Several Oscar Nominated Films Reviewed by Now Playing Podcast
The Academy Award nominees have been announced, and Now Playing Podcast has reviewed (or will soon be reviewing) several nominees!
Boyhood, directed by Richard Linklater, is one of the leading films of the year. The film earned six nominations; only three films beat that number this year. The film, which Linklater filmed over a span of 12 years, is up for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette), Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Screenplay!
Our review of is film will be posted at NowPlayingPodcast.com on Feb 10, but we start leading up to that next week! Starting January 20th we begin reviewing Linklater’s Before trilogy of films: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight — all directed by Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke.
Big Hero 6 is up for Best Animated Film. Do the Now Playing Hosts agree? That review is out now at NowPlayingPodcast.com (additionally Feast is up for Best Animated Short and we discussed that in our Big Hero 6 review as well!)
Interstellar was blocked from the big categories but did get Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Score and, most unexpectedly, Best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing (did they hear that film right???? Were the screener DVDs mixed differently??) . That review is up now in the Now Playing archives, along with every other film Christopher Nolan has reviewed!
Guardians of the Galaxy may have won top spot in the 2014 box office, but the Academy only nominated Marvel’s blockbuster film in two technical categories: Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Visual Effects. (I rewatched the film over the holidays and that the film did not get Best Costume Design is a travesty–those outfits were intricate and varied). You can hear our review of this film now!
Also nominated for Best Visual Effects were Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: Days of Future Past, both of which we reviewed as part of our ongoing Marvel Movie Retrospective.
Now Playing Podcast donors who took part in our Spring Donation Drive also heard our review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but that review is no longer available as the donation drive has completed.
The full list of nominees for The 87th Annual Academy Awards are:
Best Picture
- American Sniper
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- Boyhood
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- Selma
- The Theory of Everything
- Whiplash
Actor in a Leading Role
- Steve Carell for Foxcatcher
- Bradley Cooper for American Sniper (Hear us discuss Cooper in our reviews of Guardians of the Galaxy and The Midnight Meat Train)
- Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game (Hear us discuss Cumberbatch in our review of Star Trek Into Darkness)
- Michael Keaton for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Hear us talk about Keaton playing a different winged hero in our reviews of Batman and Batman Returns, and he also featured in the remake of Robocop)
- Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything
Actress in a Leading Role
- Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night (Hear us review her turn as the evil Talia al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises and also her role in Christopher Nolan’s Inception)
- Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything (We discussed her blink-and-you-miss-it turn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
- Julianne Moore for Still Alice (We recently reviewed Moore for her role in the remake of Carrie, as well as her work in Next and Hannibal)
- Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl (Hear us discuss this former Bond Girl’s work in Die Another Day)
- Reese Witherspoon for Wild
Actor in a Supporting Role
- Robert Duvall for The Judge
- Ethan Hawke for Boyhood (Hear us discuss Hawke in the upcoming Now Playing Before Sunrise Retrospective Series, starting Jan. 20!)
- Edward Norton for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (We reviewed Norton’s work in Fight Club, plus his one-and-done turn as The Incredible Hulk)
- Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher (We first discussed this star of 13 Going on 30 in our review of Shutter Island, as well as his work replacing Norton as The Hulk in The Avengers and Iron Man 3)
- J.K. Simmons for Whiplash (We reviewed the Farmer’s Insurance salesman for his role of J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films)
Actress in a Supporting Role
- Patricia Arquette for Boyhood (We reviewed her first big-screen role in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
- Laura Dern for Wild
- Keira Knightly for The Imitation Game
- Emma Stone for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (We reviewed her performances in both of the Amazing Spider-Man films)
- Meryl Streep for Into the Woods
Animated Feature Film
- Big Hero 6
- The Boxtrolls
- How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Song of the Sea
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Cinematography
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Ida
- Mr. Turner
- Unbroken
Costume Design
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Inherent Vice
- Into the Woods
- Maleficent
- Mr. Turner
Directing
- Alejandro G Iñárritu for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- Richard Linklater for Boyhood
- Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher
- Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game
Documentary Feature
- CitizenFour
- Finding Vivian Maier
- Last Days in Vietnam
- The Salt of the Earth
- Virunga
Documentary Short Subject
- Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
- Joanna
- Our Curse
- The Reaper (La Parka)
- White Earth
Film Editing
- American Sniper
- Boyhood
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- Whiplash
Foreign Language Film
- Ida
- Leviathan
- Tangerines
- Timbuktu
- Wild Tales
Makeup and Hairstyling
- Foxcatcher
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Guardians of the Galaxy
Music – Original Score
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- Interstellar
- Mr. Turner
- The Theory of Everything
Music – Original Song
- “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie
- “Glory” from Selma
- “Grateful” from Beyond the Lights
- “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” from Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me
- “Lost Stars” from Begin Again
Production Design
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- Interstellar
- Into the Woods
- Mr. Turner
Short Film – Animated
- The Bigger Picture
- The Dam Keeper
- Feast
- Me and My Moulton
- A Single Life
Short Film – Live Action
- Aya
- Boogaloo and Graham
- Butter Lamp (La Lampe au Beurre de Yak)
- Parveneh
- The Phone Call
Sound Editing
- American Sniper
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
- Interstellar
- Unbroken
Sound Mixing
- American Sniper
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
- Interstellar
- Unbroken
- Whiplash
Visual Effects
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Interstellar
- X-Men: Days of Future Past
Writing – Adapted Screenplay
- American Sniper by Jason Hall
- The Imitation Game by Graham Moore
- Inherent Vice by Paul Thomas Anderson
- The Theory of Everything by Anthony McCarten
- Whiplash by Damien Chazelle
Writing – Original Screenplay
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) by Alejandro G Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo
- Boyhood by Richard Linklater
- Foxcatcher by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman
- The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, Story by Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness
- Nightcrawler by Dan Gilroy
Corn Connection: ‘Genesis’ brings series to close
This marks the final entry in The Corn Connection series, and much like the Children of the Corn films, it’s going out with a whimper.
Now Playing Podcast released its final review in the Corn retrospective on Tuesday, and after scraping the IMDB page for Children of the Corn: Genesis, I was able to find just one “star” who appeared in another film covered on the show.
Sure, there are actors you’ll recognize, like Billy Drago from The Untouchables and Cyborg 2. But I don’t see a Cyborg retrospective in Now Playing’s future. Nor do I see the hosts turning to television for The Office retrospective, just so they can reference lead actress Kelen Coleman, who guested in a few episodes as Dwight Schrute’s love interest, Isabel.
The only true connection in this final Corn film is actor Duane Whitaker, who plays the character Pritchett.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the face will. Whitaker’s career is loaded with various villain and hillbilly roles, most notably 1994’s Pulp Fiction, where he played the shop owner who holds Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames prisoner until Zed shows up. You know what happens next.
He’s also shown up in a slew of genre pics, everything from Feast to Tales From the Hood to From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money.
But if you want to find Whitaker in the Now Playing Podcast archives, you’ll find him in the Halloween, Rob Zombie and Texas Chainsaw Massacre retrospectives.
In Zombie’s Halloween 2, he played one of the hillbillies who gets killed by Michael Myers in a field after calling out the killer for trespassing. It was brutal.
Whitaker also played Dr. Bankhead in The Devil’s Rejects, another Rob Zombie picture; and one of his earlier horror roles came in 1990’s Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.
So that’s that. Nine entries up, nine entries down, a few dozen connections made to the Now Playing Podcast archives. Mission accomplished. Thanks for reading!
Did we miss anyone? If you spot an actor or actress with a connection to Now Playing Podcast leave a comment and help a fellow listener!
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