Production Design

Production Design*
• Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald for The Imitation Game
• Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis for Interstellar
• Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock for Into the Woods
• Suzie Davies, Charlotte Watts for Mr. Turner

Costume Design

Costume Design
• Milena Canonero for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Mark Bridges for Inherent Vice
• Colleen Atwood for Into the Woods
• Anna B. Sheppard for Maleficent
• Jacqueline Durran for Mr. Turner

Film Editing

There was a technical issue at the A Critical Life offices that severely inhibited film watching, which is to say: I'm way, way behind. Behind watching, and behind writing. If you see me in the next two weeks, you will have accomplished something pretty special.

Film Editing
• Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach for American Sniper
• Sandra Adair for Boyhood
• Barney Pilling for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• William Goldenberg for The Imitation Game
• Tom Cross for Whiplash

Sound Editing and Sound Mixing

Last night and today I caught The Hobbit and Whiplash, the last two films for the sound engineering categories, which are both up for only one of the categories - editing and mixing respectively. Otherwise, four movies occupy eight nominations between the two awards categories. How will The Hobbit fare against a space epic? Will a song about a musician be better than the war film? Maybe I'll just copy past last years post on The Hobbit, Gravity, Inside Llewyn Davis, and Lone Survivor. I suppose I won't copy the post wholesale, but, much like last year, I am going to write these two categories as one post due to the overlap.

Sound Editing:
• Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman for American Sniper
• Martin Hernández and Aaron Glascock for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Brent Burge and Jason Canovas for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
• Richard King for Interstellar
• Becky Sullivan and Andrew DeCristofaro for Unbroken

Sound Mixing:
• John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin for American Sniper
• Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and Thomas Varga for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Gary A. Rizzo, Gregg Landaker and Mark Weingarten for Interstellar
• Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño and David Lee for Unbroken
• Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley for Whiplash

Visual Effects

Despite all the films I've watched in the past couple weeks, I'm still behind schedule, and the Quest seems so interminable. I honestly don't know if I have the energy and critical words to write the gamut this year. I suppose we'll find out in just over three weeks. For now, I'm sitting on an excercise ball listening to dance music, and I feel pretty invigorated. And distracted.

I had the good fortune of starting small with Makeup and Hairstyling, but now I dive into the categories of five with Visual Effects:

• Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill and Dan Sudick for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Erik Winquist for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
• Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner and Paul Corbould for Guardians of the Galaxy
• Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher for Interstellar
• Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie and Cameron Waldbauer for X-Men: Days of Future Past

Makeup and Hairstyling

My film watching has been a little all over the place so far. I thought I was going to start the categories off with Visual Effects, but I ended up not being able to see Interstellar. So, then we'll start with the smallest of the categories: Makeup and Hairstyling. While the category hasn't terribly endeared me this year, at least I'm neither getting page views for google searches of "penis grandpa blogspot" nor dealing with tranmisogynistic representations as I did last year.

Up for the award are:

• Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard for Foxcatcher
• Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White for Guardians of the Galaxy

Oscar Quest 2015

I'm blogging again so you know that can mean only one thing: the 87th Academy Award nominees have been announced. I looked through the list and thought it was going to be a pretty easy year even with forty-five nominees plus the fifteen shorts because fifteen of these have been on my radar of things to watch since they've been released.

Then I realized I'd only actually made time for four of them. So, I have forty-one films plus fifteen shorts to watch in 38 days. I'm going to be honest, it's going to take a lot to unseat Birdman and Boyhood as my early favorites for, respectively, cinematography and directing. If you want to see me before February 23rd, then I hope you like film.

Seriously, please sit on my couch with me.