Reel Society Of Film Critics Awards 2014 - The Nominees

[silversurfer19]

Well, the first round of votes are in and we have our nominees for the Reel Society Of Film Critics Awards 2014. Between now and March 8th (I've decided to give us all the extra week as it works better for me and hopefully allows all the committee members an extra bit of time to catch a movie they may have missed before now), you have the opportunity to submit your final round of votes that will reveal the winners of the awards on Sunday March 9th. Remember you will now be voting on a sliding scale of 5-1 in order of preference, other that in the Best Picture category which will follow the same format, but be on a scale of 10-1. 10 would be your first choice, and then sliding down to your least favourite. You do not have to award a score to every movie, and you need only award what you feel necessary (ie. you can vote just three movies if you like, with one movie a 10, another an 8 and another a 3). If you have any queries on this please let me know.

I will also use this opportunity to ask the committee to put themselves forward for a featurette on one of the Best Picture nominees. Jas has already asked to do a piece on Gravity, which leaves nine other movies to choose from. If you would like to do one, and it need be no more than a couple of sentences if that's all you can think of, that will be great.

So enough of my rambling on the logistics of it all, here are the nominees for the 2014 Reel Society Of Film Critics Awards:

Best Picture
American Hustle
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Mud
Prisoners
The Spectacular Now
The Way, Way Back
The Wolf Of Wall Street

Best Director
Joel And Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Spike Jonze, Her
Steve McQueen, 12 Years A Slave
Martin Scorcese, The Wolf Of Wall Street

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf Of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years A Slave
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Brie Larson, Short Term 12

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Daniel Bruhl, Rush
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years A Slave
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Matthew McConaughey, Mud
Sam Rockwell, The Way, Way Back

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years A Slave
Octavia Spencer, Fruitvale Station
June Squibb, Nebraska

Best Foreign Language Film
Blue Is The Warmest Colour
In The House
No
The Great Beauty
The Hunt

Best Animated Picture
Despicable Me 2
From Up On Poppy Hill
Frozen
Monsters University
The Croods

Best Documentary Feature
A Band Called Death
Act Of Killing
Blackfish
Room 237
Stories We Tell

Best Cast
12 Years A Slave
American Hustle
Dallas Buyers Club
The Way, Way Back
The Wolf Of Wall Street

Breakthrough Performance
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years A Slave
Tye Sheridan, Mud
Miles Teller, The Spectacular Now

Best Original Screenplay
American Hustle
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Mud
The Way, Way Back

Best Adapted Screenplay
12 Years A Slave
Before Midnight
Captain Phillips
Philomena
The Wolf Of Wall Street

Best Cinematography
Gravity
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
The Great Beauty

Best Score
All Is Lost
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
The Conjuring

Best Visual Effects
Gravity
Man Of Steel
Pacific Rim
Star Trek Into Darkness
Thor: The Dark World


Let the propoganda and back stabbings begin!

[JohnErle]

Yay! I'm glad to see so much love for Inside Llewyn Davis. It was my favourite of the year, so I'll volunteer to write the blurb for that one. The only other ones I'd be willing to make a case for are Dallas Buyers Club and Her.

Pretty good batch of nominees all around. The biggest travesty is no sign of Adele Wassername from Blue Is The Warmest Colour for Best Actress. I guess not enough people saw it, or maybe they didn't want to attempt spelling her name.

[numbersix]

I'll take Wolf of Wall St

[numbersix]

Some interesting choices, especially in the pic category.

Have no real interest in The Way, Way Back, but may have to watch it now. Seen everything else but really shocked 12 Years A Slave didn't make an appearance. Yet McQueen appears as director?

Cool to see the Death documentary turn up. I'd love to watch it.

And look at The Conjuring sneaking in there for score. Sneaky fucker.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

WHOO!! BRIE LARSON GOT IN. Very happy about that, although I was hoping for a Best Picture nod.

A very strong year for us, a lot of movies I loved in here. Not surprised at The Way Way Back love, I liked it fine enough and Sam Rockwell deserves everything he gets.

I was hoping my left field Best Score nomination for Spring Breakers would sneak through, but alas.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Seen everything else but really shocked 12 Years A Slave didn't make an appearance. Yet McQueen appears as director?

Hmm, maybe everyone assumed the others would nominate it and wanted to use that slot for a personal favorite? Could explain Way, Way Back or Spectacular Now getting in.

[JohnErle]

I didn't notice 12 Years A Slave was missing from Best Picture, but you're right, that does seem odd, especially since Prisoners made the cut with no nominations for anything expect Best Picture, whereas Slave picked up a couple of other important nominations. Recount!

As for the Conjuring, it's nearly impossible to make a good horror movie without a good score, so it got my vote. I'm glad to see it among the final 5.

[silversurfer19]

I'll say this, in regards for Best Picture, this was one of the most open fields I've ever seen in regards to nominations. While 10 were nominated, another four movies were just one vote off, and there were no clear front runners at all. This, I think, is why you get the likes of The Spectacular Now and Prisoners, which are not recognised anywhere else, in the final nominees while 12 Years A Slave missed out. It was just so wide a field literally any movie with a good handful of votes could receive a nomination.

I think overall there's a good mix of movies and performances we probably expected to see turn up, with the odd wildcard here and there too. It's probably a decent reflection of the forum on the whole, and I only hope the final voting follows a similar pattern.

Having said that, was disappointed not to see the likes of Robert Redford, Christian Bale or Bruce Dern get an acting nomination. Indeed, All Is Lost on the whole seemed to miss out a little. It picked up quite a few votes in a number of categories, but always seemed to be a vote shy of a nomination.

It really is the year of Matthew McConaughey though, isn't it. Nominations in BOTH acting categories!

Going through the nominations, Inside Llewyn Davis and 12 Years A Slave lead the field with 7 nominations, while Her received 6, American Hustle, Wolf Of Wall Street and Gravity recieved 5, and 4 for Dallas Buyers Club and The Way, Way Back. Pretty even field.

[jas8382]

I'll volunteer to do the write up for Her or Gravity.

[transformers2]

WHOO!! BRIE LARSON GOT IN. Very happy about that, although I was hoping for a Best Picture nod.

A very strong year for us, a lot of movies I loved in here. Not surprised at The Way Way Back love, I liked it fine enough and Sam Rockwell deserves everything he gets.

I was hoping my left field Best Score nomination for Spring Breakers would sneak through, but alas.

I voted for Spring Breakers as well, best score of the year imo.

Overall pretty content with the nominees. Dallas Buyers Club and Mud are super overrated to me and I'm kind of bummed to see Fruitvale Station only get a couple of nominations. Thankfully I've seen pretty much all the major nominated films so my votes won't be as ignorant as usual Should be a really fun awards show with such an open field.

Lastly surfer, I'll do the American Hustle write-up.

[numbersix]

I regret not nominating Spring Breakers for best score. It perfectly suited the subject matter. I did vote for it for Best Cinematography, though.

[Buscemi]

American Hustle probably already has it won.

Anyway, there were plenty I'd like to have seen here but you can't win them all.

By the way, this was my preliminary ballot.

Best Picture

All is Lost
Dallas Buyers Club
Fruitvale Station
Mud
Philomena

Best Director

J.C. Chandor, All is Lost
Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station
Stephen Frears, Philomena
Jeff Nichols, Mud
Jean-Marc Vallee, Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actor in a Leading Role

James Gandolfini, Enough Said
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club/Mud
Robert Redford, All is Lost
Michael Shannon, The Iceman

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Onata Aprile, What Maisie Knew
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Judi Dench, Philomena
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Enough Said
Sharni Vinson, You're Next

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Steve Coogan, Philomena/What Maisie Knew
Will Forte, Nebraska
Emile Hirsch, Prince Avalanche
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Tye Sheridan, Mud

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Alice Englert, Ginger and Rosa
Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
Octavia Spencer, Fruitvale Station
June Squibb, Nebraska
Reese Witherspoon, Mud

Best Foreign Language Film

The Attack (Lebanon)
The Great Beauty (Italy)
The Hunt (Denmark)
No (Chile)
Pieta (South Korea)

Best Animated Picture

From Up on Poppy Hill
Monsters University

Best Documentary Feature

A Band Called Death
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
Blackfish
Inequality for All
Springsteen & I

Best Cast

Dallas Buyers Club
Enough Said
Fruitvale Station
Mud
You're Next

Breakthrough Performance

Onata Aprile, What Maisie Knew
Alice Englert, Ginger and Rosa
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Tye Sheridan, Mud
Sharni Vinson, You're Next

Best Original Screenplay

All is Lost
Dallas Buyers Club
Fruitvale Station
Mud
Nebraska

Best Adapted Screenplay

Philomena

Best Cinematography

All is Lost
The Great Beauty
Mud
Nebraska
Only God Forgives

Best Score

All is Lost
47 Ronin
Kon-Tiki
Mud
Philomena

Best Visual Effects

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The Lone Ranger
Man of Steel
Walking with Dinosaurs

[W]

American Hustle probably already has it won.

If it helps, it won't get much from me. 3/10 points at most from first glance.

[Buscemi]

Yeah, but everyone else here seemed to give it an A.

[transformers2]

Yeah, but everyone else here seemed to give it an A.

False. Honestly I think Banks is the only person here other than myself that gave it really high praise. The rest of the reviews here I can recall were positive, but certainly not overwhelmingly so. The field is far too close to have a clear frontrunner, but if I were a gambling man I'd say Gravity walks away with the top prize.

To follow Boosh's lead, here is my full preliminary ballot (correction me and geez's ballot because we share a brain and are about to undergo a surgery to become adjoined at the hip):

Best Picture:
This is the End
Fruitvale Station
American Hustle
Short Term 12
The Spectacular Now

Best Actor:
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Hugh Jackman, Prisoners
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
Miles Teller, The Spectacular Now

Best Actress:
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Brie Larson, Short Term 12
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now

Best Supporting Actor:
Dwayne Johnson, Pain & Gain
Jeremy Renner, American Hustle
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
Daniel Bruhl, Rush
James Franco, Spring Breakers

Best Supporting Actress:
Octavia Spencer, Fruitvale Station
Melonie Diaz, Fruitvale Station
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Scarlett Johansson, Her
Kaitlyn Dever, Short Term 12

Best Director:
David O. Russell, American Hustle
Ryan Coggler, Fruitvale Station
Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Ron Howard, Rush
Guilermo Del Toro, Pacific Rim

Best Original Screenplay:
Fruitvale Station
American Hustle
Rush
Blue Jasmine
Inside Llewyn Davis

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Pain & Gain
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Wolf of Wall Street
Short Term 12
The Spectacular Now

Best Animated Picture:
Monsters University
The Croods
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

Best Documentary:
Blackfish
A Band Called Death

Best Cast:
American Hustle
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
This is the End
Pain & Gain
Fruitvale Station

Breakthrough Performance:
Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station
Melonie Diaz, Fruitvale Station
Daniel Bruhl, Rush
Miles Teller, The Spectacular Now
Oscar Issac, Inside Llewyn Davis

Best Cinematography:
You're Next
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Lone Survivor
Spring Breakers
Rush

Best Score:
Spring Breakers
You're Next
Pacific Rim
The Conjuring
American Hustle

Best Visual Effects:
Pacific Rim
Fast and Furious 6
Iron Man 3
Star Trek Into Darkness
Oblivion