It is still too small a category to contain what is happening to American film. But either way, herewith, the ten:
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”
“Godzilla”
“Guardians of the Galaxy”
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”
“Interstellar”
“Maleficent”
“Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb”
“Transformers: Age of Extinction”
“X-Men: Days of Future Past”
Thanks Benutty for the facts about nominees from the past few years.
Paddy says:
I’m disappointed that the visual effects branch has once again decided to overlook innovative effects design in favour of films which feature extensive CGI. It seems that this is not the award for Best Visual Effects but Most Visual Effects. Their process seems to be akin to choosing Best Seamstress instead of Best Costume Design, or Best Typing instead of Best Screenplay.
And I have to say I think they do choose Best Seamstress instead. Ever noticed how if your film features Queen Elizabeth 1, you are guaranteed a Costume nomination – unless you’re Derek Jarman? (Seriously, you can look her up as a character on imdb.) It goes to pretty and period and obvious.
The same is also true of sound (sonar pings, lots of gunfire, robot sounds) and these visual effects nominees. What is sad is how lazy the branches have become – are the VFX for Transformers really any better in this film than the previous efforts? Should they be nominated solely because the work is consistent?
Hobbit, Interstellar, Godzilla and Apes are in. Guardians and Transformers will fight it out for the 5th spot.
Joey Hegele,
“Predicting:
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar”
I’d replace GotG with X-Men: Days of Future Past and that’s about as pretty much a pitch-perfect final five.
I thought the bird in BIRDMAN was better than the Godzilla in GODZILLA.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Godzilla (which I didn’t really like) would all be worthy winners.
Captain America and XMen were amongst my favorite movies of the year. Either would make a worthy nominee, though I’ll pull for Xmen.
Maleficent was very good, but does that sortof fantastic world building qualify now as Art Direction. (The director is the guy who won back to back Oscars for Art Direction for Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, then was the Art Director on OzGreat and Powerful. If so, I’d say it deserves its nod in Art Direction.)
I have not seen Transformers or Hobbit. These movies both deserved Oscars for visual FX in their first movie. (Transformers losing to Golden Compass has to be amongst the Top 10 boneheaded choices by the Academy.) However, do we really need a nomination for the 4th and 6th version of this stuff?
Haven’t seen Night at the Museum, but it hardly seems worthy competition forthese other nominees. I might be wrong. That’s what I thought when CLICK made the Make-up shortlist. After seeing it, I agreed that its nomination was richly deserved.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes may have the best special effects, but Godzilla has the most beautiful. Those may be the two locks, perhaps three with Interstellar.
Sounds like:
The Locks:
Interstellar
Apes
Hobbit
Seems likely based on popular and critical support for the film and its VFX heaviness:
Guardians of the Galaxy (but just how VFX-heavy is it?)
Fighting for the 5th and maybe 4th spots:
Godzilla (didn’t see this because it sounded like crap to me, but the reviews and B.O. were positive enough and I’m sure it’s VFX-heavy)
Maleficent (very artsy, but they skipped the horrid Oz, whose visuals were its saving grace)
Transformers (every installment thus far has scored a nod in SOME category, and sheer quantity helps, but I haven’t seen this crap to know whether it’s worthwhile)
Maybe:
Captain America
Lucky to Be Here:
X-Men
Night at the Museum
I’m torn between Interstellar and Apes. Interstellar for it’s “wonderment” and creation of worlds not explored, Apes for it’s “realism” and creation of creatures we know.
Probably tip it toward Apes; it’s achievement feels like a new step in VFX creation where Interstellar is stuff you expect and looks like what we’ve seen before.
No Boyhood in his pre-list? This is a strong sign Academy is giving us that our frontrunner could be in danger.
P.S. I’m happy Into the Woods didn’t make its way into these ten. The trailer shows how ugly its vfx are.
No Noah and Edge of Tomorrow, and the Academy went on to shortlist Night at the Museum and Maleficent. The Academy is evolving with time, it’s just that its getting more careless and senseless. I’m sorry, but vfx in maleficent were laughably bad.
What do we do when Godzilla wins VE and Cinematography (as it should) and gets both Sound nominations as well as PD and Score. Then contends for BP (as it should).
Rooting for the home team on this one. They used Vancouver Island rainforest in the CGI for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Fun seeing your backyard/playground onscreen.
What about Into the Woods?? It seems pretty vfx heavy.
Paddy, I agree with your sentiment 100%. Adding to that, the realization is that the branches keep their attention on Oscar-caliber films no less than every other branch. It is always the films that are likely to factor into the larger race that stay in the hunt AND ultimately win the award. Interstellar will no doubt win. And as I’ve said before, ever since the BP field expanded, the VE winner has been a BP nominee. It has also won Cinematography 100% of the time, and from there the VE/Cinematography winner has been nominated in Production Design and both Sound all 5 years. In 4/5 years the VE winner has also had a Director nominee (Inception didn’t, which makes Nolan’s race interesting). In only the first of the 5 years has there been 2 BP nominees in the VE field, which would have been interesting if Birdman had made the shortlist.
As of now, I would say we already have our first 5+ nominee film, Interstellar.
I’m a little shocked that both Birdman and Exodus were left off the short list, but that just means Exodus is unlikely to factor into anything now.
Another point: eight of these ten films are franchise titles.
Anne Thompson makes the mistake of presuming that the biggest box office hits are automatically the frontrunners. Clearly, Interstellar has a much better shot at both getting a nomination and winning this award than either Guardians of the Galaxy or Captain America: The Winter Soldier have. Its release date, its content, its tone and style, its director, its reviews and its Oscar campaign put it in a much stronger position than those two films, and probably any of the other films in the running. The biggest films don’t win by virtue of being the biggest, since the year’s biggest films are not necessarily always effects-driven. After all, where’s The Hunger Games on this list? Would she consider it a frontrunner were it present?
I’m disappointed that the visual effects branch has once again decided to overlook innovative effects design in favour of films which feature extensive CGI. It seems that this is not the award for Best Visual Effects but Most Visual Effects. Their process seems to be akin to choosing Best Seamstress instead of Best Costume Design, or Best Typing instead of Best Screenplay.
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” for the win, to me. Other nominees will likely be “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”, “Interstellar”, “Godzilla” and “Guardians of the Galaxy”.
Really impressed they left out “Noah”. Have seen 7 out of the 10 films, already (didn’t see The Hobbit 3, Interstellar and Night on the Museum 3, yet), and “Apes” is the clear standout to me, on Visual Effects. “Snowpiercer” would have been fine, but honestly enough, it was modest in results and budget, in comparison to any of the 7 films I’ve seen and that are included, visual effects-wise.
Sorry, meant to add in that last post — the scene in Godzilla where the paratroopers drop down upon the city is, in my opinion, the best use of effects this year.
Interstellar will win but I hope Godzilla gets nominated. The effects were craftily used in that film. Guardians gets in because its a beloved film. The other two — Dawn and Maleficent?
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is definitely the weakest link here. How the hell did it beat out Exodus: Gods and Kings, Noah, Edge of Tomorrow, and Snowpiercer? The F/X in the trailer look so bad!
Predicting:
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Godzilla
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Birdman might be considered to gimmicky and I’m still not convinced it will fare any better than Black Swan did.
Also it was never going to happen but would have been cool to see Birdman or The Babadook get a vfx nod, both have very very little vfx but clever and meaningfull, Snowpiercer´s vfx weren´t great, the art direction did most of the job.
The trend has been that the visual effects winner gets cinematography, I guess this year is the end of that trend, I don´t see Interstellar getting cinematography on the year of Birdman, Unbroken and haven´t seen too much of Mr Turner but seems to be a player too in that category.
My apologies to Anne Thompson. I just spelled her name Ann Thompson in the last comment.
LCBASEBALL22,
Okay, cool. I’m one of these people who get a kick out of what interesting pictures people use.
Ann Thompson just wrote: Of that list, the likely frontrunners are: Marvel’s “Captain America: Winter Soldier” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” as well as sequel “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies” and Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.”
Thanks AL, I did in fact see that, just haven’t got around to it yet, let alone decided what I would use lol
OT:
LCBASEBALL22,
Yesterday you had asked about where to go to get an avatar picture. I’m not sure if you had seen the response I gave, but I’ll mention it here. Gravatar.com is where you can go to get an avatar picture.
The plot thickens :p
Very interesting…is there a Best Pic nominee among these? For the last six years there has been one in this category. Could be evidence that Interstellar is locked, could be a surprise BP nom for one of the well reviewed blockbusters such as Guardians, Apes, or X-Men, or could be a break in trend…
Of course, last year they left Man of Steel off the list, so….
OMG, Snowpiercer as well. Ugh!!
Al-I second your 5 nominees, it’s a shame Snowpiercer was left
This branch — as lazy, lousy and narrow-minded as ever.
I’m really bummed Noah didn’t make it. The stone giants and the animals are PERFECT.
This doesn’t bode well for Exodus at all, either.
I just realized no Exodus either. WOW! Okay then….
Wow! No Noah or Edge of Tomorrow. 🙁
Of these 10, I think it’ll be these 5:
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”
“Godzilla”
“Guardians of the Galaxy”
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”
“Interstellar”
Was hoping to see Birdman on that shortlist. This could be the first year in a while a BP nominee is not nominated in visual effects. Interstellar still has a chance in the BP category, it is a lock to win here. Part of me would prefer Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to win though.