[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Seeing no thread on this, I thought this would be a good time to post your predictions.

This year, we decided to see all movies nominated for Best Picture and saw almost all of them, except for three (12 Years a Slave, Philomena and Her, which I didn't care to see much because I found their plots boring). Until yesterday, a clear winner for me was American Hustle. But last night we saw "Nebraska" directed by Alexander Payne and I now think this is by far the best movie of 2013. Dark, crisp and ruthless picture of deep American rural mid-west. Good story, brilliant cinematography, great acting by the entire cast. I doubt the Academy will give it a win over the politically-correct and over-exploited slavery movie directed by a director with British accent, but it truly deserves it, I think. I will cheer for "Nebraska" tonight.

My 2014 Oscar main award predictions:

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave (My vote: Nebraska)
Best Director: Steve McQueen (My vote: Alexander Payne)
Best Lead Actor: Matthew McConaughey (My vote: Matthew McConaughey)
Best Lead Actress: Cate Blanchett (My vote: Cate Blanchett)
Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto (My vote: Jared Leto)
Best Original Screenplay: American Hustle (My vote: Nebraska)
Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave (My vote: I don't have one)

I think American Hustle should win for best cinematography and musical score.

One more, I have no idea how Gravity made it to the top nominations list. I found it nothing but an exercise in computer graphic design. As SNL's Taran Killam said it yesterday: "If I wanted to watch a depressed middle-age woman float around for 90 minutes, I'd go to the YMCA." What a laughable nomination...

I literally can't take anything you say seriously after the bolded parts. If you had seen any of those films you wouldn't say their plots were boring. The fact that you think 12 Years A Slave will win only because it's politically correct and because the (brilliant) director has a British accent, well then not only have you clearly not seen it, a problem in the first place, but you're very misinformed. It's a masterpiece of a film about an important TRUE story, that we should be loathe to forget. Nothing on the subject of slavery has hit home to the truth of it the way 12 Years did, and if you don't think that's worthy of praise over Nebraska (which I also found good, but nowhere in the same category of some of these other films) then you don't know much about film.

Article from the Guardian explaining how important this film is: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014...-shameful-past

But in America many people have asked why it has taken so long for a film to do justice to the appalling plight of African America's slave ancestors and why no US film-makers have succeeded before in confronting their country's shameful past with such unflinching power and historical accuracy. Variety said it was a "disgrace" that, after so long, it has taken "a British director to stare the issue in its face".

There were exactly 101 slave narratives written by fugitive slaves between 1760 and 1865 and another 101 published after 1865. So there were 202 written accounts by former slaves and only one slave narrative has been made into a feature film.

This is to say nothing of the fact that Her is one of the most original films I've seen in some time, and all of that comes from the story and plot. I get so tired of people bemoaning the awards that films get when they haven't even seen it to properly evaluate it. If you like a film because you found it personally endearing, great, say that, but don't say it deserves to win because of your personal taste.

Quite frankly, if you're talking about pure quality of filmmaking Nebraska ranks quite low on the list from my trained eye, but it's saving graces are the performances (and I actually LIKED Will Forte in it) and the subject matter, but by no means is the story as important as 12 Years, DBC, Philomena, or Her.

It's the problem of the "recency effect" where you remember only the most recent event, and often more fondly. Also, you just haven't seen some of the others to compare effectively so it's failure by omission.

*sigh* rant over.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to direct most of this rant at you personally, just some of these phenomenon that drive me crazy around award season. I apologize if I offended.