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.