This is it, movie geeks!
Award season is in full swing and the fashion police are out in full force, covering every inch of the red carpet on the road to Oscar. The 87th Academy Award nominations were announced in January and now the campaign for Oscar gold is ‘on.’
Unlike recent years, when several categories seemed to have it ‘in the bag,’ there are no clear-cut front runners. At press time Boyhood seems to be the Oscar darling this year, but it is by no means a sure-thing. The good Professor Kaufmann and I give you our Oscar race ruminations and predictions on page 25. We’ve also included our annual Oscar ballot for your own predictions (a must for every Oscar party!).
You can still catch several of the Oscar nominated films at local theatres. We included reviews for three of the films – American Sniper, The Imitation Game and Selma. For those not so into award season, who just want to be entertained, Chip also offers his thoughts on a couple of recent sequels, Taken 3 and Woman in Black 2.
At press-time the Sundance Film Festival was just about to get underway. Last year’s festival marked the debut of two of the films up for Oscars this year – Boyhood and Whiplash. We’re curious to see what emerges this year and we hope 2015 is as strong a year for great, smaller, performance-driven films as last year was.
Be on the lookout for the Oscar Nominated Shorts playing at The Carolina this month as well as A Most Violent Year and the Oscar nominated Two Days One Night. While the masses will no doubt flock to the theatres to see Fifty Shades of Grey, we’ll be looking forward to Colin Firth in Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Last but not least, we said goodbye to several talented actors recently and wanted to honor their contributions with a mention here: Rod Taylor, best known for The Birds and The Time Machine passed at the age of 84. (We last saw him not that long ago in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds as Winston Churhill) La Dolce Vita actress and Swedish-born sex-symbol of the 1950’s and 60’s Anita Eckberg died at 83, and two-time Academy Award winner Luise Rainer died at the wonderful old age of 104.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and we welcome your thoughts, questions and feedback at reeltakes@hotmail.com. Until next time.