Supporting Actress

I had a beautiful little write-up going along, but the Blogger Android app doesn't save as you go, so bye bye. I have a really hard time writing things twice, but we'll try. It's better than trying to go out to eat in a city that doesn't know what a frickle is! Now that we have the boys out of the way, onto the ladies.

• Sally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine
• Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle
• Lupita Nyong'o in 12 Years a Slave
• Julia Roberts in August: Osage County
• June Squibb in Nebraska

Lead Actor

I've had some technical difficulties over here involving massive data loss that has precluded my watching of Blue Jasmine. As such, supporting actress will have to wait, and instead, we'll wrap up the men today. If you're wondering why I'm writing up the acting before other awards, I think it's pretty simple: while each actor is massively important, I think that they're simply not the most important category behind best picture. I'd rather see a movie written by an amazing screenplay author or a film to which a great director is attached than I would a movie starring a really good actor. Beyond that, I think that, like best picture, the animated, documentary and foreign films are all more important than single actors; so, too, are the shorts.

Or maybe I just haven't gotten to seeing everything else yet. You decide.

So who's up?

• Christian Bale in American Hustle
• Bruce Dern in Nebraska
• Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street
• Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave
• Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

Supporting Actor

I can't even begin to say how disappointed I am in this year's supporting actor nominees. Last year was a quite solid year with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones and Christoph Waltz and a couple other good nominees. Two years prior to that Christian Bale and Geoffrey Rush delivered amazing performances.

And here we go again nominating Jonah Hill again. Ugh. Stop it.

• Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips
• Bradley Cooper in American Hustle
• Michael Fassbender in 12 Years a Slave
• Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street
• Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club 

Music: Original Score and Original Song

I like to listen to music. I date musicians. I have gone to the symphony and to concerts. For that, I don't know a thing about music in a technical or professional sense. I have not predisposition, inclination, or aptitude.

But I'm going to write anyway. How's that for selling it?

The films with nominations

Original Score

• The Book Thief 
• Gravity
• Her
• Philomena 
• Saving Mr. Banks

Original Song

• Alone Yet Not Alone (nomination revoked) 
• Despicable Me 2
• Frozen
• Her
• Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Costume Design

I can only write so many posts ahead of time, so now I'm writing from the road.  I hope you'll forgive the greater amount of mistakes, fewer sceencaptures, and perhaps shorter form. Time will tell just how much I enjoy writing on a tablet; my current feeling is that I don't.

Today I'm going to look at costume design which I took some delight in. The films garnering nominations are

• American Hustle
• The Grandmaster
• The Great Gatsby
• The Invisible Woman 
• 12 Years a Slave

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing

Hah! I finished that last article about film editing at 723 words. Remind me never to say I don't know anything and won't have much to talk about again!

Since I don't know anything about sound editing or sound mixing, I'm going to lump them together. Even still, it shouldn't take too long. As you'll see, there's a lot of overlap.

Sound Editing:

• All is Lost
• Captain Phillips
• Gravity
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
• Lone Survivor

Sound Mixing

• Captain Phillips
• Gravity
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
• Inside Llewyn Davis
• Lone Survivor

Film Editing

Keeping in line with cinematography and the visual arts we'll go straight into Film Editing. I always start off saying that I don't know much about what I'm talking about and that the post will be short. I'm not going to do that here, though, because then the posts seem to spiral out of control. I'd like to not write a thousand words on this category. The nominated films are:

• American Hustle
• Captain Phillips
• Dallas Buyers Club
• Gravity
• 12 Years a Slave

There are a number of films I'm surprised didn't get a nomination here: Her, Nebraska, Prisoners, and Wolf of Wall Street. In the end, though, none of them deserve to take home the award, so it isn't terribly important.