305 Films Eligible For Oscar

The Academy has released the list of all titles that are eligible for Best Picture and general Oscar categories this year. (Note: a few of the categories have different rules like docs, animated films, foreign films). The most amusing thing about looking over the list is tallying how many you've never heard of and how many you forgot were actually released. It's also fun to see really odd juxtapositions that come from alpha order... like Tangerine sandwiched between two bro friendly franchises: Taken 3 and Ted 2...

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Critics Choice Nominations: "Fury Road" Leads and Category Fraud Refuses to Die.

Furiosa is coming to devour your Critics Choice AwardsThough I am a member of the BFCA, the organization behind the Critics Choice Awards, I can't say I'm often too pleased with their choices. Their penchant for attempting to predict the Oscars rather than voting based on earlier reviews continues to be the source of endless frustration. For example: everyone thought the SAG nominations were insane when they were announced but just a week later, the BFCA is repeating them despite lukewarm reviews (at best) for films like Trumbo. And though the reviews for Joy have been anything but great they gave it two major nominations, surely based on a year of Oscar expectations for it. Their difficulty in looking past mainstream pictures even in categories ripe for invasion from indies is also truly unfortunate (Tangerine and What We Do in the Shadows for example have 96% and 97% approval ratings from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and NONE of the BFCA's nominees for Best Comedy come anywhere close to those scores. Hell, Joy is currently at only 56% which is not good. And BFCA members are part of the Tomatometer so what does that tell you?

Unfortunately the members also embraced all the Category Fraud contenders in their studio preferred categories despite the BFCA endorsing a lead vote for Rooney Mara before voting began and somewhat suggesting that maybe Alicia Vikander didn't belong in supporting either. I understand from voting members of the OFCS that this exact situation preceded their vote. It's tough to root out Category Fraud when people have been so conditioned by the studios to believe that anything goes.

The complete list of nominees for film and television (with commentary is after the jump)

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Interview: Director Maxime Giroux on the Adult Romance of Canadian Oscar Submission 'Félix and Meira'

Jose here. In the sensitive romance, Félix and Meira, Hadas Yaron and Martin Dubreuil, play the title characters, two lovers who bond through their loneliness, but must struggle with their very different backgrounds, and the fact that she’s married to someone else. An insightful look at Montreal’s Hasidic community, the film is peculiar for its restraint and might be one of the most memorable romantic films in recent years. Director Maxime Giroux paints a unique portrait of people seeking connections that go beyond typical “movie love”. I spoke to him about the film’s origins, casting his leading lady, and being in the race for Oscar.

JOSE: At the beginning of the year I spoke to Luzer Twersky who told me the film originally was supposed to be a comedy. How did you end up with such a subdued romantic drama instead?

MAXIME GIROUX:It’s funny, when we started to imagine the movie, I’d just made a dark movie and I wanted to make a comedy. The more we talked about this community and understood it, the more obvious it became it would be difficult to make a comedy, because people like Luzer for instance, who leave the community, have a hard time making that decision. A comedy about that would not have been easy to make.

JOSE: He said instead what you ended up with was making the movie that best captured the Hasidic experience.

MAXIME GIROUX: He would know that better than me, I never lived in that community (laughs).

More after the jump...

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74 Songs Eligible for "Best Original Song"

Will LADY GAGA return to Oscar's stage? You know we always kind of thought that Brian Wilson song from Love & Mercy wasn't going to be eligible. It seemed like it had been written before the movie and not for the movie. It's not on the Oscar longlist this year but 74 other songs from the movies are.

Some of the tunes are from obscure movies we haven't even heard of (such is always the case with this category) some are from Bollywood pictures which got stateside release. And a couple of handfuls of songs from Oscar contenders in other categories such as Anomalisa, Cinderella, Shaun the Sheep Movie and Youth are also in the mix.

Lady Gaga, who performed a medley from The Sound of Music last time she was on Oscar's stage, might be back as a nominee if they love her song from the documentary The Hunting Ground . She's not the only famous singer who could grace the stage. Songs written and/or sung by Eminem (already an Oscar winner), Miley Cyrus, Jessie J, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, and Rihanna are also possible contenders. Famous actors that sang their movie's eligible songs onscreen this year include Amanda Seyfried (Ted 2), Meryl Streep (Ricki and the Flash), Tessa Thompson (Creed), and Al Pacino (Danny Collins) though they're far less likely to repeat the trick onstage should those songs be nominated since actors rarely do that on the Oscar stage unless they started as musicians.

The complete list (with any embeddable videos we could find) is after the jump...

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Candid Charlotte Rampling

Rampling for NYTimes Magazine

Murtada here. Charlotte Rampling’s performance in 45 Years is a quiet storm of volatile emotions, holding attention with understated intimations that hint much more than show. Inexplicably left off both the Golden Globe and SAG nominations list, she might become this year’s Marion Cotillard, missing the early nominations and getting in at the Oscars. She’s already won the LA Film Critics Association best actress award and here’s hoping more regional critics notice her in the coming weeks. We will talk about the movie and performance once the movie is released.

One glorious result from being in the awards conversation is that Rampling was in Hollywood and New York recently giving good quote. And unlike her 45 Years character, Rampling is not holding back and is quite candid in these interviews.

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