Oscarwatch: Doc Feature Roll Out

Last week, Steve Pond reported that Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell is indeed eligible for the Documentary feature category. The Act of Killing is also eligible. From Pond’s story, a list of eligible films also includes:

Lucy Walker’s “The Crash Reel,” Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s “Blackfish,” Jacob Kornbluth’s “Inequality for All,” Martha Shane’s and Lana Wilson’s “After Tiller,” Alex Gibney’s “The Armstrong Lie,” Jehane Noujaim’s “The Square,” Errol Morris’ “The Unknown Known,” Morgan Neville’s “Twenty Feet From Stardom,” Dave Grohl’s “Sound City,” Teller’s “Tim’s Vermeer,” Frederick Wiseman’s “At Berkeley,” Roger Ross Williams’ “God Loves Uganda,” Sean Fine’s and Andrea Nix Fine’s “The World According to Sam” … and 136 others, all fighting to be seen by enough voters.

I have mostly given up predicting this category. The most well known films don’t always get in, and some of the best ones get left off. Somehow, though, I can see these three getting in: Blackfish, Stories We Tell, The Act of Killing and possibly Tim’s Vermeer. Of those, here’s hoping Blackfish wins. While Stories We Tell is an incredibly moving film and would give Sarah Polley the chance to win a well deserved Oscar, Blackfish can maybe change the world for the better. And that trumps all, in my opinion. But what do I know.

Pond reports that Academy members have over 100 screeners to watch. They likely aren’t going to watch all of them. They’ll go for the ones they’ve heard about, the names they know, subjects that interest them. As usual, the documentary category is stuffed with the best filmmaking of the year. Picking just five seems impossible.