Some Oscar® wrongs were at least partially (and in two cases, totally) righted at the 2015 Critics’ Choice Awards. Selma, for example, at least got more nominations; The LEGO Movie won Best Animated Feature, and Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) won for Score (while being not being considered at all for that award by Oscar®).
Birdman wound up with seven awards – including two for Michael Keaton (Best Actor in a Comedy and Best Actor); Boyhood got four (Best Director, Best Young Actor, Supporting Actress and Best Picture), and The Grand Budapest Hotel got three (Best Comedy, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design).
This year’s Louis XIII Genius Award went to Ron Howard; the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Kevin Costner and the very first MVP Award (for the most prodigious body of work over the last year) went to Jessica Chastain.
Host Michael Stahan (Live with Kelly and Michael) struggled a bit with his opening monologue, but got stronger as the night went on. The complete list of winners follow the jump.
Best Picture
Birdman
WINNER: Boyhood
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Nightcrawler
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Unbroken
Whiplash
Quelle surprise, non?
Best Director
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ava DuVernay – Selma
David Fincher – Gone Girl
Alejandro González Iñárritu – Birdman
Angelina Jolie – Unbroken
WINNER: Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Again, not much of a surprise.
Best Actor
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Ralph Fiennes – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jake Gyllenhaal – Nightcrawler
WINNER: Michael Keaton – Birdman
David Oyelowo – Selma
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything
Okay, major upset here. The general consensus had either Benedict Cumberbatch or Eddie Redmayne winning here. I expected Redmayne, whose Stephen Hawking might have seemed showy but was very delicately nuanced.
Keaton was pretty spectacular on Birdman, though, so it might be an upset, but it’s based on very good work.
Best Actress
Jennifer Aniston – Cake
Marion Cotillard – Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything
WINNER: Julianne Moore – Still Alice
Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon – Wild
The consensus winner in predictions beforehand.
Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin – Inherent Vice
Robert Duvall – The Judge
Ethan Hawke – Boyhood
Edward Norton – Birdman
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
WINNER: J. K. Simmons – Whiplash
Nailed it! Simmons gave one of the best performances of the year, supporting or leading. I walked out of Whiplash in shock. It was that powerful.
Best Supporting Actress
WINNER: Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
Jessica Chastain – A Most Violent Year
Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game
Emma Stone – Birdman
Meryl Streep – Into the Woods
Tilda Swinton – Snowpiercer
It takes guts to shoot a film over twelve years, but it takes even more to play a single mom over that period of time – and Arquette really was as amazing as she was gutsy.
Best Young Actor/Actress
WINNER: Ellar Coltrane — Boyhood
Ansel Elgort — The Fault in Our Stars
Mackenzie Foy — Interstellar
Jaeden Lieberher — St. Vincent
Tony Revolori — The Grand Budapest Hotel
Quvenzhané Wallis — Annie
Noah Wiseman — The Babadook
Casting the wrong kid – or a less talented on – would have ruined Boyhood. Coltrane made it sing.
Best Acting Ensemble
WINNER: Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Into the Woods
Selma
Any one of these could have won and the others would have no right to complain. That’s how strong these ensembles are. I might have given the award to Selma, though, because it’s not just an amazing film, it’s the most important one – being the very first movie about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a crucial point in American history.
Best Adapted Screenplay
WINNER: Gillian Flynn — Gone Girl
Graham Moore — The Imitation Game
Paul Thomas Anderson — Inherent Vice
Anthony McCarten — The Theory of Everything
Joel and Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson — Unbroken
Nick Hornby — Wild
Another surprise. I think everyone expected the winner here to be either The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything.
Best Original Screenplay
WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Armando Bo — Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash
My only other consideration might have been The Grand Budapest Hotel – it’s smart, funny, melodramatic and a quixotically entertaining as one could hope a Wes Anderson film should be. Birdman, I think, got the edge for being more satirical and generally having more bite.
Best Animated Feature
Big Hero 6
The Book of Life
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
WINNER: The Lego Movie
The Broadcast Critics – righting the wrongs of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a single bound.
Best Action Movie
American Sniper
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
Fury
WINNER: Guardians of the Galaxy
Thank god the Critics’ choice Awards. The single most purely entertaining film of the summer gets an award.
Best Actor in an Action Movie
WINNER: Bradley Cooper — American Sniper
Tom Cruise — Edge of Tomorrow
Chris Evans — Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Brad Pitt — Fury
Chris Pratt — Guardians of the Galaxy
Haven’t seen the film, can’t comment.
Best Actress in an Action Movie
WINNER: Emily Blunt — Edge of Tomorrow
Scarlett Johansson — Lucy
Jennifer Lawrence — The Hunger Games: Mockingjay
Zoe Saldana — Guardians of the Galaxy
Shailene Woodley — Divergent
The Full Metal Bitch gets what’s coming to her. Lovely acceptance speech, too.
Best Comedy
Birdman
WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel
St. Vincent
Top Five
22 Jump Street
My pick all the way.
Best Actor in a Comedy
Jon Favreau – Chef
Ralph Fiennes – The Grand Budapest Hotel
WINNER: Michael Keaton – Birdman
Bill Murray – St. Vincent
Chris Rock – Top Five
Channing Tatum – 22 Jump Street
I kinda wish Ralph Fiennes had won this one. It’s his strangest role and he went for it with such gusto.
Best Actress in a Comedy
Rose Byrne – Neighbors
Rosario Dawson – Top Five
Melissa McCarthy – St. Vincent
WINNER: Jenny Slate – Obvious Child
Kristen Wiig – The Skeleton Twins
If you haven’t seen Obvious Child yet, you should do so. Jenny Slate is just crazy good!
Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie
The Babadook
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
WINNER: Interstellar
Snowpiercer
Under the Skin
Frankly, I thought this category would be between three much better movies – The Babadook, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and Snowpiercer.
Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious film is also his least entertaining. It’s merely good, not great. This was a misstep.
Best Foreign Language Film
WINNER: Force Majeure
Ida
Leviathan
Two Days, One Night
Wild Tales
Force Majeure just didn’t do it for me. I found it boring and unfunny.
Best Documentary Feature
Citizenfour
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
Jodorowsky’s Dune
Last Days in Vietnam
WINNER: Life Itself
The Overnighters
A slight bit of sentiment may have influenced the vote here, but Life Itself is a brilliant warts-and-all documentary based on Roger Ebert’s autobiography of the same name – and same warts-and-all honesty. I might have picked citizenfour over it, but it would have been a coin toss.
Best Art Direction
Kevin Thompson, George DeTitta Jr. – Birdman
WINNER: Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock – The Grand Budapest Hotel
David Crank, Amy Wells – Inherent Vice
Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis – Interstellar
Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock – Into the Woods
Ondrej Nekvasil, Beatrice Brentnerova – Snowpiercer
Never in doubt.
Best Cinematography
WINNER: Emmanuel Lubezki — Birdman
Robert Yeoman — The Grand Budapest Hotel
Hoyte Van Hoytema — Interstellar
Dick Pope — Mr. Turner
Roger Deakins — Unbroken
I haven’t seen Mr. Turner, but of the others, Lubezki’s work is the best.
Best Costume Design
WINNER: Milena Canonero – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Mark Bridges – Inherent Vice
Colleen Atwood – Into the Woods
Anna B. Sheppard — Maleficent
Jacqueline Durran — Mr. Turner
My personal favorite – The Grand Budapest Hotel was shot in three distinct periods, each requiring the proper costuming. Canonero pulled it off brilliantly.
Best Editing
WINNER: Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione — Birdman
Sandra Adair — Boyhood
Kirk Baxter — Gone Girl
Lee Smith — Interstellar
Tom Cross — Whiplash
Crise and Mirrione were ignored by Oscar®, but not by the critics. I concur.
Best Hair & Makeup
Foxcatcher
WINNER: Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Into the Woods
Maleficent
Not my area of expertise, but there was such an astounding variety of human and alien people and creatures – and so much practical work involved – that I think this was the right choice.
Best Score
Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game
Jóhann Jóhannsson – The Theory of Everything
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Gone Girl
WINNER: Antonio Sánchez – Birdman
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
Brilliant, innovative – Sánchez’s percussive score drove the film as its lead character became crazier and crazier. Oscar® snubbed Sanchez, but the critics, once again, got it right.
Best Song
“Big Eyes” Lana Del Rey – Big Eyes
“Everything is Awesome” Jo Li and The Lonely Island – The Lego Movie
WINNER: “Glory” John Legend and Common – Selma
“Lost Stars” Keira Knightley – Begin Again
“Yellow Flicker Beat” Lorde – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
At least Selma got some other nominations here – unlike with the Oscars®.
Best Visual Effects
WINNER: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
For me, this category was one massive coin toss. Four of the five movies here were brilliant and the other was very, very good. Each had mind-bogglingly good visual effects. I think what got Dawn the award was the innovation of taking motion capture out of the studio and onto real world locations. That $#!+ was just too cool!