As we arrive at the middle of 2015, it's only prudent to look back over the year's first half to try to identify which films and people have the strongest shot at being remembered by the Academy after year's end.
As it turns 40 this year, Industrial Light & Magic can claim to have played a defining role making effects for 317 movies. Pixar began, essentially, as an ILM internal investigation. Photoshop was invented, in part, by an ILM employee tinkering with programming in his time away from work. Billions of lines of code have been formulated there. Along the way ILM has put tentacles into pirate beards, turned a man into mercury, and dominated box office charts with computer-generated dinosaurs and superheroes.
"The Grand Budapest Hotel" cleaned up and took home all of the ones you’d expect a critically acclaimed Wes Anderson movie to win (Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup And Hairstyling, Original Score), John Legend and Common’s “Glory” won Best Original Song after a performance that brought David Oyelowo to tears, Eddie Redmayne and Patricia Arquette helped "The Theory Of Everything" and "Boyhood" avoid total shutouts by winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress (respectively), and Julianne Moore won for "Still Alice."
Megan Fox was named worst supporting actress for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," while Kelsey Grammer won worst supporting actor for his work in four films -- "The Expendables 3," "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return," "Think Like a Man Too" and "Transformers: Age of Extinction."
The crop of winners includes two accolades for "Nightcrawler," two for "Boyhood," and three for "Birdman," including Best Feature. "Whiplash" also did well, and in general the Indie Spirit awards this year lined up very strongly with the Oscar predictions we and many other people have made. Check out all the winners for the Independent Spirit Awards 2015 below.
The ceremony, hosted by Emmy Rossum, honored costume designer Albert Wolsky for his work in "Birdman," Colleen Atwood for "Into the Woods" and Milena Canonero for "The Grand Budapest Hotel."
On Sunday at the Westin Bonaventure, the sound editors behind American Sniper were honored with Golden Reel Awards in the category for FX/Foley, Unbroken for dialogue/ADR, Birdman for music, and Get On Up for a musical feature. Additionally, Big Hero 6's sound editors won the category for an animated feature.
It topped a field of nominees that included Roger Deakins for "Unbroken;" Oscar Faura, "The Imitation Game;" Dick Pope, "Mr Turner;" and Robert Yeoman, "The Grand Budapest Hotel."
"The Imitation Game" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" were winners on Saturday night at the Writers Guild of America Awards, claiming honors for adapted screenplay and original screenplay respectively.
The BAFTA Awards were handed out at the Royal Opera House tonight in London, and IFC Films’ Boyhood took the big prize with the Best Film award, its third overall nod of the night including for director Richard Linklater and supporting actress Patricia Arquette.
"We did this movie because we wanted to tell their story — our story," Selma producer Oprah Winfrey said accepting the honor for her film. She also presented the Entertainer of the Year award to No Good Deed's Taraji P. Henson.
Amy Pascal is stepping down as co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and as chairman of Sony’s Motion Picture Group. Her profile was battered last year when the hack of Sony servers revealed email conversations between Pascal and producers and execs. And while the official line is that Pascal’s transition has been in the works for a while (which might not surprise those who have paid attention to Sony’s troubles over the past couple years) the broad supposition is that this change is directly related to the hacks. Pascal will stay on at Sony in a producing capacity, launching her own production shingle on the Sony lot.
Wednesday at the Beverly Hilton, Oscar nominee Apes additionally won trophies for animated character (Caesar) and compositing. Also in the feature competitions, Oscar nominees X-Men: Days of Future Past won two awards, for effects simulation and virtual cinematography; and Interstellar won one, for created enviroment.
"The Grand Budapest Hotel," with production design by Adam Stockhausen, was the winner in the Period Film category, while "Guardians of the Galaxy," with production design by Charles Wood, was cited in the Fantasy Film category and "Birdman," with production design by Kevin Thompson, was the victor in the Contemporary Film category.
A number of other features took home one or two awards apiece. "The LEGO Movie" won best writing (Phil Lord and Chris Miller), "The Book of Life" won character design (Paul Sullivan, Sandra Equihua, Jorge R. Gutierrez), "Big Hero 6" won animated effects (Michael Kaschalk, Peter DeMund, David Hutchins, Henrik Falt, John Kosnik), and "The Boxtrolls" won production design (Paul Lasaine, Tom McClure, August Hall), and voice acting (Sir Ben Kingsley).
The awards have a strong track record for predicting the Oscar in the editing category. In nine of the past 12 years, the best edited dramatic feature winner has gone on to win the Oscar in editing. One time in that period, the winner for the comedy or musical category (Chicago) took the prize at the Oscars.
"Birdman" and its ensemble cast took top acting honors at the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, held Sunday night at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, while the winning ensembles in TV were "Downton Abbey," a repeat winner for drama, and "Orange Is the New Black," for comedy.
"The Lego Movie" won the award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures following its snub for the corresponding Academy Award. That fact was alluded to by producer Dan Lin, who noted in his acceptance speech that the film has had “its share of wins and losses.” But, he continued, “the real win has been the friends I’ve made along the way… so I thank my friends.” Deadline’s Pete Hammond will post an analysis of the awards later tonight.
The 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards nominees have been announced. ABC tops the broadcast networks with six nominations while HBO takes the most noms for a cable network with five nominations.
"Boyhood" continued its strong awards-season showing, picking up Film of the Year, Best Director for Richard Linklater and Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette at the London Critics Circle Film Awards.
"Boyhood" took best picture, "Birdman"'s Michael Keaton won Best Actor and Julianne Moore took home Best Actress at the Critics Choice Awards for her work as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in "Still Alice."
The cinematographers of Concrete Night, The Immigrant and Under the Skin are nominated for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Spotlight Award, an honor that debuted a year ago to recognize cinematography in features and documentaries that are typically screened at film festivals, internationally or in limited release.
"American Sniper," "Birdman," "Boyhood," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," "The Imitation Game," "Selma," "The Theory of Everything" and "Whiplash" were nominated for best picture when the 87th Academy Award nominations were announced Thursday morning.
The Directors Guild of America on Wednesday announced its nominees in the TV, documentary and commercial categories — and one director managed to score mentions in both the comedy and drama categories.
The action sequel starring Mark Wahlberg alongside morphing robots led all films Tuesday with seven nominations, including worst picture, worst sequel, worst screenplay and worst screen combo.
"The Grand Budapest"'s Wes Anderson, "Boyhood"'s Richard Linklater and "The Imitation Game"'s Morten Tyldum all received their first nominations from the Directors Guild of America as the guild announced its nominees for outstanding feature film directing on Tuesday. Also joining the select circle were "Birdman"'s Alejandro G. Inarritu, a previous nominee, and "American Sniper"'s Clint Eastwood, a previous winner.
"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" earned five nominations, including in the top category of outstanding visual effects in a VFX-driven feature, leading the field in the feature competition of the 13th annual Visual Effects Society Awards, which will be presented Feb. 4 at the Beverly HIlton.
Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" won for best motion picture drama, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" claimed the win for best comedy, Eddie Redmayne won best actor in a drama for "The Theory of Everything," Amy Adams won best actress, comedy or musical, for "Big Eyes," Patricia Arquette won best supporting actress for her role in "Boyhood" and J.K. Simmons claimed a win for "Whiplash" for best supporting actor.
In an announcement streamed live online from London on Friday morning (late Thursday in LA), BAFTA revealed the nominations for the 68th edition of its awards.
While the Academy’s emphasis on in-context songs admirably attempts to keep the movie part of the award in play, the music division’s old-fashioned tastes combined with various rulings makes them seem vaguely hostile to any musical artists operating outside of a standard movie-score (or in the case of songs, Broadway-style) framework.
With three nominations each, Guardians of the Galaxy and Into The Woods lead the feature film categories of the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild's outstanding achievement awards, which will be presented Feb. 14 at Paramount Studios.
With new date changes for Artios eligibility, 2013 film titles like "12 Years a Slave," "Captain Phillips" and "American Hustle" will contend in the big-budget drama competition with "Foxcatcher," "Gone Girl" and "Selma."
In the not-so-distant past, only the bravest visitors trekked up through this devil's knot of dead ends, blind curves, narrow streets and treacherous inclines to get to the sign, just a few miles north of Sunset Boulevard. Then the Internet and navigation systems disrupted everything. "Before GPS, somebody from Omaha was afraid to head up here," says Tom LaBonge, the local city councilman. "Now they're not."
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s "Birdman" is leading the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) International Awards nominations with mentions in seven categories, ahead of "Boyhood" and "The Imitation Game," which received five nominations each.
The highly experimental 3-D film premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival, ultimately earning Godard the Jury Prize (which Godard shared with Xavier Dolan and his Mommy, an amusing and progressive juxtaposition between the new and the old), along with a Palme d’Or nod.
The Producers Guild of America on Monday announced its nominees for best film, a list that was heavy on indie features like "Boyhood" and "Whiplash" along with a couple of studio entries like "American Sniper" and "Gone Girl" joining the mix.
"Interstellar" also among the nominees for the Art Directors Guild's 19th annual Excellence in Production Design Awards, which will be handed out Jan. 31 at the Beverly Hilton.
At last year's New York Film Critics Circle awards dinner, critic Armond White was reported to have heckled Steve McQueen, who was accepting a best director award for 12 Years a Slave, by calling out, "You're an embarrassing doorman and garbage man."
Though no animated feature ever has been nominated for the best production design Oscar, there's nothing in the rule book to prevent that from happening. Animation filmmakers argue it's time that their production design teams get their due. After all, everything they create is built entirely from scratch.
"Mireille and Bonnie are two of the most accomplished and prolific filmmakers working in feature animation today," Katzenberg said in a statement. "I am confident in their ability to marshal the extensive creative resources available at our studio and lead DreamWorks' vast ranks of artists and filmmakers as they produce the highest quality entertainment."