY impressive animation-wise, but the simulation of lots of small complex thingies in a CGI movie is something I've already seen done before and in a more interesting way this year. 3 GUESSES WHAT FILM IT WAS, C'MON THIS IS A HARD ONE.

And as for the BoxTrolls, well, it was just so horribly meh. Like, seriously, I think being terribly average is the absolute worst thing a film could be. I adore Coraline and ParaNorman. They both have likable lead and supporting characters, and their story, universes, and animation is flawlessly amazing. But the BoxTrolls fails to capture that spirit for me. Mr. Oliver Twist sendup #452 was boring/annoying, along with the rest of his supporting armatures. The story was cliche and predictable. And I just found the general art style of this film a lot less appealing than its predecessors. The Box Trolls themselves are just so ugly. Like, there's a fine line between endearingly ugly and a beached blobfish, and this movie crossed into the latter for me with the trolls and a lot of the characters.

And can I just say that I'm shocked that a SIMULATION of stop motion animation has transfixed and captivated me more than the real thing? Cause that's mostly true. And this is mostly stupid and their opinion is bad and they should feel bad.

$2.02

Youtube @TheRealSonjira I consider it a personal defeat if my pee is not perfectly clear every time.]

*inserts 2 cents into comment-machine, steps into booth, sits down on stool, adjusts appearence, clears throat*

The Academy has about seven thousand members. The average age of these members is over 50, and every member has some sort of tie to the film industry. At the end of the day, the Oscar's are just a collection of opinions. They are societies elite being giving a yay or nay on a narrow set of middlebrow features.

I think it's actually detrimental to win an Oscar. I haven't heard anyone say anything about The Artist or Argo since they won. Anyone (other than real experts) heard of Ordinary People? Out Of Africa? Tom Jones? Rebecca? Winners of golden statuettes to grow dust on a shelf - not winners of the test of time.

I've actually seen Out of Africa... does that make me a "real expert"?

Your point is fair, though.  If the Academy Awards were actually unbiased and fully committed to honouring the best films of the year the term "Oscar-bait" wouldn't exist.  I think Leonardo DiCaprio is going to be more famous for not winning an Oscar than many actual winners will be for winning theirs.

With all that being said, who doesn't love themselves a nice little golden statuette?  Even if the Oscars are not a true test of time (though they really should be) I don't see how they'd negatively impact a film.  After all, it's a supposedly prestigious award plus free publicity.

EDIT: On the subject of Oscars, longevity, and best films of the year, Tony Zhou (he of A Every Frame a Painting) has a really interesting article on all that.  (Contains the odd bit of language).

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (January 15, 2015 (04:47pm))