Voters are, well, voting, ballots in hand, catching up with screeners and such. As already laid out earlier this week, there's plenty in the news to help curate the field in this way or that, but this is also the time for outright discovery. And you know what film is playing really, really well to voters lately? “Nightcrawler,” that's what.

I had been turning over the question even before this morning's ACE Eddie nominations were announced, but now I'm even more curious: Can Dan Gilroy's firecracker film end up in the Best Picture mix? It would obviously be a massive coup for Open Road Films, which continues to take on interesting quasi-genre fare like this and “The Grey” and provide a unique indie haven. The film is already a pretty significant box office success story, having grossed over $30 million in domestic release. It's not just a hit, it's a profitable one, and it's a movie that surprises people. That's an interesting recipe right there.

And after all, “if you want to win the lottery, you have to make the money to buy a ticket,” right?

Things really started to heat up when Jake Gyllenhaal landed a Screen Actors Guild nomination (followed soon after by Golden Globe and Critics' Choice nods to go along with it). That moved it up on the list of priorities for a lot of people. Now that it's being seen more widely and loved, we might see a bit of a domino effect. Next week the writers guild could reveal it as a nominee in an original screenplay category that finds contenders like “Mr. Turner” and “Selma” disqualified and on the sidelines. And who knows, maybe the financial success could lead the producers guild to find a place for it as well.

The point is, every year, things start to boil down to a need for “something else.” “American Sniper” is tearing it up at the box office after getting positive, but nevertheless somewhat muted critical response out of an AFI Fest premiere in November. That lull in excessive attention in the interim might have just been what the doctor ordered. “Nightcrawler,” a critical hit, is in a similar boat, pretty unassuming, not an overt awards play on the outside, then, boom – Gyllenhaal turns heads with nominations. Rene Russo gets her share of adoration (watch out for something to happen there). People begin to recommend it to each other and it takes on a bit of a life at just the right moment. After months of the conversation slowly morphing with the usual names, there is something else.

And let me tell you, becoming that “something else” is an art unto itself.

What do you think? Could “Nightcrawler” insinuate itself into the volatile Best Picture discussion? Sound off in the comments.

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If you were looking for things to be shaken up a little bit in this year's Oscar race, the American Cinema Editors (ACE) offered a slight jolt Friday with the organization's 65th annual list of nominees for film editing. And if you were wondering if “Nightcrawler” might make a serious play on the circuit, well…

I will say I was wondering that. So much so that I had a piece prepped focusing on its potential before today's announcement, which included the film in a dramatic feature category that featured a tie for the first time ever. (The animated field saw a tie yielding four nominees in 2012, while “Babel” and “The Departed” actually tied for the dramatic win in 2006, but there hasn't been a tie leading to an extra nominee in the dramatic or comedy/musical categories before.)

Powerhouse Oscar players “Boyhood” and “The Imitation Game” unsurprisingly joined the party, and ditto Sundance hit “Whiplash.” But also in the mix were “American Sniper” (coming on strong at exactly the right time) and “Gone Girl” (holding on in a category that has done well by David Fincher films in recent years).

On the comedy/musical side, another big Best Picture player, “Birdman,” was chalked up alongside “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Into the Woods” and (yay!) “Inherent Vice.” So that means the films looking on from the sidelines are “Selma,” “The Theory of Everything” and “Unbroken.”

But this really does make me wonder all the more how strong “Nightcrawler,” a hugely popular film on screener as of late, might end up being in this race. But more on that shortly.

Check out the full list of film and TV nominees below and remember to keep track of the season at The Circuit.

The 65th annual ACE Eddie Awards will be held on Friday, Jan. 30.

Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)
“American Sniper” (Joel Cox, ACE & Gary Roach, ACE)
“Boyhood” (Sandra Adair, ACE)
“Gone Girl” (Kirk Baxter, ACE)
“The Imitation Game” (William Goldenberg, ACE)
“Nightcrawler” (John Gilroy, ACE)
“Whiplash” (Tom Cross, ACE)

Best Editing Feature Film (Comedy or Musical)
“Birdman” (Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione, ACE)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Barney Pilling)
“Guardians of the Galaxy” (Fred Rasking, Hughes Winborn, ACE & Craig Wood, ACE)
“Into the Woods” (Wyatt Smith)
“Inherent Vice” (Leslie Jones, ACE)

Best Edited Animated Feature Film
“Big Hero 6” (Tim Mertens)
“The Boxtrolls” (Edie Ichioka, ACE)
“The LEGO Movie” (David Burrow & Chris McKay)

Best Edited Documentary (Feature)
“CITIZENFOUR” (Mathilde Bonnefoy)
“Finding Vivian Maier” (Aaron Wickenden)
“Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me” (Elisa Bonora)

Best Edited Documentary (Television)
“Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey” – “Standing Up in the Milky Way” (John Duffy, ACE, Michael O'Halloran, Eric Lea)
“Pauly Shore Stands Alone” (Troy Takaki, ACE & Joey Vigour)
“The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” – “Episode 3: The Fire of Life” (Eric Ewers)

Best Editing Half-Hour Series for Television
“Silicon Valley” – “Optimal Tip to Tip Efficiency” (Brian Merken & Tim Roche)
“Veep” – “Special Relationship” (Anthony Boys)
“Transparent” – “Pilot” (Catherine  Haight)

Best Edited On-Hour Series for Commercial Television
“24” – “10pm to 11am” (Scott Powell, ACE)
“Mad Men” – “Waterloo” (Christopher Gay)
“Madam Secretary” – “Pilot” (Elena Maganini, ACE & Michael Ornstein, ACE)
“Sherlock” – “His Last Vow” (Yan Miles)
“The Good Wife” – “A Few Words” (Scott Vickrey, ACE)

Best Edited One-Hour Series for Non-Commercial Television
“True Detective” – “Who Goes There” (Affonso Gonçalves)
“True Detective” – “The Secret Fate of All Life” (Alex Hall)
“House of Cards” – “Chapter 14” (Byron Smith)

Best Edited Miniseries or Motion Picture for Television
“Fargo” – “Buridan's Ass” (Regis Kimble)
“Olive Kitteridge” – “A Different Road” (Jeffrey M. Werner, ACE)
“The Normal Heart” (Adam Penn)

Best Edited Non-Scripted Series
“Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” – “Iran” (Hunter Gross)
“Deadliest Catch” – “Lost At Sea” (Josh Earl, ACE & Johnny Bishop)
“Vice” – “Greenland is Melting & Bonded Labor” (Joe Langford & Nick Carew)

As the holiday season comes to a close, Paramount Pictures delivers one more gift. When the studio”s Martin Luther King Jr. biopic “Selma” opens wide on Jan. 9, the film will play for free in the town where it all started: Selma, Alabama. 

Home of the protest efforts that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act's passage and, nearly 50 years later, director Ava DuVernay”s recreation of those events, Paramount decided Selma deserved a bit of gratitude for its places in Civil Rights and movie history. “Selma” will open later this month in the Selma Walton Theater and be shown for free to the town”s citizens.

“The city and people of Selma welcomed the production with open arms this past summer and in celebration of the film”s national release on January 9th, we are incredibly excited and very humbled to be bringing Ava”s finished film to the community,” said Rob Moore, Vice Chairman of Paramount Pictures, in a statement.

“With deep gratitude to the people of Selma, Alabama, we are proud to share this powerful film depicting the historic events that took place there 50 years ago,” said producer Oprah Winfrey in the same statement. “I hope generations will watch the film and share their stories of remembrance and history together.”

With Academy Awards voting in full swing, “Selma” enters the ring with recognition. Thus far, the drama has earned a handful of critics group accolades, AFI's”Movie of the Year” recognition, five Independent Spirit nominations, and Golden Globe nominations for song, actor David Oyelowo, Ava DuVernay, and Best Picture. All the love means  “Selma” is an inevitable target for Oscar politics. The Christmas holiday saw a Washington Post momentum-undercutting editorial with plenty of factual nitpicks. Paramount”s gesture ties the picture back to what”s important: Civil Rights achievements and not-too-distant history. A statement from Selma Mayor George P. Evans echoes that.

“I”m so happy that the movie ‘Selma” will be shown in Selma when it”s released to the nation,” Evans said. “I”m so grateful of the fact that Selma has been blessed to have a movie named after it. I”m thankful to the producers, director Ava, and executive producer Paul Garnes for their leadership, and all of the cast for selecting Selma to produce this movie. We must keep in mind that the movie is just that, a movie and not a documentary. May God continue to bless Selma.”

“Selma” is now in limited release. The film goes wide Jan. 9.

The year has finally drawn to a close. They're celebrating 2015 already in some parts of the globe (I guess our troops in Afghanistan are popping champagne right about now). But before really send 2014 off into the the sunset, a last look at the best of what silver screens had to offer this year…in one guy's opinion, anyway.

Following up on yesterday's “If I Had an Oscar Ballot” post, I've run down my top picks in each standard Oscar category below. On the second page, you'll find a list of supplementary awards, stuff that the Academy doesn't recognize (but in a few cases, perhaps should).

Feel free to offer up your own favorites in the comments section. And allow me to wish you a Happy New Year as the clock turns.

***

Best Visual Effects: “Under the Skin” (Runner-up: “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”)
It's a shame this branch can't see past internal politics, as the best example of effects on the year couldn't even make the bake-off stage.

Best Sound Mixing: “Godzilla” (Runner-up: “Fury”)
The bulk of the “Godzilla” experience really is its sound design, as director Gareth Edwards shrouds the creature in visual mystery for much of the film's runtime.

Best Sound Editing: “Godzilla” (Runner-up: “Fury”)
Ditto. It's just immaculate work, particularly in the editorial, actually. And “Fury” deserves commendation for enveloping with a riveting, anxiety-inducing sound environment.

Best Costume Design: “The Boxtrolls” (Runner-up: “The Grand Budapest Hotel”)
Stop motion design work is grossly under-appreciated and the more I think about the meticulous, character-specific craftsmanship of “The Boxtrolls,” the more it stands out as the year's best example in the category.

Best Production Design: “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Runner-up: TIE – “Birdman” and “Snowpiercer)
The “Grand Budapest” work is like another character in the film, while the back-up choices were too amazing to choose just one. “Birdman's” reconstruction efforts are gargantuan, just as “Snowpiercer's” multiple unique train cars continue to tell the film's wild story throughout.

Best Original Song: “America For Me” from “A Most Violent Year” (Runner-up: “Lost Stars” from “Begin Again”)
Not a wonderful year for the category, really, with poppy ironic ditties standing out for most. Alex Ebert's closing credits track for “A Most Violent Year” most encompassed its film's thematic ideas.

Best Original Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross “Gone Girl” (Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, “Godzilla”)
A tough choice between these two, honestly. Another great year for Desplat boiled down to the energy of his monster movements (for me), but Reznor and Ross' unsettling aural accompaniment for “Gone Girl” was sort of on another level.

Best Makeup: “Foxcatcher” (Runner-up: “Snowpiercer”)
Subtlety in makeup is a virtue. Look beyond Carell's nose. The work done on “Foxcatcher” is both faithful to reality and an extension of character.

Best Film Editing: Tom Cross, “Whiplash” (Runner-up: John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa, “Wild”)
The experience of “Whiplash” is very much its frantic assemblage. Ditto “Wild” its dreamlike tapestry.

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, “Birdman” (Runner-up: Robert Elswit, “Inherent Vice”)
I mean, duh. But re: Elswit, He captured “Vice” in gorgeous celluloid hues and deserves an extra mention for “Nightcrawler” as well.

Best Documentary: “The Overnighters” (Runner-up: “Tales of the Grim Sleeper”)
“The Overnighters” is like Steinbeck writ on a modern canvas, compelling human drama getting at the very soul of the country.

Best Documentary (Short Subject): “Joanna” (Runner-up: “Our Curse”)
This is a downer category this year, to be sure, but both of these films deal with the realities of illness in strikingly natural and simplistic ways. “Joanna” may be the most artful of the overall lot.

Best Short Film (Animated): “Footprints” (Runner-up: “The Bigger Picture”)
The practical ingenuity of “The Bigger Picture” is pretty amazing to behold, but Bill Plympton conjures such a fascinating statement in his latest brief that it just stands out.

Best Short Film (Live Action): “Aya” (Runner-up: “Summer Vacation”)
These are sort of interchangeable, really, but the edge goes to “Aya” for being such a rich character study about life's temptations.

Best Original Screenplay: “Birdman” (Runner-up: “Foxcatcher”)
You're about to read a lot about “Birdman” as we close out the list. Let's just say I liked it. I really liked it. But a big high five to Dan Futterman and E. Max Frye's work finding the potent center of their John du Pont drama.

Best Adapted Screenplay: “Inherent Vice” (Runner-up: “How to Train Your Dragon 2”)
P.T.A. may have been uber faithful to Pynchon but it took a lot of swagger to make the material work as a movie. An absorbing experience.

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood” (Runner-up: Rene Russo, “Nightcrawler”)
Arquette covered a lot of ground, literally and figuratively, with her 12-year performance as a single mother making her way. But worth mentioning is Russo's forthright but vulnerable ambitious news head.

Best Supporting Actor: Edward Norton, “Birdman” (Runner-up: J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”)
Norton's rowdy, rambunctious, self-absorbed theater actor might be the best thing he's done, or at the very least since his breakout work in “Primal Fear” and “American History X.”

Best Actress: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, “Beyond the Lights” (Runner-up: Anne Dorval, “Mommy”)
Mbatha-Raw broke out in a big way in 2014, and her performance as a young woman trying to find her artistic voice in the torrent of superstardom artifice was sobering and beautiful.

Best Actor: Michael Keaton, “Birdman” (Runner-up: Philip Seymour Hoffman, “A Most Wanted Man”)
Keaton found a role that harnessed all of his virtues and he knocked it out of the park. But a particular shout-out to Hoffman's final lead performance, a sterling reminder of what he was capable of.

Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman” (Runner-up: Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”)
Iñárritu's finest film to date, a penetrating, dazzling high-wire act full of thematic virtue and filmmaking verve. It's hard not to give the runner-up spot to the exacting control of Bennett Miller, but Linklater's vision and commitment deserves a notice.

Best Animated Feature: “How to Train Your Dragon 2” (Runner-up: “The Tale of Princess Kaguya'”)
The scope and majesty of the DreamWorks series soars over other bubble gum/merchandise grabs in the category this year.

Best Foreign Film: “White God” (Runner-up: “Wild Tales”)
Kornél Mundruczó's captivating tale is like “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” with dogs – real ones. And it's heart-stopping drama throughout.

Best Picture: “Birdman” (Runner-up: “Foxcatcher”)
What more can I say? A masterpiece about ego and the craving for acceptance and fulfillment. It hasn't been close since I first laid eyes on it in the mountains of Colorado. Who's ready for “The Revenant?”

(Click over to the next page for a list of supplementary kudos this year.)

Most Underrated Film of the Year: “Beyond the Lights”

Most Overrated Film of the Year: (TIE) “The LEGO Movie” and “Guardians of the Galaxy”

Breakthrough Performance (Male): Antoine-Olivier Pilon, “Mommy”

Breakthrough Performance (Female): Gugu Mbatha-Raw, “Belle” and “Beyond the Lights”

Best Ensemble: “Inherent Vice”

Best Cameo Performance: DMX, “Top Five”

Best Hero: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Selma” (as played by David Oyelowo)

Best Villain: Fletcher, “Whiplash” (as played by J.K. Simmons)

Best Poster: “Enemy” (this one)

Best Trailer (for a trailer released in 2014, not necessarily a film released in 2014): “Mad Max: Fury Road”

Most Surprising Film of the Year: “Godzilla”

Most Disappointing Film of the Year: “Big Eyes”

Most Ambitious Film of the Year: “Boyhood”

Most Intriguing Failure: “The Signal”

Best Action Sequence: “Godzilla”
The HALO jump sequence from this summer blockbuster was masterfully shot and constructed with a György Ligeti soundtrack that leaves the moment feeling unlike anything else in the spectrum.

Entertainer of the Year: Emmanuel Lubezki
I thought and I thought and I thought of who was most fitting for this annual accolade and kept coming up blank. Typically I've settled on outside-the-box choices, such as financier Megan Ellison or superhero factory Marvel Studios, but often enough a movie star with multiple hits stands out, too. This year, I just had a deep thought on my favorite work on the year, and one name bubbled up to the top.

Five Worst Films I Saw This Year (in order): “Hercules,” “Transcendence,” “Winter's Tale,” “Need for Speed,” “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”

Top 10 Films of the Year (in order): “Birdman,” “Foxcatcher,” “Inherent Vice,” “Boyhood,” “The Overnighters,” “A Most Violent Year,” “Godzilla,” “Whiplash,” “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” “Beyond the Lights”

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As is often the case with biographical films, accuracy can become an easy target for criticism. Regardless of how changes or alterations reflect dramatic and thematic intent, and that narrative films aren't meant to be documentaries, those with a bone to pick about how history is seen through an altered lens will lash out, particularly if a film is an Oscar season threat. We've already seen it happen with “Selma,” but now Bennett Miller and “Foxcatcher” are taking on fire…from one of the very people depicted in the film.

Yesterday Mark Schultz, played by Channing Tatum in the film, took to Facebook for a lengthy screed detailing beat for beat what is inaccurate in the film. After running through that laundry list, regarding a film he obviously saw months and months and months ago, he then took umbrage with an undercurrent of homosexuality that some critics have read into the text of the film.

“The personalities and relationships between the characters in the film are primarily fiction and somewhat insulting,” Schultz wrote. “Leaving the audience with a feeling that somehow there could have been a sexual relationship between duPont and I [sic] is a sickening and insulting lie. I told Bennett Miller to cut that scene out and he said it was to give the audience the feeling that duPont was encroaching on your privacy and personal space. I wasn't explicit so I didn't have a problem with it. Then after reading 3 or 4 reviews interpreting it sexually, and jeopardizing my legacy, they need to have a press conference to clear the air, or I will.”

The latent homophobia laced in those sentiments aside, Schultz obviously appears to be reacting to critical interpretation of the film more than anything else. This element has been in the ether for a while now, going back at least as far as the Telluride Film Festival, where I first saw the film a few months after its Cannes premiere. But no one really touched it.

“This is incredibly difficult for me to talk about it,” actor Steve Carell said at the time. “Any two people watching it will come away with different interpretations as to what du Pont's relationships might have meant. And I hope I'm not evading the question. It is very complex and I think we all approached it with a gentle touch. There are so many theories about who du Pont was and what drove him, and we had to make our choices about what that was, but I'd rather not say my personal choices.”

Miller then added to that, saying, “the filmmaker in me, interested in the metaphor, really doesn't like labels. There's enough representative in the film, I think, to characterize how it felt, how the experience of this behavior was, and we chose to leave it at that and not make any conclusions or points about it.”

Tatum addressed it a little more directly. “Because it's so uncomfortable to be wrapped in another man that closely, I guess the homoerotic jokes that have to take place is a whole part of the culture,” he said of amateur wrestling. “But du Pont, as far as that goes, I don't know. I just settled on he's asexual. I never really looked at this as a sexual thing, personally. I looked at it way more in the emotional rather than the physical.”

So while Carell and Miller certainly came at it with ambiguous notions, Tatum, the guy actually playing Schultz, made it clear that – due respect to anyone who wants to take that reading – he saw nothing sexual about this relationship. I guess that was enough for Schultz for a while, but as more and more interpret the work of art as they will, it's apparently not sitting well. Like, REALLY not sitting well. Here is a string of posts he apparently put up on Twitter but removed soon after:

A few more Tweets went up, however, and they're still there to see (EDIT: They've been removed, too.):

YOU THINK I'M GOING TO SIT BACK AND WATCH YOU DESTROY MY NAME AND REPUTATION I SWEAT BLOOD FOR. YOU AINT' SEEN NOTHING YET DUDE.

– Mark Schultz (@MarkSchultzy) December 31, 2014

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I BUILT THIS HOUSE AND I'LL TEAR IT DOWN. YOU THINK I CAN'T TAKE YOU DOWN COZ UR A DIRECTOR. WATCH ME BENNETT… http://t.co/wQSKgq9Pwz

– Mark Schultz (@MarkSchultzy) December 31, 2014

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I CAN TOLERATE A LOT OF THINGS BUT I DON'T TOLERATE DISRESPECT. WE'RE DONE BENNETT.

– Mark Schultz (@MarkSchultzy) December 31, 2014

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Everything I've ever said positive about the movie I take back. I hate it. i hate it. i hate it. I hate it. i hate it. i hate it. I hate it

– Mark Schultz (@MarkSchultzy) December 31, 2014

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I HATE BENNETT MILLER.

– Mark Schultz (@MarkSchultzy) December 31, 2014

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I HATE EVERYTHING THAT SCUM TOUCHES. EVERYTHING!!!

– Mark Schultz (@MarkSchultzy) December 31, 2014

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Obviously there's a conversation that needs to happen between Miller and Schultz here, a conversation I imagine has taken place at least once already. I'll just say this: It shouldn't qualify as “insulting” if people think you're gay, bro.

FINAL UPDATE: Schultz has taken to Facebook to apologize for the “harshness” of his language, though he stands by his criticisms of the film:

As I said a few weeks ago in spotlighting some of the most exciting cinematographers working today, I believe we're quietly going through a golden age for the form. There are some dynamic ideas making their way through the system these days thanks to exceptional artists behind the camera, and hopefully this little feature does its part in celebrating what they have to offer.

It has been a staggeringly good year for cinematography, and the last few years haven't been too shabby, either. I frankly had a tough time settling on my own favorites for my imaginary Oscar ballot, but in addition, I'd also spotlight films like “Calvary,” “Selma,” “Under the Skin,” “Cold in July,” “Enemy,” “The Babadook,” “A Most Wanted Man,” “Fury” and more.

(To say nothing of the films that have shown up on the top 10 shots two-parter yesterday and today: “The Homesman,” “The Immigrant,” “The Rover,” “Nightcrawler,” etc.)

So let's get down to it. I know why you're here. But FYI, if you missed the first part of this year's countdown, you should probably catch up with #s 10-6 first. The top five will be waiting here for you to dig in once you do.

Hope you enjoy…

***

#5

“INTERSTELLAR”
Director of Photography: Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF, NSC

“That particular shot is so much VFX, apart from the ship itself, which is a miniature and it's lit a certain way. In most of these shots, actually, while we were shooting, we had a miniature unit. So all of these elements there are kind of practical. For me it's a treat because it's just much nicer to shoot something than not to shoot anything and just imagining it and relying on whatever post is coming afterwards. Especially if you like things to be tactile and tangible, there's nothing nicer than basing what you do on what you have in front of the camera.”

-Hoyte van Hoytema

I often don't make this feature purely about the visual. Sometimes the assemblage counts for a lot, how an otherwise simple image takes on a significant impact when viewed in a certain editorial context. Other times, it's about how what we hear feeds what we see. In the case of this shot from “Interstellar,” the latter is very much applicable. As a reminder, the moment comes after Matthew McConaughey's everyman Cooper passes along his audio recording of crickets chirping to ease wigged-out astronaut Romilly's (David Gyasi) cabin fever. Cut to this shot as the crickets overtake the soundtrack.

Right there in a single moment is the macro/micro theme I feel the film handles pretty well. In all that expanse of the universe, Saturn looming large, a wormhole awaiting transport to God knows where in space and time, a reminder of what's back home, what's important, what's driving the mission. I find that to be profound, love the film or hate it. And I have to say, I kind of love how Hoyte van Hoytema's thoughts above speak to that concept in their own way. (For more, check out our interview with Hoytema here.)

#4

“FOXCATCHER”
Director of Photography: Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS

“You have this terse, complicated big brother/little brother relationship going on against the backdrop of a primeval sport. They are both 'men' in the truest sense of the word, but both have a caregiver and care receiver role to play. Trying to impart this depth in any sport is hard, but wrestling is a very emotional, very human. It involves the most amount of human contact of any contact sport. You really want to find that perfect angle. A little too left or right and you could be dealing with the backs of heads or legs only. On occasion we needed to adjust the guys' position to camera, or on occasion we needed to adjust the camera to them, but finding this sweet spot was very much planned.”

-Greig Fraser

“Foxcatcher” is an immaculate, austere, controlled piece of work. It's a jaw-dropping exercise in craft, and that boils right on down to Greig Fraser's imagery. After Adam Kimmell on “Capote” and Wally Pfister on “Moneyball,” Fraser was an intriguing step in cinematographer progression for director Bennett Miller, and together I think they found a profound signature. There's a lot of patience with the photography, drawn out takes, and when the editing comes, it's so precise and elegant, but not at all showy.

This shot in particular is quite balletic, telling a whole story with one flowing image. Indeed, there was a lot of backstory material shot for the film featuring Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo as Mark and Dave Schultz, but all of it was tossed out when this sequence seemed to say everything that needed to be said. That's some serious power there. That's cinema. (For more, check out our interview with Fraser here.)

#3

“INHERENT VICE”
Director of Photography: Robert Elswit, ASC

“Paul wanted to play it in real time and make it all happen. He wanted the seduction and sexual part of it to be alive and real and not feel cutty. He loves things that happen while you sit there and watch them and you don't become aware of the filmmaker's involvement or manipulation. And his wont is not to have to design things so that they have to be created in the editing room. He doesn't want to sit in the editing room trying to find his movie. He's not in love with post. It's on set, with the actors. He wants to be able to pace some things, certainly, but there are things that happen that he feels it's like an aria that can unfold.”

-Robert Elswit

Paul Thomas Anderson, for reasons laid out in the quote above, has traded on long takes packed with organic moments since day one. As he evolves as a filmmaker, that tendency evolves, too. And while this particular shot feels like a PTA throwback, it has a fresh and electric quality, letting the viewer observe thick drama play out. It's fully dependent on the actors nailing the moment, and particularly Katherine Waterston, who in this six-minute take wallows in femme fatale intrigue while revealing so much about her character's, Joaquin Phoenix's and their relationship. It's a seduction crammed with layers.

On the whole, “Inherent Vice” is one of the most stunningly shot films of the year. Mixing color temperatures and capturing vibrant production and costume design with atmospheric visual flourishes, it might be Robert Elswit's best work on an Anderson film to date, including the one for which he won an Oscar: “There Will Be Blood.” For obvious reasons, that's saying quite a lot. (For more, check out our interview with Elswit here.)

#2

“GODZILLA”
Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC

“Gareth is a great director for mise-en-scene, and he's thoughtful when it comes to bombast and action. I'd love to claim this entirely but he had pre-vised a lot of the film long before I came on board, and this was always an image he had in his head, right down even to the music. There was a whole combination of approaches to the cinematography there, within the plane and the run out, and then we had real skydivers film the leap for some of the shots. You get that excitement of the vibration of the camera and also the lack of precision to the composition. We wanted to combine that with the grand vistas when you pull back and see something more expressionistic and painterly.”

-Seamus McGarvey

Spectacle actually means something in Gareth Edwards' “Godzilla,” a summer blockbuster artfully told with a real eye on what to show you, when to show it to you and, above all, how to show it to you. But one stretch of the film in particular is so bold it probably rates as my favorite scene of the year: the HALO jump sequence set to the sounds of György Ligeti's “Requiem.” As a whole, it's a riveting sequence and it was interesting to talk to Seamus McGarvey about the different looks used to accomplish it, but when Edwards pulls back to this vista? Wow.

Yes, it's an effects shot, but it's so beautiful and very much in keeping with the visual language of the film that Edwards and McGarvey used throughout. As those red streamers drop from the clouds above (there are actually two such shots – this is the first, while the second features the San Francisco skyline), the heart sort of stops as the Ligeti takes flight. I guess I'll just say it again: WOW.

#1

“BIRDMAN”
Director of Photography: Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC

“The main reason we shot it this way was it was written like that. The seed of it was in the script. It has to do with getting the audience immersed in the movie and having the audience somehow go through Riggan's emotional roller coaster, through the labyrinth of his mind as his life is collapsing, and have the audience feel what he's feeling as they walk behind his feet. I think in that sense it's beautiful, because this same story could have been told in many other ways. But this one, the form of the movie is really powerful because it makes the inner world of Riggan even more palpable. You feel it. You're right with him through this. And I think that made the movie very special.”

-Emmanuel Lubezki

There could simply be no other. It's not often that you basically get to say an entire film (well, 95% of one) is “the best shot of the year,” but that's the case here. And cry foul for picking a digitally assembled tracking shot if you must, but there is some precedent for going there. After a few fleeting thematically relevant images, the “single take” magic trick of “Birdman” begins one minute, 51 seconds into the film and doesn't conclude until an hour 41 minutes and 17 seconds later. In between there are dissolves and digital edits meant to smooth it out and preserve the effect, but that's not at all a deal breaker to me.

“Birdman” – ahem, the best film of the year – is filmed this way with purpose. At a time when 3D imagery and surround sound technology are hellbent on making the theatrical experience all about immersion, here is a film that grabs you by the ears and forces you to to experience the drama right alongside the main character every step of the way. It's breathless, brilliant – absolutely brilliant – and it marks the second straight year the maestro, Emmanuel Lubezki, has topped this list. (For more, check out our interview with Lubezki here.)

That wraps up another detailed look at the best film images of the year. But what's your take on all of this? Rattle off your own list of favorite shots in the comments section below.

(And by the way, thanks for being such champions of these annual shenanigans. It's nice to know people are eager to read it every year.)

The top 10 shots of 2014: part one

***

The top 10 shots of 2014

The top 10 shots of 2013

The top 10 shots of 2012

The top 10 shots of 2011

The top 10 shots of 2010

The top 10 shots of 2009

The top 10 shots of 2008

The top 10 shots of 2007

We're winding down the year-in-review game here at HitFix as 2014 draws to a close. For whatever reason I took a year off of the ballot/superlatives posts, but I'm back with those personal assessments of the best of the year, beginning today with my top picks across the Academy's 24 categories.

Check back in tomorrow for a list of winners from this lot, as well as others in a slew of peripheral categories. And of course, feel free to let us know what your Oscar ballot would look like in the comments section below.

(Oh, and naturally it goes without saying this post is living in a parallel reality where I'm not confined to a specific branch for nominations and reign supreme over all categories with selections for each.)

We'll find out if the Academy agrees with any of this when the 87th annual Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 15.

***

Best Picture
“Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, Arnon Milchan, James W. Skotchdopole)
“Boyhood” (Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland)
“Foxcatcher” (Megan Ellison, Bennett Miller, Jon Kilik, Anthony Bregman)
“Inherent Vice” (Joanne Sellar, Daniel Lupi, Paul Thomas Anderson)
“The Overnighters” (Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss)

Best Director
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Bennett Miller, “Foxcatcher”
Paul Thomas Anderson, “Inherent Vice”
J.C. Chandor, “A Most Violent Year”

Best Actor
Steve Carell, “Foxcatcher”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “A Most Wanted Man”
Oscar Isaac, “A Most Violent Year”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”

Best Actress
Anne Dorval, “Mommy”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, “Beyond the Lights”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”

Best Supporting Actor
Riz Ahmed, “Nightcrawler”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Gary Poulter, “Joe”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Minnie Driver, “Beyond the Lights”
Rene Russo, “Nightcrawler”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Katherine Waterston, “Inherent Vice”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Cold in July” (Nick Damici, Jim Mickle)
“Gone Girl” (Gillian Flynn)
“How to Train Your Dragon 2” (Dean DeBlois)
“The Imitation Game” (Graham Moore)
“Inherent Vice” (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Best Original Screenplay
“Beyond the Lights” (Gina Prince-Bythewood)
“Birdman” (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Armando Bo)
“Boyhood” (Richard Linklater)
“Foxcatcher” (Dan Futterman, E. Max Frye)
“Whiplash” (Damien Chazelle)

Best Cinematography
“Birdman” (Emmanuel Lubezki)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Robert D. Yeoman)
“Inherent Vice” (Robert Elswit)
“Mr. Turner” (Dick Pope)
“A Most Violent Year” (Bradford Young)

Best Costume Design
“The Boxtrolls” (Deborah Cook)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Milena Canonero)
“Inherent Vice” (Mark Bridges)
“Into the Woods” (Colleen Atwood)
“Maleficent” (Anna B. Sheppard)

Best Film Editing
“Birdman” (Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione)
“Edge of Tomorrow” (James Herbert)
“Foxcatcher” (Jay Cassidy, Stuart Levy, Conor O'Neill)
“Whiplash” (Tom Cross)
“Wild” (John Mac McMurphy, Martin Pensa)

Best Makeup
“Foxcatcher” (Bill Corso; Kathrine Gordon)
“Inherent Vice” (Gigi Williams; Miia Kovero)
“Snowpiercer” (Gabriela Plakova; Linda Eisenhamerova)

Best Music (Original Score)
“Godzilla” (Alexandre Desplat)
“Gone Girl” (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Alexandre Desplat)
“Interstellar” (Hans Zimmer)
“Under the Skin” (Mica Levi)

Best Music (Original Song)
“Lost Stars” from “Begin Again” (Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois)
“America For Me” from “A Most Violent Year” (Alex Ebert)
“Land Ho!” from “Land Ho!” (Keegan DeWitt)*
“Glory” from “Selma” (John Stephens, Lonnie Lynn, Che Smith)

Best Production Design
“Birdman” (Kevin Thompson; George DeTitta Jr.)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Adam Stockhausen; Anna Pinnock)
“Inherent Vice” (David Crank; Amy Wells)
“Mr. Turner” (Suzie Davies; Charlotte Watts)
“Snowpiercer” (Ondrej Nekvasil; Beata Brendtnerovà)

Best Sound Editing
“American Sniper” (Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman)
“The Babadook” (Frank Lipson)*
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (Douglas Murray; Will Files)
“Fury” (Lisa Pinero; Paul N.J. Ottosson, Marc Fishman)
“Godzilla” (Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn

Best Sound Mixing
“American Sniper” (Walt Martin; John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff)
“Fury” (Paul N.J. Ottosson)
“Godzilla” (Michael McGee; Rick Kline, Gregg Landaker, Tim LeBlanc)
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” (Tony Johnson; Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick)
“Transformers: Age of Extinction” (Peter J. Devlin; Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan, Jeffrey J. Haboush)

Best Visual Effects
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Erik Winquist, Daniel Barrett)
“Godzilla” (Jim Rygiel, Guillaume Rocheron, Ken McGaugh, Joel Whist)
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, R. Christopher White)
“Interstellar” (Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, Scott Fisher)
“Under the Skin” (Dominic Parker)

Best Animated Feature Film
“The Boxtrolls” (Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi; David Bleiman Ichioka, Travis Knight)
“Cheatin'” (Bill Plympton; Desiree Stavracos)
“How to Train Your Dragon 2” (Dean DeBlois; Bonnie Arnold)
“The Tale of Princess Kaguya” (Isao Takahata; Yoshiaki Nishimura, Seiichirô Ujiie)

Best Documentary Feature
“CITIZENFOUR” (Laura Poitros; Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky)
“The Internet's Own Boy” (Brian Knappenberger)
“The Overnighters” (Jesse Moss; Amanda McBaine)
“Tales of the Grim Sleeper” (Nick Broomfield; Marc Hoeferlin)
“Virunga” (Orlando von Einsiedel; Joanna Natasegara)

Best Foreign Language Film
“Leviathan” (Andrey Zvyagintsev – Russia)
“Mommy” (Xavier Dolan – Canada)
“Timbuktu” (Abderrahmane Sissako – Mauritania)
“White God” (Kornél Mundruczó – Hungary)
“Wild Tales” (Damián Szifrón – Argentina)

Best Documentary (Short Subject)†
“Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1”
“Joanna”
“Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace”
“One Child”
“Our Curse”

Best Short Film (Animated)
“The Bigger Picture”
“The Dam Keeper”
“Duet”
“Footprints”
“Feast”

Best Short Film (Live Action)
“Aya”
“Baghdad Messi”
“Carry On”
“SLR”
“Summer Vacation”

Oh, and one more that I would love to see the Academy add…

Best Ensemble
“Birdman”
“Foxcatcher”
“Inherent Vice”
“Selma”
“Wild Tales”

*”The Babadook” and the title track from “Land Ho!” have been deemed ineligible for either arbitrary Academy rules (in the case of the former) or presumably submission issues (in the case of the latter – though that may have been disqualified for other reasons). I would write them in anyway because whatever.

†While I have not seen all of the eligible contenders for the shorts categories, I have indeed viewed each of the shortlisted finalists. So I feel good enough about offering up favorites there.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910357485001

For this edition of the Contender Countdown we're going to approach the race for a Best Picture nomination a little differently. Now that every major contender has opened in at least limited release outside of “A Most Violent Year,” we can finally review how the nation's critics have judge them on a broader, consensus basis. As Nate Silver may have realized when he tried to predict Oscar, you can't count on statistics with so many factors in play, but if presented comparably it might make you rethink the possibilities. To make this investigation work we'll use both the Rotten Tomatoes percentage score and the Metacritic grade to illuminate some very interesting data-driven discoveries.

First, some facts to consider…

– Since the Academy expanded the field almost six years ago each Best Picture winner has scored at least a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 86 grade on Metacritic. Here's the rundown:

“12 Years A Slave”
RT – 97
Meta – 97

“Argo”
RT – 96
Meta – 86

“The Artist”
RT – 98
Meta – 89

“The King's Speech”
RT – 94
Meta – 88

“The Hurt Locker”
RT – 97
Meta – 94

– If you compare the winners from 2000 on, “Crash” has the worst score with a 75% on RT and a 69 on Meta although “A Beautiful Mind” isn't that far behind with a 75% on RT and a 72 on Meta.

– The nominee with the lowest score over the past six years is, without question, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” with a 46 from both indexes (ouch). That's really an aberration, however. The next worst rated film is “The Blind Side” which earned a 66% on RT and a 53 on Meta. “Les Misérables” and “The Help” follow with results in the 70's for each index followed by “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “War Horse.”

– Looking back at titles when the Academy was still picking just five nominees, “Chocolat's” 63% and a 64 grade and “The Reader's” 61% and 58 grade are the two other least critically acclaimed nominees this century.

Got all that? Good. Let's look at the 2015 contenders so far. I've asterisked any potential nominee that has not expanded nationwide as their review scores may increase or decrease when that occurs. By order of their current grades…

“Boyhood”
RT – 99%
Meta – 100

“Selma”*
RT – 100%
Meta – 91

“Whiplash”
RT – 96%
Meta – 87

“A Most Violent Year”*
RT – 95%
Meta – 86

“Birdman”
RT – 93%
Meta – 89

“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
RT – 92%
Meta – 88

“Foxcatcher“
RT – 86%
Meta – 82

“Gone Girl”
RT – 88%
Meta – 79

“The Imitation Game”
RT – 89%
Meta – 72

“Nightcrawler”
RT – 85%
Meta – 76

“The Theory of Everything”
RT – 81%
Meta – 72

“Interstellar”
RT – 73%
Meta – 74

“American Sniper”*
RT – 74%
Meta – 73
Note: Comparatively, “Lone Survivor” was 75% and 60.

“Into the Woods”
RT – 71%
Meta – 71
Note: No joke, “Les Misérables” reviews were actually worse.

“Unbroken”
RT – 51%
Meta – 59

What have we learned? Well, unless “Unbroken” is the second coming of “Extremely Loud” or “The Blind Side” it “should” be an uphill battle for it to make the field despite the strong box office so far. In fact, it would go completely against recent trends if Angelina Jolie's epic made the cut. There hasn't been a nominee that badly reviewed since the Academy put forth its vote qualifiers for the Best Picture field four years ago.

Comparing the current field's results to the last five winners would tell us this year's Best Picture winner would have to be “Boyhood,” “Selma” or, possibly, “Birdman” (we're assuming the national reviews will bring “A Most Violent Year” down a tad). That means if “The Imitation Game” won it would be the fourth worst reviewed winner this century after “Crash,” “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind.” Yes, Academy members do love it, but do they love it that much? Hey, just the facts, ma'am.

Of course, this is just what the critics think. Clearly the Academy and the guilds have minds of their own. Still, if you were to play the trends…

What do you think of the current field? Can “The Imitation Game” buck history and go all the way?

If you thought the explosive conclusion to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” was an elaborate physical stunt involving Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, and three life-size hellicarriers crashing into Washington D.C. buildings, think again! Also, really? You thought that was real? I mean it looked good, but c”mon, Marvel isn”t going to build a billion dollar flying aircraft carrier and drive it into a skyscraper. You're crazy.

In a new behind-the-scenes feature, the artists at Industrial Light & Magic strip back the animated layers of “Captain America 2″s” biggest set pieces to reveal each element in the CG pipeline. Even walk-and-talk scenes at S.H.I.E.L.D. involve hundreds of digitally-created backgrounds and props, making the Marvel tentpole even more like “300” than anyone might have imagined.

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is one of the Academy”s 10 contenders for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. Also on the recently announced shortlist: “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “Godzilla,” “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,” and Marvel”s own “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Check out the video below: 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pszNJBHpFKw]

More than most of his contemporaries, Richard Linklater”s films are extensions of himself. For  “Boyhood” and “Dazed and Confused,” the writer-director yanked autobiographical from his own life and adapted them for the modern timeline. Similarly, “Waking Life” and the “Before” trilogy start with personal pondering and blossom into talky motion pictures. Linklater shot his debut feature “Slacker” around his hometown of Austin, Texas and appeared in one of the leading roles, blurring the line between fact and fiction even further. By making films that draw so closely from his own experiences, Linklater has created a web of spiritually linked films that seem to inform one another. None of them are sequels, all of them are sequels. His next film fits the bill.

Talking to Creative Screenwriter, Linklater explains how his purported spiritual sequel to “Dazed,” the baseball coming-of-age drama “That's What I'm Talking About,” winds up connecting to “Boyhood” too:

I think the word “spiritual” gets me off the hook. I just shot it and wrapped it recently, and it has nothing to do with “Dazed and Confused” other than it would be set four years later, when one of the younger characters went off to college. It”s a party film. It”s really about the beginning of school, not the end of the school year. I guess personally or autobiographically it”s kind of in that realm, but it”s also a continuation of “Boyhood,” believe it or not. I don”t know if one film can be a sequel to two different movies, but it begins right where “Boyhood” ends with a guy showing up at college and meeting his new roommates and a girl. It overlaps with the end of “Boyhood.”

It”s easy to imagine: “Glee” actor Blake Jenner filling in for “Boyhood”s” Ellar Coltrane, saying goodbye to his mother as he heads off to college, stumbling head first into a new pack of friends, and then… Linklater”s “party film.”

As the director gears up for the “Boyhood” Oscar race, he”ll juggle post-production on “That's What I'm Talking About,” his first collaboration with Megan Ellison”s Annapurna. As scientists theorized: the Linklater universe continues to quickly expand.

The North Carolina Film Critics Association has announced its list of nominees in a modest array of categories this season, and once again, it's “Birdman” leading the way, with seven nominations. One of those came for the Tar Heel Award, recognizing artists with ties to North Carolina. Wilkesboro native Zach Galifianakis, who in my opinion actually deserves a hard look for Best Supporting Actor consideration, got a notice there.

Check out the full list of nominees below. Winners will be announced Jan. 5. And check out the rest of the season's offerings at The Circuit.

Best Narrative Film
“Boyhood”
“Birdman”
“Calvary”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“A Most Violent Year”
“Selma”
“Whiplash”

Best Director
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”
Ava DuVernay, “Selma”
David Fincher, “Gone Girl”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”

Best Actor
Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Brendan Gleeson, “Calvary”
Tom Hardy, “Locke”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, “Two Days, One Night”
Essie Davis, “The Babadook”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”
Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin, “Inherent Vice”
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Alfred Molina, “Love is Strange”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J. K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year”
Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
Rene Russo, “Nightcrawler”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Tilda Swinton, “Snowpiercer”

Best Adapted Screenplay
Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl”
James Gunn and Nicole Perlman, “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Nick Hornby, “Wild”
Graham Moore, “The Imitation Game”
Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson, “Snowpiercer”

Best Original Screenplay
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Jon Michael McDonagh, “Calvary”

Best Documentary Film
“CITIZENFOUR”
“Glen Campbell: I”ll Be Me”
“Jodorowsky”s Dune”
“Life Itself”
“The Overnighters”

Best Animated Film
“Big Hero 6”
“The Boxtrolls”
“How to Train Your Dragon 2”
“The LEGO Movie”
“The Tale of Princess Kaguya”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Force Majeure”
“Ida”
“The Lunchbox”
“Two Days, One Night”
“We are the Best!”

Tar Heel Award
Special recognition to a performer or film with special ties to North Carolina.
Zach Galifanikas, “Birdman”
Cynthia Hill, “Private Violence”
Jake Lacy, “Obvious Child”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz, “Land Ho!”

As more try to co-opt our patented, eight-year-strong “shots of the year” feature, it seemed like maybe I should start trying to get the package ready sooner rather than later. So I tried to hit it as hard as I could to get 2014's list out to you by the end of the year for the first time ever (it usually drops in late January or thereabouts). So…YOU'RE WELCOME. All kidding aside, though, it makes for a nice bow on the year, even if dropping it this early takes away some of the time I generally allot to thoroughly revisiting film imagery. This time around, the list is very much about the frames that stuck with me instantly, rather than decision-making slaved over toward the end of the year. And there's something to be said for that, too.

Of course, as always, I delight in jumping on the phone with the various cinematographers to get their takes (no pun intended) on the images chosen. It's always enlightening and something I think we do a good job of exclusively offering our readers. Hopefully you continue to enjoy it as we inch closer to a decade of producing this feature (wow).

So enough foreplay. You can dig into the first half of the list below. But before doing so, I did want to point you to this. There's a bit of postured profundity in there to me, but it's nevertheless interesting and thoughtful. And it's just the kind of passion we've been trying to present with this piece over the last eight years. We're happy the idea is catching on.

Without further ado…

#10

“THE HOMESMAN”
Director of Photography: Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

“The western is a very specific genre that I have never really liked too much, to tell you the truth. But this story is not your classic, let's say, western. It wasn't about shooting the landscapes or the vistas for me. It was more about the story of these women that I thought could be strong emotionally and visually. This is certainly a very important shot in the movie, but there were voices – and I won't say who – that wanted to take out that whole episode with the hotel because of the cost of it. Tommy Lee thought it was a very important scene for the character, when he goes back and exacts revenge. But it was nerve-wracking, of course, building this place and then burning it down!”

-Rodrigo Prieto

Some images make it to this list for largely aesthetic reasons. The first couple of entries on the collective this year are sort of in that realm, less interesting for thematic reasons than the feeling elicited by the sheer imagery they conjure or their composition. This particular frame from Tommy Lee Jones' “The Homesman” stood out for those reasons, sure – it's a dynamic, classic sort of image that feels like it belongs in the great takes of the western genre. But it also comes at a turning point for the main character, on the heels of his most aggressive act in the film, and so that iconography leaves you with a richer feeling, the hairs standing up on the back of your neck.

Rodrigo Prieto has dabbled in some of the western genre's elements in the past with “Brokeback Mountain,” still his only Oscar nomination to date. It was interesting to hear that it's not a genre of particular interest to him, however, as he seems to take to it very well. He's branching out as of late by collaborating with Martin Scorsese, which ought to be a treat for viewers when “Silence” rolls around in particular.

#9

“THE IMMIGRANT”
Director of Photography: Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC

“This was completely generated by the wish, the desire, of James Gray. He wanted to do the shot this way. We couldn't find a location that was really right, though. Because of the location where we were, we could see the boat but we couldn't actually do the shot that way. We decided to do it in different passes, so we basically mixed different things. It was enhanced visually and we added the reflection. It's almost like a Tarkovsky shot. It's mixing all the different elements of the story, Marion and her sister going toward liberty and Joaquin's realization and redemption as a human being, that he can come to the light and realize he was wrong. It sums up the whole movie.”

-Darius Khondji

Not to make it sound dramatic, but I have had a bit of a complex relationship with this shot all year. First and foremost, Darius Khondji's work on “The Immigrant” made for some of the finest cinematography of 2014, evocative and gorgeous with a lot of thematic heft throughout. But the final image of the film didn't quite grab me like it did others, just because of the context of what's happening in the shot. It didn't seem to require that profound a visual commentary. And some of its impact even feels slightly diminished for me by the fact that it wasn't achieved without CGI.

I'm backhanding one of my selections, here, so let me quickly clarify. It does have thematic virtue, as Khondji lays out in the quote above. And it is an arresting composition, regardless of how one perceives that thematic virtue. I view it as a torch-bearer for Khondji's work throughout the film, really, a Neo-Realism/Caravaggio-influenced reminder that he has one of the most dynamic visual signatures of all his peers. He and director Woody Allen have a pretty solid partnership as of late but I would love him to collaborate with some other filmmakers, or perhaps even go back to the David Fincher well once more.

#8

“MR. TURNER”
Director of Photography: Dick Pope, BSC

“It's like a still life. That was like an interlude shot that we picked up when we were in this location. I went off for a walk on this riverbank and discovered this quite magical area with sort of cathedral-like, covered willows and trees, very still. I shared it with Mike and we went there and there was beautiful sunlight. I got the guys to pump smoke in and smoke up the river, and then waited for it to settle so the beams of light were picked up. We went in and did some other shots of him sitting in the boat and then that one, which we did from a bridge looking down on him in the boat. And the art direction, like everything in these films, was meticulous. There was nothing to chance.”

-Dick Pope

A number of J.M.W. Turner's most famous works are virtually recreated with light and digital 1s and 0s by Dick Pope in Mike Leigh's striking biopic, from “The Fighting Temeraire” to “Chichester Canal” to “Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth.” But more than a few of the frames he conjures could themselves be hung in a gallery, and this one stood out the most for me, a bird's eye view of the man mourning the loss of a father.

Look at the precise design of the frame there, everything placed just so. Indeed, it's like a still life, as Pope says. I still sit in awe at the photography in this film, mouth agape particularly at the fact that it was a digital production. It's crisp and clean but still doesn't scream “digital” when the beauty of it all washes over you. Some of the best work of the year behind the camera. (For more, read our interview with Pope here.)

#7

“THE ROVER”
Director of Photography: Natasha Braier, ADF

“We were trying to support this idea of Guy being a character who was difficult to penetrate and to see with the way we were framing him throughout the film. At the beginning, we always see him in back or turning – we're never really in front of him. He's always kind of hidden, because it's dark or he's standing near the darker areas of a room. As the film develops, we start to get more frontal and he gets more accessible and we start to see him more in the light. That shot is probably one of the only shots in the movie in which Guy has total front light lighting his whole face, and I think the reason why it's very powerful is it's kind of like the character becomes human in that moment.”

-Natasha Baier

I would probably call “The Rover” one of the best films you didn't see this year. OK, maybe you saw it, but obviously most didn't – it died a quick death at the box office. But it's a gorgeous movie, both photographically and thematically, and few shots this year drew a reaction out of me like this 60-second take of Guy Pearce releasing much of the pent-up emotion his character has kept buried throughout. I had a complex emotional response that built with every second of the shot and crescendoed with the single tear that eventually falls from his eye.

That's the kind of thing I look for with this feature every year. What grabbed me, not just superficially, but viscerally? There's a shot earlier in the film that is pretty creative and great, Pearce sitting at a bar as a vehicle violently crashes on the highway, the carnage quickly visible through the window behind him. It set up the visual style of the film by creatively displaying the story's inciting incident. Something like that is great. Something like this, however, is transcendent.

#6

“NIGHTCRAWLER”
Director of Photography: Robert Elswit, ASC

“That really grew out of, 'Here we are, here's this shot,' and I think Danny and I just went, 'Wow. They're looking at each other. They're really in love,' or what? Whatever it is that's going on between the two of them! And it just seemed the perfect way to do it. You stand in a room and you watch rehearsal and it just rang a bell. 'That's it.' I don't think anyone will be able to make anything as prescient and brilliant as 'Network,' the demise of news, the turning of everything on television into entertainment. Paddy Chayefsky's script, he saw it all coming, and he knew what the forces were behind it. But this was a look at how cynical television is in a very sort of direct and honest way.”

-Robert Elswit

Robert Elswit absolutely crushed it this year. To date he's one of only two people to have shots from different films on the list (the other being Roger Deakins, both going way back to the inaugural 2007 edition), and – spoiler alert – you'll soon discover he's done it again. But let's talk about “Nightcrawler,” a digital/celluloid production that yielded a Los Angeles unlike anything seen on a big screen this side of Michael Mann's oeuvre. It's a seedy but slick world he and director Dan Gilroy represented, and a couple of intriguing shots stood out, no question.

Ultimately I settled on this one because it's just so bold and striking. Ambitious opportunist Lou Bloom stares into the eyes of desperate news head Nina Romina as the fruits of their labor – the image of Rick, Bloom's dying employee and a victim of his cold ruthlessness – sits frozen on a monitor between them. It's almost like Rick is looking right at them, appalled by their actions. Or is he looking at us, pleading with us to change the channel and take responsibility as consumers? A powerful frame. (For more, read our interview with Elswit here.)

Continue to part two and the top five shots of the year!

***

The top 10 shots of 2014

The top 10 shots of 2013

The top 10 shots of 2012

The top 10 shots of 2011

The top 10 shots of 2010

The top 10 shots of 2009

The top 10 shots of 2008

The top 10 shots of 2007

A great film score complements without burrowing too far into the ideas, wrestles with genre without locking the picture into a fixed identity, amplifies actors and actress” choices without spilling the beans. A composer”s job is a balancing act. More and more, movie music finds itself backing off too far, devolving into incidental muzac, or going too far, where full-blast orchestral sounds pummel us like the Transformers” energon punches. There”s a sweet spot, and the best film scores of the year ride it for an entire runtime.

I shouldn”t be surprised that my favorite film scores of the year line-up closely with my favorite films of the year. As someone who goes to the movies with his ears as wide open as his eyes, I found myself captivated by 2014″s audio-visual offerings. Below, what I”d consider the “best” of the year (along with a few runner-ups, because the more the merrier): 

15. “The Monuments Men,” Alexandre Desplat

Yes, George Clooney”s World War II caper fizzled from Oscar-vehicle to February counter-programming (although it still earned a solid box office), but Desplat”s throwback score prevails. Tipping his hat to Dimitri Tiomkin, John Barry and other war movie legends, Desplat strikes up the military band to hit every genre touchstone. There are brassy marches, lone horns, booming bass lines and even circus tunes, adding moments of levity. It”s a score that barely needs a movie attached to encapsulate a genre”s history. Clooney”s visuals wind up bringing it down to reality.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzHbvbEIxo]

14. “The LEGO Movie,” Mark Mothersbaugh

An adventure score for 2014″s dubstep-scarfing, YouTube-surfing, high-on-sugar-cereal 8-year-olds, Mothersbaugh hustles to keep up with Phil Lord and Chris Miller”s berserk animated film. The movie”s bouncy worker bee main theme catapults the Old West, faux-“Lord of the Rings” epicness and Batman superhero badassery at ludicrous speed, translating the creative rush of playing with the LEGOs into a sonic colorsplosion. Maybe the most Devo-like sounds Mothersbaugh has produced since turning his attention from the New Wave band to film music.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlwUVQ7frM8]

13. “Virunga,” Patrick Jonsson

Grand documentary scores run the risk of suffocating Intimate subjects or overdramatizing sweeping stories. With “Virunga,” Jonsson takes a chance, echoing the sounds of summer blockbusters to find danger and urgency in a localized issue. In its examination of Virunga, a Congolese national park and one of the few protected homes for African mountain gorillas, Orlando von Einsiedel”s conservationist expose stumbles into corporate spycraft and guerrilla war. Jonsson sucks us into conflict with contemplative ambiance and orchestral cues that would pair well with James Cameron”s oeuvre. Familiar sounds take on new life against von Einsiedel”s astonishing footage, turning a “foreign issue” into a matter of life or death.

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12. “The Boxtrolls,” Dario Marianelli

Routinely accompanying Joe Wright”s classically styled dramas, Marianelli branched out in 2014 to score his first animated feature. Playful and macabre, the composer finds a Chaplin-esque rhythm to the Boxtrolls' silent antics and 18th Century sounds to match the Dickensian mode. In its strolling moments, Marianelli”s score sounds like a darker “Sailor”s Hornpipe,” with whistles, honky-tonk piano and squeezebox melding into whimsy.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBmjokZnE2c]

11. “Listen Up Philip,” Keegan DeWitt / “Life Itself,” Joshua Abrams

This year, jazz emerged from the hearts of two radically opposed characters. DeWitt”s crackling quintet recordings capture a macro (New York”s here-before-you-know-it seasons) and a micro (Jason Schwartzman”s Philip), erratic, nostalgic and constantly chilled. Abrams' work on Steve James” Roger Ebert documentary “Life Itself” is the other side of a coin, a bright, bluesy elegy to the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic. Hints of the jazzier “Roger”s Theme” constantly drift over melancholy orchestral lines, achieving totality for all of Ebert”s ups and downs. 

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(Head to the next page for my Top 10 Best Scores of the Year!)

10. “Snowpiercer” / “The Homesman,” Marco Beltrami

Beltrami made his name as a horror and western guy, a genre connoisseur. In 2014, he spliced skills, giving Bong Joon-ho”s incremental sci-fi a rootin” tootin” grunge fit for a speeding locomotive and Tommy Lee Jones” Old West spine-tingling sizzle. It shouldn”t feel so rare for propulsive action scores to nurture dread, but that”s what Beltrami”s hanging piano notes do for “Snowpiercer,” which cranks it up to 11 when the the lights go out and the axes start swinging. 

For “The Homesman,” the composer drags traditional period sounds – guitar, piano and a lone violin –to hell and back, sprinkling in otherworldly sounds that produce a ghastly soundscape. Finally, the western has its “Rosemary”s Baby.” If they get around to making those “Dark Tower” movies, Beltrami is the guy to call.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf0Q0mIcB0Y]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEpS7BLHnA]

9. “The Guest,” Steve Moore / “Cold in July,” Jeff Grace

Synthesizers returned in 2014, thanks to a wave of '80s-inspired thrillers that transmuted nostalgia into mood. “The Guest” soundtrack sounds like Moore ripped Brad Fiedel”s discography off worn down VHS tapes, laid it over John Harrison”s “Day of the Dead” score, ripped it to shreds and percolated the bits as Dan Stevens runs and guns his way through the genre-defying picture. Indebted to the past and, somehow, wholly original. Grace”s blossoms with Carpenter-esque minimalism, bad decisions rippling through forward-moving events as fuzzy melodics. Advancing the post-rock indie soundtrack by cultivating 30-year-old concepts, Grace displaces “Cold in July” from a rigid setting, maximizing the story's existing, unnerving qualities.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQpwevYVP44]

8. “The Imitation Game,” Alexandre Desplat

Moving like clockwork, Desplat”s spindly score adds the finishing touches to Benedict Cumberbatch”s interpretation of mathematician and World War II hero Alan Turing. Desplat provides “The Imitation Game” with a web of sounds. At the front there”s racing piano lines, mechanical and puzzle-like. Behind it, the composer conjures Turing”s repressed memories and sexuality like ghosts at a séance, creeping into view and blurring the work at hand. Desplat”s score feels outputted directly from Turing”s computational brain, a tactic that could feel cold and obvious in any other setting, but feels purposeful in “The Imitation Game.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsQl_ZuZDX8]

7. “Under the Skin,” Mica Levi

Underscoring Scarlett Johansson”s ferocious performance, Levi, frontwoman for Micachu & The Shapes, reminds us that sound is physical and can seriously fuck with your body. Resembling the abstract, improvised narrative while grating Jonathan Glazer”s striking images into fine dust, Levi slices through our brains with high-pitched noise and steady percussion. There are distinct themes that can”t be hummed, tonal registers that only dogs can hear and terror from start to finish. Levi”s “Under the Skin” score is radical, unenjoyable and perfect.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFTM6xseawc]

6. “Birdman,” Antonio Sanchez

The Oscars disqualified Sanchez”s drum kit score for being diluted by sourced classical music. Anyone with ears on their head can recognize the ineptitude of the decision. Sanchez”s improvised “Birdman” music is rambunctious and reactive, intertwined with Alejandro González Iñárritu”s visceral picture like DNA”s double helix. If Michael Keaton takes a step, Sanchez responds. Or is it the other way around? Chaos has never been so toe-tapping.

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5. “Still Alice,” Ilan Eshkeri

Closer to what one might find in Brooklyn”s chamber music scene than anything emerging out of Hollywood, Eshkeri”s score pierces with jagged instrumentals and resolves to haunting melodies, simulating an Alzheimer's patient”s dissolving mind without didactically consuming Julianne Moore”s performance. It”s the year”s most delicate experiment, always in tune with what Moore externalizes or lets bubble underneath. Pianos pang and linger, themes reemerge like memories and Eshkeri achieves an emotional undercurrent that never twists our arms to tell us how to feel. It all comes naturally.

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4. “The Double,” Andrew Hewitt

Movies are too realistic. If they could loosen up, dip their toes into the theatrical, maybe there”d be more room for scores like Hewitt”s “Double” music, a symphonic tour-de-force with the swell of high, Russian drama. The composer turns Richard Ayoade”s second feature into a kinetic opera with a Bernard Hermann touch, mysterious and paranoid. Hewitt lulls us into a longing gaze with piano digressions, situating us for the terror to come when his full orchestra comes swooping in. “The Double” score achieves chiaroscuro for the ears.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omZuaui3xhQ]

3. “Interstellar,” Hans Zimmer

Zimmer and his crack team of composing underlings have homogenized Hollywood event films, his factory”s scores acting as steroids for already-beefy blockbusters. That doesn”t mean the music producer-turned-composer can”t put his head down and weave together a beautiful tapestry once in awhile. Wearing influences to Philip Glass, John Tavener and Goblin on his sleeve, Zimmer scales back “The Dark Knight” trilogy”s bombardment that”s become synonymous with his name for a reserved, introspective organ score that still has the balls to go big when all of spacetime is staring the audience in the face. Encapsulating the vastness of space and the gear-turning involved with wrapping one”s mind around a galactic endeavor, Zimmer throws “Inception” BRAAAM! to the wind for his most compassionate score to date. At the center of a black hole: Where sensitivity and adrenaline-pumping go hand and hand. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHNllxzUv94]

2. “The Tale of Princess Kaguya”, Joe Hisaishi

There would be no Studio Ghibli without Hisaishi, the studio”s longtime collaborator who gave soulful voice to Hayao Miyazaki”s films. Hisaishi lends his services to Isao Takahata”s coming-of-age fairy tale and delivers a score that grows alongside its main character. There”s youth in the woodwinds, sorrow in their minor inversions. Time becomes fluid in Hisaishi”s music, present day city sounds making way for ethereal nostalgia, days when Kaguya roamed the bamboo forest. The film”s final fanfare is explosive and tinged with sadness – everything the film pulls off in a nutshell. In Studio Ghibli”s films, music translates fantasy into something understood. Hisaishi is our interpreter. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI9Cz_RoeGY]

1. “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Alexandre Desplat

Wes Anderson”s wartime farce sports a sizable ensemble, but ranking among the leads, Ralph Fiennes” M. Gustave and his young accomplice Zero, is Desplat”s score, the Grand Budapest”s audible spirit and the film”s page-turning throughline. The composer is with Anderson”s troupe every step of the way, turning “The Grand Budapest Hotel” into something of an unsung musical. Summoning Eastern European instrumentation and a yodeling backbone, Desplat pieces together his version of “Inception,” each line digging deeper and deeper into the heart of Anderson”s dreamworld, uncovering danger, laughs, scares, romance and action variations along the way. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is the most eclectic score of the year, reflective of the movie it swirls about, and yet there”s fear at its core, that this could very well be the last time we hear something so radical, that man could step in and obliterate joy in an eighth note”s time. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bXTtWntlf0]

Three Brilliant Uses of Sourced Music: “Force Majeure,” “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” and “Boyhood”

An Unexpectedly Faithful, Rousing Throwback: “A Million Ways to Die,” Joel McNeely

Score Earning Love from Fellow Film Music Geeks That I Don”t Understand at All: “Maleficent” by James Newton”s Howard

Franchise That Needs to Get Its Film Score Act Together: The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Radical Enough That It Deserves a Mention: “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” by Hans Zimmer and The Magnificent Six (Pharrell Williams, Michael Einziger, Junkie XL, Johnny Marr, Andrew Kawczynzki and Steve Mazzaro).

A Few Close Runner-Ups: “Enemy,” “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” “Locke,” “Inherent Vice,” “Night Moves,” “The Zero Theorem”

And we're truly off. Ballots are in hands. Academy voters, who hopefully spent as much time soaking up the year's offerings through screeners and screenings over the holiday break as they did hitting the slopes, will be putting pencil to paper, finger to keyboard beginning Monday with an 11-day voting window closing on Jan. 8. Let's see what's happening in the lead-up to that stretch…

At the box office, “Unbroken” is all the rage. The film, already riding the coattails of a best-selling book, took advantage of a holiday release frame that had very little in the way of adult drama competition. It was ultimately critic-proof, as audiences are digging it and Academy members may well, too. On the limited release side of things, meanwhile, was “American Sniper,” which sailed to a record $212,000 average from four theaters over the four-day weekend. Each film landed in the “A” Cinemascore range with audiences, A- for “Unbroken,” A+ for “Sniper.”

Also in limited release is Ava DuVernay's “Selma,” handily the most critically acclaimed film to hit theaters over the holiday. But along with it came a scathing op-ed from former Johnson Administration domestic affairs aide Joseph A. Califano Jr. in the pages of The Washington Post, slamming the film for its depiction of Lyndon Johnson toward dramatic ends. Even though the piece awkwardly and sort of hilariously closes with a declaration that “the movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season,” I'm not quick to think dirty tricks yet. Films have organic lives after all.

Meanwhile, something worth noting: “The Imitation Game” (also taking fire for story and characterization) was still purring its engine at the box office leading into the holiday. It expanded from 34 screens and about a $3.6 million cume to over 700 screens on Christmas Day, taking in about $8 million on the weekend for a roughly $14 million domestic haul so far. For comparison's sake, “The King's Speech” – which opened in limited release on Thanksgiving weekend in 2010, much as “Imitation” did this year – went from 43 screens and $2.1 million on Dec. 17 to 700 screens and $8.3 million over the Christmas weekend that year.

I mention that only because I got some pushback over the weekend on Twitter, first for noting that the film is playing the classic Harvey long game, which uses awards buzz to catapult box office, and second for suggesting that it's a significant threat to win the Best Picture Oscar. It's not really in my interest one way or the other to falsely promote a competitive race, so put a pin in that problematic point. The fact is anyone paying attention to reactions knows that the film is playing really, really well with voters and is quite strong in this race.

Rival campaigns are of course already taking their shots at “Boyhood” (“He had 12 WHOLE YEARS to make the movie!”) and “Selma” (waiting for this op-ed to get long legs where films like “Mississippi Burning” never really suffered all that much). But I maintain, as I put forth in this space weeks ago, that those three films are leading the Best Picture race at the moment, with “Birdman” and its likely SAG ensemble/Golden Globe – Comedy/Musical wins the spunky dark horse.

So that's the lay of the land as we move into the nominations voting period. How will all of that recent activity affect things? Not too much, really. It's just a bunch of headlines that kind of flicker and pass on by as voters dig into the movies and, really and truly, make up their own minds. There will, however, be a ton of guild announcements over the next few weeks, which will keep the furnace fed. And that “Selma” thing might get a little movement as people stoke the flames. But the film will go wide just before the Oscar nominations are announced. It could be in for a serious haul, though some wonder if a Christmas wide play to compete with “Unbroken” would have been wiser. I'm just glad I don't have to make such decisions.

With that, as voters have ballots in hand – and I realize we've already covered some serious “don't forget about these” territory – I would like to offer some thoughts for any voter out there who might be reading:

1. Spark up a doobie and soak up “Inherent Vice.”
Call up Jeff Bridges, get baked and get lost in it. Don't try to keep up with the plot. Experience it. If you still don't want to vote for it, OK, but try to let it wash over you. It might resonate.

2. Go see “Beyond the Lights.”
STOP! Don't walk over to your screeners. It's not there. Relativity didn't send you one. The film is on its own. There is a single showing in the greater Los Angeles area every night: 9:15pm at the AMC Universal Citywalk. I know, no one wants to go to Shittywalk, but trust me. It deserves the effort. If you're in New York, there's a 5:20pm option every day at the AMC Loews Village 7 around Astor Place, as well as a 9:40pm and a 12:30am every night at the Regal E-Walk on 42nd.

3. Venture out a bit.
You don't have to watch the same films all these awards announcements have corralled for you. Seek out “The Babadook” (wait, strike that – silly VOD rule) or “A Most Wanted Man.” Give “Under the Skin” a try (and maybe ring up Bridges again). Go on a limb with “Cold in July” or “The Rover” or “Blue Ruin.” There's other shit.

4. ATTENTION MUSIC BRANCH
I know you guys are nuts, but listen to that “Land Ho!” jam. It's catchy. OH WAIT NEVERMIND YOU CAN'T VOTE FOR THAT EITHER. Well, how about those of you who know it was an injustice to disqualify Antonio Sanchez, write his name in anyway in solidarity.

5. Above all, take it seriously.
Why should I care if you're just voting for your buddy? Or if you're just toeing a company line and bloc voting? Or passing your ballot off to your assistant to fill out? I know everyone has tried to beat it into your head that it's been a “weak” year, but no, it hasn't. There's good stuff out there and it's sort of what you're supposed to do, seek it out and tell the world what's worth watching, what's worth championing, what means something.  So mean something.

The Contenders section has been updated. Happy New Year.

The latest dust-up regarding the Academy's music branch, in case you've missed the recent news, is that Antonio Sanchez's original drum score for “Birdman” has been deemed ineligible in the Oscar race and that an appeal to the branch has been denied. Reading about the ins and outs of that lunacy in our exclusive interview with Sanchez, you'd be forgiven for being reminded of a similar unfortunate episode a few years back.

I actually broke the news myself in early 2008 that Jonny Greenwood's score for Paul Thomas Anderson's “There Will Be Blood” had been disqualified by the Academy due to a rule that says any score “diluted” by preexisting music used elsewhere in a film's soundtrack would be deemed ineligible. My contention on this particular point has been the language itself, which is so dependent on subjectivity. In the case of “Blood,” there was 46 minutes of classical pieces to the Radiohead guitarist's 35 minutes of original material, so at least percentage wise, it made sense (though the Academy didn't notify the studio and there was no time for an appeal – not that they were obligated to do so, mind). In the case of “Birdman,” as Sanchez told us, the math doesn't figure.

One simply wonders if a notoriously conservative branch just rankles at the rockers or other progressive artists that try and move in on their turf. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross felt like true exceptions to the rule when they won for “The Social Network” a few years back.

Well, in a recent interview with The Guardian about “Inherent Vice,” Anderson made his thoughts on that Greenwood snub clear:

Oh, the fix was in, wasn”t it? They just couldn”t stand the idea of a guy in a rock band with moppy hair being that good, I suppose. But hey, no sour grapes.

Truth bomb. And you could probably apply a similar sentiment to Sanchez's misfortune this year.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910387890001

The other big wide prestige release on Christmas Day this year was Rob Marshall's adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim classic “Into the Woods.” Streep and costumes and sets and songs, oh my. This…isn't my thing. Nails on a chalkboard, really. But I did get a kick out of Emily Blunt and Chris Pine, and Streep was pretty great. Top notch design for the most part (though I would assume Colleen Atwood will happily defer to Johnny Depp on that wolf costume…).

But fans of the stage sensation will probably dig it. So we put the question to you: Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Somewhere in the middle? How does it weigh against Marshall's other movie musical excursions? Is it increasingly obvious his best asset on “Chicago” was a Bill Condon screenplay that elevated the material? I'm just asking…

Hoof it back over to the comments section with your thoughts if you get around to seeing it this week/weekend. And don't forget to vote in our poll.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910357485001

I had a feeling Angelina Jolie's “Unbroken” would be more or less critic-proof. Based on a beloved best-seller, very little in the way of wide release adult drama competition, etc. Sure enough, it's skipping right along at the box office without missing a beat. That will do a lot for the awards push as we head into 2015, certainly. But now that this heavy has finally arrived, it's time to find out what the readership thinks.

I still basically stand by my knee-jerk reaction. (I've seen it a second time since.) There are a lot of thematic ideas that continue to be a part of the dialogue when the cast and filmmakers discuss the movie, but none of it is really in the text of the film. The meat of the drama is carried across in a few postscript notes, while the film itself is just an ordeal and a slog. Again, you can only see Jack O'Connell get smacked with a cane so many times before you're just sort of numb to it.

What say you? Agree? Disagree? Head on back here with your thoughts on the film if and when you catch it this holiday, and remember to vote in our poll.

It seemed this year that if any artist was due for the retrospective treatment, it was “Unbroken” cinematographer Roger Deakins. While I of course did not address all of the 50-plus films he has shot throughout his illustrious career during a recent extended interview, I settled on a few in particular that I think represent a nice cross-section of his work. Each of them – “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” “Sid and Nancy,” “Barton Fink,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Kundun,” “The Man Who Wasn't There” and “The Village” – will get their own space in the next few days.

Of all the films Roger Deakins has shot over his illustrious career, 1994's “The Shawshank Redemption” holds a special place. It has such a life beyond cinephiles, beyond the industry. Everyone loves “The Shawshank Redemption.” And Deakins had a hunch it would go over well.

“I don't often think this on a film, but about halfway through shooting that I thought, 'You know, this is going to be really good,'” he recalls, 20 years later. “I just thought the performances were so great and the whole feeling of it. Quite honestly I feel, for my taste, it's a bit soft. I wish the film had been a bit harder, you know? But it's more accessible for doing that. I think it turned out really well.”

But that feeling wasn't always shared on set. Some of the crew seemed pretty nervous that the film, from an unseasoned director at the time (Frank Darabont), would amount to much. The sets as well as the reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, which stood in for the eponymous Shawshank State Prison, played a bit of practical havoc, and Deakins – while certainly on his way – wasn't yet the super seasoned, trusted artist he is today.

“I remember making the film was a struggle,” Deakins says. “It was quite a chaotic shoot and difficult just because of what we were trying to do, where we were shooting. It was difficult to light. The main interior of the cell block was actually a set we built in a warehouse. So it was a combination of this real prison that was abandoned and this huge set that Terry Marsh had built in this warehouse, which was the big central area with all the cells facing in in a courtyard sort of thing. And both the set and the real location needed a lot of light to light it. I got a lot of pushback about how many lights I needed to make this work and stuff like that. So that's always frustrating, when you get argued back at when you say, 'No, I need this amount of light.' I was shooting, like, wide open, but I still needed that amount of light.”

He particularly remembers enjoying the company of people like Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins on the set. “I mean it was a great group of actors,” he says, and that camaraderie went a long way in soothing the nerves frayed by the taxing shoot. But when it was all said and done, praise both overt and unintended was waiting in the wings.

“I think one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid was, after that film came out, I was invited to go up to the ASC [American Society of Cinematographers] Clubhouse and I hadn't been there at that time,” he recalls.

“I heard in a conversation – I mean nobody knew me. Why would they? There was a conversation going on with a couple of very well-known cinematographers, and one was saying to the other, 'Yeah, 'Shawshank,' it's wonderful photography. But I wouldn't vote for it because it's all natural light. I would vote something that's been lit.' And I thought, 'Natural light?? Jesus!' I just laughed. As I say, it's probably the biggest compliment anybody's ever paid me.”

The film netted Deakins the first of his 11 Oscar nominations, and obviously some of his fellow cinematographers did vote for him: he won the first of three ASC prizes to date for his work on the film.

CONCLUSION: Roger Deakins has brought us striking images from the Badlands of South Dakota and the Highlands of Scotland. He's delivered western iconography from the heart of west Texas and the peaks of Alberta with equal aplomb. He's traveled to Morocco to tell the Dalai Lama's story with Martin Scorsese, and now to Australia to tell Louis Zamperini's with Angelina Jolie. I spent much of the last year revisiting his entire portfolio, noting his tendencies (he likes his silhouettes and high angle shots, and like any DP, delights in night fire lighting), studying his work, more or less preparing for a series I knew he deserved. Again, it was worth it, I felt, to dive into this particular filmography and highlight a few unique examples.

I also asked a few people along the way their thoughts on working with Deakins, like Ben Kingsley, who starred in Vadim Perelman's “House of Sand and Fog.” Said the Oscar-winning actor, “Roger is a narrative director of photography. He wants to tell the story. 'What tells the story? If I put the lamp there, he's just sitting in a room. If I put the lamp there, he's the loneliest man in the world.'” Or Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred in Sam Mendes' “Jarhead” and Denis Villeneuve's “Prisoners.” He had similar sentiments. “There”s a comfort that you get as an actor when you know you have people, particularly department heads, who are telling the story and that that”s priority over what their specific job is,” he told me. “To me, the story's always priority over the character. When it works, it's fucking magic. So Deakins, when you're working with him, is so hyperaware of the story that he's shaping and molding and blocking and emphasizing. And he's going to tell you what's up. And by the way, that”s what we”re trying to do when we make movies. At least that”s what I hope we're trying to do.”

So I hope, if you've had the time to follow along, you've enjoyed this series over the holiday. If you'd like to catch up, check out the links below.

“Nineteen Eighty-Four” (12/18)
“A Beautiful Mind” and “The Man Who Wasn't There” (12/19)
“The Village” (12/22)
“Barton Fink” (12/23)
“Sid and Nancy” (12/24)
“Kundun” (12/25)

And don't forget to read our “Unbroken”-centric interview with Deakins here.