‘Birdman’, ‘Budapest’ And ‘Boyhood’ Get Key Oscar

Continuing its romp through the critics kudos this awards season Fox Searchlight’s Birdman drew a whopping 13 nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s 20th Annual Critics Choice Movie Awards.  In fact it’s a big day for Fox in general as Searchlight’s  March release, The Grand Budapest Hotel was remembered to the tune of 11 nominations, while big Fox scored 6 nominations  with Gone Girl . All three compete  for Best Picture, Director , Screenplay and significant acting nods. This is a big boost in particular for Budapest , coming on the heels of its SAG nod for Outstanding Cast  as well as four key Golden Globe nominations.  Usually films opening as early as March are largely forgotten when it comes to Best Picture attention but Budapest could be a rare exception in recent years if this triumph for the Wes Anderson comedy is repeated at the Oscars.  The last film that opened as early as March , or even April, and went on to a Best Picture Oscar nomination was Erin Brockovich in 2000.

The rest of the nominees for Picture include the other critics darling of the season so far, IFC’s Boyhood with 8 nominations, The Imitation Game with 6 , the surging Nightcrawler, Selma, The Theory Of Everything, Whiplash and Unbroken .  The latter got 4 key nominations including Director for Angelina Jolie , a rebound of sorts after the upcoming Christmas Day release was completely, and shockingly , shut out in last week’s Golden Globe nominations.  This should brighten spirits at Universal’s Hollywood premiere tonight which Jolie will sadly miss due to a well-publicized case of Chicken Pox. And it should steal some of the star power thunder for the CCMAs  from the normally glitzy Globes which this year bypassed the opportunity to nominate some of the bigger names.

Two other major studio war films with big stars, American Sniper and Fury, that were also totally shut out by the Globes also got a small rebound from the Broadcast Critics with nominations for the lesser Best  Action Movie  and Action Actor prize for Bradley Cooper and Brad Pitt respectively. But that’s probably small comfort for a couple of movies that had their sights set much higher and couldn’t break into the categories that count. And though they got significant below the line mentions two other biggies, Paramount and Warner Bros’  Interstellar and Disney’s Into The Woods also failed to make the Best Picture list (though Woods grabbed a nod for Meryl Streep in Support as well as for its sterling ensemble), as did Foxcatcher, which on the heels of its Globe Best Picture- Drama nod , received nothing more from the CCMAs than Supporting Actor for Mark Ruffalo and a Makeup nomination (for Steve Carell’s nose no doubt, if not the deserving Carell himself).

In the lead acting races the contenders are pretty much the same ones we have seen from SAG and the Globes. Only Marion Cotillard’s performance in Belgium’s Two Days, One Night was a CCMA Best Actress nomination not showing up on the other lists, although she has won several other critics group awards this season including from the New York Film Critics.  Previous underdogs,  Jennifer Aniston in Cake and  Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler  repeated their SAG and Globes success with nods here too making both very formidable bets , as I have suspected since seeing their respective films in Toronto in early September, to show up on Oscar’s radar too.   One small surprise in the Best Actor category where front runners Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch  and Michael Keaton will face off again, is the inclusion of Budapest’s  Ralph Fiennes  over Carell. Fiennes has been considered a bit of a long shot this season but he’s gaining momentum after his Globe nod in the Musical /Comedy Actor category and an ensemble nod from SAG.  He has two additional nods from CCMA , as does Keaton , for both Comedy Actor and Ensemble. Selma’s David Oyelowo, a SAG no-show , rounds out the Best Actor field.  Still Alice’s frontrunning Julianne Moore, Wild’s Reese Witherspoon, The Theory Of Everything’s Felicity Jones  and Gone Girl Rosamund Pike complete the list of Best Actress contenders. The Supporting candidates are identical to the Globes  except for CCMA additions going to Inherent Vice’s  hilarious Josh Brolin for the men  and Snowpiercer’s outrageous Tilda Swinton for the women (even though she may be playing a man in this one).

The CCMAs also seem to be strongly in line with the Globes this year in producing a Best Director list  that matches perfectly with Budapest’s Wes Anderson, Selma’s Ava DuVernay, Gone Girl’s David Fincher, Birdman’s Alejandro G. Inarritu and Boyhood’s Richard Linklater.  Only the inclusion of Jolie  for the CCMA list differs because this group (of which I am a voting member) generally allows six nominations per category instead of five (except for Best Picture which has ten).

The Critics Choice Movie Awards is increasingly important in the scheme of things  and will for the third year in a row take place on the same day that Oscar nominations will be announced. It airs – to the East Coast – live on new network partner, A&E from the Hollywood Palladium at 9pm ET on January 15th with Michael Strahan hosting.   The organization has quite a track record in matching the ultimateOscar winners.  Last year the eventual Academy Award champs first picked up a CCMA in 17 of the 19 categories they share. The Oscars differed only for Makeup  and Foreign Film (where the critics chose Blue Is The Warmest Color, a film ineligible for Oscar in that category).  Two years after he was stunningly snubbed in the morning for a Best Director Oscar  nomination for Argo , Ben Affleck went on that evening to win that honor at the CCMAs beginning a run that led to the DGA award  and eventually the Best Picture Oscar.

Here’s the full list of nominees in all 28 categories:

BEST PICTURE

Birdman

Boyhood

Gone Girl

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Nightcrawler

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Unbroken

Whiplash

BEST ACTOR

Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game

Ralph Fiennes – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Jake Gyllenhaal – Nightcrawler

Michael Keaton – Birdman

David Oyelowo – Selma

Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

BEST ACTRESS

Jennifer Aniston – Cake

Marion Cotillard – Two Days, One Night

Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything

Julianne Moore – Still Alice

Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon – Wild

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Josh Brolin – Inherent Vice

Robert Duvall – The Judge

Ethan Hawke – Boyhood

Edward Norton – Birdman

Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher

J.K. Simmons – Whiplash

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette – Boyhood

Jessica Chastain – A Most Violent Year

Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game

Emma Stone – Birdman

Meryl Streep – Into the Woods

Tilda Swinton – Snowpiercer

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS

Ellar Coltrane – Boyhood

Ansel Elgort – The Fault in Our Stars

Mackenzie Foy – Interstellar

Jaeden Lieberher – St. Vincent

Tony Revolori – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Quvenzhane Wallis – Annie

Noah Wiseman – The Babadook

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

Birdman

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Into the Woods

Selma

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Ava DuVernay – Selma

David Fincher – Gone Girl

Alejandro G. Inarritu – Birdman

Angelina Jolie – Unbroken

Richard Linklater – Boyhood

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Birdman – Alejandro G. Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Armando Bo

Boyhood – Richard Linklater

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness

Nightcrawler – Dan Gilroy

Whiplash – Damien Chazelle

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

The Imitation Game – Graham Moore

Inherent Vice – Paul Thomas Anderson

The Theory of Everything – Anthony McCarten

Unbroken – Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson

Wild – Nick Hornby

BEST CINEMATOGRAPY

Birdman – Emmanuel Lubezki

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Robert Yeoman

Interstellar – Hoyte Van Hoytema

Mr. Turner – Dick Pope

Unbroken – Roger Deakins

BEST ART DIRECTION

Birdman – Kevin Thompson/Production Designer, George DeTitta Jr./Set Decorator

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Adam Stockhausen/Production Designer, Anna Pinnock/Set Decorator

Inherent Vice – David Crank/Production Designer, Amy Wells/Set Decorator

Interstellar – Nathan Crowley/Production Designer, Gary Fettis/Set Decorator

Into the Woods – Dennis Gassner/Production Designer, Anna Pinnock/Set Decorator

Snowpiercer – Ondrej Nekvasil/Production Designer, Beatrice Brentnerova/Set Decorator

BEST EDITING

Birdman – Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione

Boyhood – Sandra Adair

Gone Girl – Kirk Baxter

Interstellar – Lee Smith

Whiplash – Tom Cross

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero

Inherent Vice – Mark Bridges

Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood

Maleficent – Anna B. Sheppard

Mr. Turner – Jacqueline Durran

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP

Foxcatcher

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Into the Woods

Maleficent

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Edge of Tomorrow

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Interstellar

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Big Hero 6

The Book of Life

The Boxtrolls

How to Train Your Dragon 2

The Lego Movie

BEST ACTION MOVIE

American Sniper

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Edge of Tomorrow

Fury

Guardians of the Galaxy

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE

Bradley Cooper – American Sniper

Tom Cruise – Edge of Tomorrow

Chris Evans – Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Brad Pitt – Fury

Chris Pratt – Guardians of the Galaxy

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE

Emily Blunt – Edge of Tomorrow

Scarlett Johansson – Lucy

Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Zoe Saldana – Guardians of the Galaxy

Shailene Woodley – Divergent

BEST COMEDY

Birdman

The Grand Budapest Hotel

St. Vincent

Top Five

22 Jump Street

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Jon Favreau – Chef

Ralph Fiennes – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Michael Keaton – Birdman

Bill Murray – St. Vincent

Chris Rock – Top Five

Channing Tatum – 22 Jump Street

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Rose Byrne – Neighbors

Rosario Dawson – Top Five

Melissa McCarthy – St. Vincent

Jenny Slate – Obvious Child

Kristen Wiig – The Skeleton Twins

BEST SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE

The Babadook

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Interstellar

Snowpiercer

Under the Skin

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Force Majeure

Ida

Leviathan

Two Days, One Night

Wild Tales

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Citizenfour

Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Last Days in Vietnam

Life Itself

The Overnighters

BEST SONG

Big Eyes – Lana Del Rey – Big Eyes

Everything Is Awesome – Jo Li and the Lonely Island – The Lego Movie

Glory – Common/John Legend – Selma

Lost Stars – Keira Knightley – Begin Again

Yellow Flicker Beat – Lorde – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

BEST SCORE

Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game

Johann Johannsson – The Theory of Everything

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Gone Girl

Antonio Sanchez – Birdman

Hans Zimmer – Interstellar

Pete Hammond