KiltsMcOscars 2015 - My Personal Film Awards

KiltsMcOscars 2015 – My Personal Film Awards 

This is primarily a joke. This paragraph has added post-...post because it seems a score of people don't understand the irony of me simply guessing at random the winners. Just don't take it seriously... please.

Best Picture

Grand Budapest Hotel – This category is a pretty underwhelming one for me. I have only seen Birdman and the Grand Budapest Hotel (which I saw on a plane). Looking back on the two, I would say that enjoyed the Wes Anderson film more.

Best Actor

Michael Keaton – Erm, this is hard for me as this is the only film in the category that I have actually seen. So, by default, Michael Keaton wins best actor. He was very good either way.

Best Actress

Rosamund Pike – I haven’t seen any of the films in this category. I can’t say that this was the best actress of 2014 because I didn’t see the movie. I think she was brilliant in many other films so here is a random guess.

Best Supporting Actor

Edward Norton – This may as well be a category that has a default winner. I did see Boyhood and I thought it was actually one of the most boring things that has existed. It runs for, I believe, six hours. It certainly felt like it. Ethan Hawke wasn’t even exceptionally good. I am perplexed by the seemingly overwhelming adoration of everyone. Edward Norton was hilarious and layered though and I haven’t seen the others in the category.

Best Supporting Actress

Emma Stone – This is a very similar story to the last category. I have only seen Boyhood and Birdman in this category and I feel I have made my Boyhood opinions clear so, congratulations to Emma Stone.

Best Animated Picture

Big Hero 6 – This category should have the Lego Movie in it. Since it isn’t present, I have seen none of the films in this category and so have to make an educated guess. I have heard a lot of praise for this film and while I believe the statue may be given to one of the 2D animations or the Boxtrolls, I have been most interested in Big Hero 6.

Best Cinematography

Grand Budapest Hotel – This film ones again goes toe to toe with Birdman and while Birdman has the flashier camerawork of the two, GBH has a brilliant way of using static camera shots of portraying the story rather like a play. For that I award the KiltsMcOscar for Best Cinematography.

Best Costume Design

Grand Budapest Hotel – Only one seen in the category once again. Even still the Grand Budapest Hotel spans many decades with its story and so has to utilise costume in a way that describes the time, place and character of the humans that were wearing the clothing in question.

Best Directing

Grand Budapest Hotel – This is starting to get repetitive but this is probably the category filled with the most films I have actually seen. I love Wes Anderson so much from films like Fantastic Mr Fox. There is something about his perfectionism that I innately love and every shot in his films look incredible.

Best Documentary Feature

CitizenFour – Looking at the nominees for this category and wondering which film I am going to guess will win, I decided the name of this one struck me the most. Where were citizen one, two and three? Why is there no space between the words? Well done, you got rather lucky.

Best Documentary Short Project

White Earth – Another guess in this category. I guess it sounds rather intriguing though.

Best Editing

Grand Budapest Hotel – This choice is mainly based on the fact that I can’t remember a single cut that conveyed anything in Boyhood. I honestly don’t understand why it is in this category. So great win GBH.

Best Foreign Language Film

Leviathan – It has a really cool name.

Best Make-Up and Hairstyling

Guardians of the Galaxy – The only Marvel film that has ever won an Oscar is Spiderman 2. If you were to be an awful human, you would use this fact to claim that Spiderman 2 is the best Marvel film. That is a crime. Not only did GotG have great make-up (see Drax the Destroyer, Nebula and Gamora) but it has that underdog story element to it. I feel like Foxcatcher will win the actual Oscar due to its status as not a superhero film but the sheer multitude of coloured aliens trumps Mark Ruffalo’s ear lobes.

Best Original Score

Grand Budapest Hotel – Listening now to the soundtrack of GBH reminds me of how well it matches the wild goose chase feel of the film and it just instils happiness into me with it’s hectic yet organised strings and slowly piling of other sections like vocals, harps and brass.

Best Original Song

Everything is Awesome, Lego Movie – Insanely catchy and highlights the underlying themes of the film. It was used in similar way to Fare Thee Well in Inside Llewyn Davis in that it subtly changed throughout the film because of the change in context. Lovely stuff.

Best Production Design

Grand Budapest Hotel – For me this film beats Interstellar for this. While the shots in interstellar were incredible, they felt like fake creations posing as real experiences. In the Grand Budapest Hotel it felt like fake creation posing as fake creations. There is something about the Balamory-esque building design and the painted backdrops that are very attractive and give more meaning to the fact that the film is being told to an author. All the memories are rather like fake creations. Great job.

Best Animated Short

The Dam Keeper – Sounds ominous and folklore-ish.

Best Live Action Short

Boogaloo and Graham – sounds rather psychedelic and fun.

Best Sound Editing

Interstellar – The film provides you with a jaw-chattering supply of booms and whooshes and spacecraft and intensity. The film rather mimics Gravity in its instant cuts from loud tones to utter silence.

Best Sound Mixing

Interstellar – Pretty much the same thing again, the sound design mirrored the mesmerising visuals. The sounds throughout the film were hugely atmospheric (that’s a space joke).

Best Visual Effects

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – One of the earliest shots in the film is a pull-back from Caesar (the ape not the Roman emperor). It starts and the models and texture on the apes are so well thought in terms of environment and even in terms of the culture of the ape tribe. The apes are anatomically accurate at all times, they seem as if they are there and they are rendered so fantastically well. Indistinguishable from reality.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Imitation Game – I’ve heard that it is great.

Best Original Screenplay

Grand Budapest Hotel – Not Boyhood, not Boyhood. How on Earth was Boyhood nominated for a writing award. The writing in the film was absolutely dreadful. The third act is filled with some hipster, mumbling teenager spouting pseudo-philosophical nonsense. Grand Budapest Hotel on the other hand is perfectly written and delivered the way the dialogue is written allows for every line to be funny. Brilliant writing.

2014 A Year In Review

Not a disappointing year but I am looking forward to 2015 far more than I was 2014. There are tow things 2014 taught me. DO NOT WATCH BOYHOOD. WATCH THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL.

Please feel free to leave a comment on either the movie or the review. Say if you liked or disliked the movie. I'm interested to find out what you think!