'Boyhood' and 'Birdman' Emerge as Oscar Favorites

Los Angeles: Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Birdman" and Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" were showered with honors on Thursday as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confirmed what's been whispered for months: Those are the films to beat at the 87th Oscar show, set for February 22.

But several films with as many or more nominations - including "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "The Imitation Game" - showed perhaps enough strength to beat them, after all.

Both "Birdman" - whose full title is "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" - and "Boyhood" took nominations for best director and best picture. In all, Oscar voters named eight best picture nominees, including Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper," Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel," Morten Tyldum's "The Imitation Game," Ava DuVernay's "Selma," James Marsh's "The Theory of Everything," Damien Chazelle's "Whiplash."

"Selma" and "Whiplash" have ceased to be surprises, as both have popped up with awards and nominations through the season. But each comes from a relatively new director making their best picture nominations notable.

The tallies left "Birdman" and "Grand Budapest Hotel'' with nine nominations. "The Imitation Game," in another strong showing, had eight, including best picture, best director as well as best actor. "Boyhood" had six, scoring heavily in the major categories.

Supporting actor nominations for Ethan Hawke in "Boyhood" and Edward Norton in "Birdman" bolstered the films, as did matching supporting actress nominations for "Birdman"'s Emma Stone and Patricia Arquette from "Boyhood.''

Anderson, Tyldum and Bennett Miller, for "Foxcatcher," all received best director nominations, as the Oscar choices resembled a similar awards list from the Directors Guild of America this week. (One difference: The Directors Guild nominated Eastwood, for "American Sniper," instead of Miller.)

Among actors, Michael Keaton received his inevitable nomination for his bravura turn as Riggan Thomson, an aging screen super-hero seeking salvation on the stage. Just as inevitably, Eddie Redmayne - a fellow winner at the Golden Globes on Sunday - was nominated for playing the physically crushed, cerebrally soaring Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything."

Benedict Cumberbatch from "The Imitation Game," Steve Carell from "Foxcatcher," and Bradley Cooper from "American Sniper" rounded out the field.

Among actresses, the year's choices have been less obvious, as various performances grabbed attention - often for haggard portrayals of deeply troubled women - at various pre-Oscar awards stops.

The Academy's nominations went to Marion Cotillard for "Two Days, One Night," Felicity Jones for "The Theory of Everything," Julianne Moore for "Still Alice," Rosamund Pike for "Gone Girl," and Reese Witherspoon for "Wild," (in what may have been the most roughed up of all those roles).

The remaining supporting actors were Robert Duvall for "The Judge," Mark Ruffalo, for "Foxcatcher," and J.K. Simmons for "Whiplash." The other supporting actress nominees were Laura Dern for "Wild," Keira Knightley for "The Imitation Game," and Meryl Streep, an Oscar perennial, for "Into the Woods.''

The documentary nominations brought some shockers, as "Life Itself," about the film critic Roger Ebert, and "Keep On Keepin' On," about the trumpeter Clark Terry were overlooked. The nominations went to "Citizenfour," "Finding Vivian Maier," Last Days in Vietnam," "Salt of the Earth," and "Virunga."

Among animated films, the big miss was "The LEGO Movie." The Academy nominated "Big Hero 6," "The Boxtrolls," "How to Train your Dragon 2," "Song of the Sea," and "The Tale of Princess Kaguya."

Thursday's nominations were announced by actor Chris Pine, directors Alfonso Cuaron and J.J. Abrams, and the Academy president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs.

The re-appearance of "The Grand Budapest Hotel," a light-hearted caper set in a rambling Eastern European hotel, has leavened a season that has otherwise been laced with drama and surrounded with sharp edges. "The Imitation Game," from The Weinstein Co., an Oscar powerhouse, at the same time has remained strong.

But it is the match-up between "Birdman" and "Boyhood" that commands attention. Like brandy and Benedictine, the two have been paired through the long season, as they picked up a string of awards and nominations. "Birdman" is tough-minded and bitter.
"Boyhood" is warm, with subtle turns filmed over 12 years. They complement each other, and have begun to look almost like a double-bill.

Cuaron and Abrams read the first lists, which focused on the less closely watched categories, like sound mixing, documentary shorts and visual effects.

In one powerful tell-tale category among those, the film editing nominations went to "American Sniper," "Boyhood," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," "The Imitation Game," and "Whiplash." That was a bit of a snub for "Selma," which made the best picture list, but had only one other nomination, for its song. On the flip side, "Foxcatcher," overlooked in the best picture category, was nominated for its director make-up, screenplay and two actors, Carell and Ruffalo.

Streep now has 19 acting nominations to her credit - an Academy record.

No people of color made the acting nominee lists, although David Oyelowo, who played Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma," had been widely viewed as a best actor prospect.

(The "Selma" director Ava DuVernay, writing on Twitter of her film's best picture nomination, pointedly called Oyelowo "our miracle" and seemed to brush aside weaker-than-expected Academy support in other categories. "March on!" she wrote.)

The visual effects crowd gave a nomination on Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar." So did the production designers, sound editors sound mixers, and music branch, for the film's Hans Zimmer score. But a coveted cinematography nomination eluded the film - "Ida," from Poland, got an unexpected nod there. And with that, "Interstellar," anticipated as a possible front-runner until it was finally seen, had slipped onto the back bench.

Among companies, Sony Pictures Classics had a proud morning. The small indie film unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment had 18 nominations, its best showing ever. Sony's Columbia Pictures unit, however, was pretty much left in the cold, as prospects like "Fury" and "Annie" fell short.

Fox Searchlight was also particularly strong, with its raft of nominations for "Birdman," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," and "Wild." It received 20 total nominations, the most of any company.

It almost didn't matter that the company had failed to pick up "Boyhood" earlier in the year, when IFC Productions was looking to sell distribution rights, before deciding to make it an IFC release.

Long on art, short on watchability, the year's films have struggled to find an audience. Among the best picture nominees, none has yet been a break-out hit. At the domestic box office, in fact, all eight combined have taken in less than last year's "Gravity," a nominee that had about $274 million in domestic ticket sales.

According to Boxoffice.com, the combined best picture nominees last year had taken in $648.6 million as of the morning of the nominations; this year's crop has sold only $202.9 million worth of tickets.

The soft performance raises a red flag for television ratings on Oscar night; the Globes got by on Sunday with only a modest drop.

They had had possibly more star-power in their hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, than the Academy will with Neil Patrick Harris.

Among the morning's disappointments were "Cake," which did not produce an acting nomination for Jennifer Aniston's perhaps too-brave, too-damaged performance. Also left out: Jessica Chastain, who had been in the running both for "Interstellar" and "A Most Violent Year," which got nothing.

Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice," after a rocky time with critics and audience alike, showed surprising life. It took nominations for its script and costume design.

"Gone Girl," a rare pop movie in the Oscar line-up, had been nominated for four Golden Globes, but got only one nomination from the Academy, for the sexy, scary performance by its leading lady, Pike. "Nightcrawler" had aspired to nominations for its lead actor, Jake Gyllenhaal, and even best picture - it was recently nominated as a top film by the Producers Guild of America. But it got only one nomination, for its screenplay.

Perhaps the biggest shockers, though-audience members in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn theater gasped at the announcement - were those snubs in the documentary department. Heavy campaigning behind both "Life Itself," which was presumed to have an Academy constituency for its movie-world theme, and "Keep on Keepin' on," which was supported by the prominent musician-producer Quincy Jones, got slammed.

Shunning those lighter films, the documentary branch went toward weightier subjects, favoring "Virunga," about gorilla protection in Africa, and "Last Days in Vietnam," about a miserable American defeat.

One pre-nomination issue was resolved, to the disadvantage of the "Boyhood" producers Jonathan Sehring and John Sloss: Both were ruled ineligible for awards credit on the film. They had not performed some of the key duties expected of Hollywood-style producers, even though they had backed its director, Linklater, in a production process that exceeded 12 years.

If Hollywood runs true to form, some of the day's triumphs and defeats will be chewed over Thursday night at the Critics' Choice awards. In the past, for instance, Ben Affleck used the gathering to get in a jab at the Academy's directors branch for denying him a nomination for directing "Argo," which went on to win the best picture Oscar.

When the dust finally settles on the day's nominations, it will likely be clear that virtually every picture in the running shows pockets of weakness. "Boyhood" was strong in the top categories, but short among the technical crowd - it is all about storytelling, not grand cinema. "Birdman" had a weird miss among film editors, known for their predictive power. "The Grand Budapest Hotel," heavy with nominations, had no actor in the running. "The Imitation Game" stopped short in the supporting cast categories, and was a miss among the cinematographers. James Marsh, who directed "The Theory of Everything," was not to be found among the directing nominees.

So it is still a race. And, as "Boyhood's" Linklater said last Sunday in accepting an award at the Globes, where his film was best drama: "No one's perfect."