STACK Feb Issue 124

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FEBRUARY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
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EXTRAS NEWS
W ell, as usual, some of the leading
nominees haven’t arrived at the
cinemas yet, so they are unlikely to
be in-store until the middle of the year at least.
However, one of the leading nominees is
already out on DVD and Blu-ray, while one of
the year’s biggest favourites is due this month.
Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest
Hotel – which earned nine nominations,
including Best Picture and Best Director – has
been out for a while and was one of last year’s
must-have films.
Another Golden Globe winner, Boyhood,
remains one of the favourites for the top prizes
and it will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on
February 26. Richard Linklater’s heartwarming
coming-of-age tale is up for six Oscars,
including Best Picture and Best Director, plus
supporting acting nods for Ethan Hawke and
Patricia Arquette, and is available for pre-order
at JB Hi-Fi. (STACK talks to Linklater about
Boyhood on page 44)
Out on the same day is another multiple
nominee, Whiplash , whose five nominations
include Best Picture and a deserved
Supporting Actor nod for J.K. Simmons.
The Judge, which is out on February 11,
looked like prime Oscar material on paper,
but has had to settle for a Best Supporting
Actor nod for veteran Robert Duvall. And David
Fincher’s masterful thriller Gone Girl (on
shelves this month February 4) also picked up
just a solitary nomination, with Rosamund Pike
in the running for Best Actress. Meanwhile,
you can get a headstart in the Best Foreign
Film category by checking out Pawel
Pawlikowski’s moving Polish drama Ida, which
is in-store now.
As far as the Best Animated Feature
contenders go, the delightful stop-motion hit
The Boxtrolls has just been released on DVD
and Blu-ray, while another on the short-list,
W e know last year’s Oscars feel like an ice age
ago, but remember the ballyhoo about the
Australian nominations? Cate Blanchett for
Best Actress inBlue Jasmine (which she won),
Catherine Martin for Costume Design in The Great
Gatsby (also won), Beverly Dunn and Catherine Martin
again for Production Design on The Great Gatsby (won),
Michael Wilkinson for Costume Design in American
Hustle, and Dave Clayton for Visual Effects in The
Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. There was even
an Aussie co-presenter when the noms were
announced: man with excellent hair, Chris Hemsworth.
This year? Not so much. In fact, only two: David Lee,
as a part of the Sound Mixing team behind Angelina
Jolie’s Unbroken, and Tim Crosbie, who’s one quarter
of the X-Men: Days of Future Past Visual Effects
crew. While we beamingly applaud these two, there are
some Aussie snubs that are getting our goat.
Why not Nicole Kidman for Before I Go to Sleep, or
the brilliant Essie Davis in indie horror The Babadook,
or the visual effects and animation in The Lego Movie,
which only appears in the Best Original Song category
for Everything is Awesome?
Perhaps, as Guardians of the Galaxy director
James Gunn suggested in a recent Facebook post,
these aren’t the kind of movies the Academy takes
seriously. But that still doesn’t explain why our
marvellous submission for Best Foreign Film, Rolf de
Heer’s Charlie’s Country, was good enough to win at
Cannes but not good enough for an Oscar nom – nor did
the Academy breathe in the direction of Russell Crowe
for Noah. And dare we ask: When’s Baz Luhrmann
going to get his achievement award? (Never? - Ed.)
He’s a divisive director to be sure, but in terms of a
singular auteur vision, there hasn’t been a man who has
contributed more eccentric, flamboyant colour to the
filmic canon in a long time.
The authoritative honchos in the States love to wax
lyrical about how much they love the Aussies, but when
it comes down to the wire it seems they’re happy to
rest on their American (white, male) laurels. Poor form,
dudes. Let’s hope Selma gets Best Picture, and we’ll
consider it a win for all.
extra,
extra
CALLING ANY
AUSSIES IN THE
ACADEMY HOUSE?
The Grand Budapest Hotel
and Boyhood dominate the
Oscar nominations
Charlie’s Country
Selma
So when will this year’s
nominated films start
arriving at JB Hi-Fi?
How To Train Your Dragon 2, is also available
now at JB Hi-Fi. The hilarious The Lego
Movie was shamefully snubbed at this year’s
awards, so let’s just hope that its fab theme
song Everything Is Awesome gets the award
for Best Song.
Meanwhile, a fair few of the other leading
contenders are out now – or due shortly – on
the big screen.
The Imitation Game, with eight
nominations, opened on New Year’s Day,
while Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s backstage
comedy Birdman – which picked up nine
nominations – has just begun its cinema run.
Clint Eastwood’s latest, American Sniper
(in the running for six Oscars) and Wild, with
star Reese Witherspoon one of the front-
runners for the Best Actress Oscar, are also in
cinemas now.
The other main frontrunner in that category
is Julianne Moore, for her performance in
Still Alice, which is due to open in cinemas
on January 29, along with The Theory of
Everything (five nominations including Best
Actor and Actress nods for Eddie Redmayne
and Felicity Jones) and Foxcatcher, which is
also up for five Oscars, including Best Actor
(a creepy Steve Carell) and Best Director
(Bennett Miller).
Elsewhere, the Russian drama Leviathan,
the favourite to pick up the Best Foreign Film
award, can currently be seen at the Perth
International Film Festival, but otherwise you
will have to wait until the end of March to
catch it at the cinemas.
So what about Australia’s contenders?
Well, it’s slim pickings indeed this year, with
David Lee up for an Oscar for Best Sound
Mixing for Angelina Jolie’s Australian-shot
Unbroken, and Tim Crosbie, visual FX guy
on X-Men: Days of Future Past. On the
other side of the Tasman, Kiwi writer Anthony
McCarten, who wrote and co-produced The
Theory of Everything, is up for two Oscars;
although Peter Jackson’s second film in his
Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies,
only received a nomination for Sound Editing,
and is due in-store at JB on March 26.
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