Tuesday 10 February 2015

My Verdict for Films in Oscars 2015






Grand Budapest Hotel recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.




My Verdict: 3/5




Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklater's Boyhood is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (a breakthrough performance by Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen before our eyes. Starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason's parents and newcomer Lorelei Linklater as his sister Samantha, Boyhood charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before. Snapshots of adolescence from road trips and family dinners to birthdays and graduations and all the moments in between become transcendent, set to a soundtrack spanning the years from Coldplay's Yellow to Arcade Fire's Deep Blue. Boyhood is both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting. 


 My Verdict: 5/5




A young and talented drummer attending a prestigious music academy finds himself under the wing of the most respected professor at the school, one who does not hold back on abuse towards his students. The two form an odd relationship as the student tries to achieve greatness, and the professor tries to stop him.




My Verdict: 4.5/5








The Theory of Everything is the story of the most brilliant and celebrated physicist of our time, Stephen Hawking, and Jane Wilde the arts student he fell in love with whilst studying at Cambridge in the 1960s. Little was expected from Stephen Hawking, a bright but shiftless student of cosmology, given just two years to live following the diagnosis of a fatal illness at 21 years of age. He became galvanized, however, by the love of fellow Cambridge student, Jane Wilde, and he went on to be called the successor to Einstein, as well as a husband and father to their three children. Over the course of their marriage as Stephen's body collapsed and his academic renown soared, fault lines were exposed that tested the lineaments of their relationship and dramatically altered the course of both of their lives.


 
My Verdict: 4/5
 




Chris Kyle was nothing more than a Texan man who wanted to become a cowboy, but in his thirties he found out that maybe his life needed something different, something where he could express his real talent, something that could help America in its fight against terrorism. So he joined the SEALs in order to become a sniper. After marrying, Kyle and the other members of the team are called for their first tour of Iraq. Kyle's struggle isn't with his missions, but about his relationship with the reality of the war and, once returned at home, how he manages to handle it with his urban life, his wife and kids.
 

My Verdict: 4.5/5





Riggan Thomas, once known quite well to movie theater goers as an iconic super hero called "The Birdman" had recently turned down a fourth installment of the franchise. Now washed up, he attempts to reinvent himself as a director by staging a new adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story called "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". The events leading up to the Saturday night premiere prove to be one disaster after another as the original lead actor is injured while on set and Riggan scrambles to find a replacement, but the replacement proves to be exactly who he needs - a method actor who takes the job way too seriously. But Riggan has a hard time juggling between the set, his replacement actor, his equally washed up daughter, and a host of other disasters that prevent a proper staging of the play. Meanwhile, a New York Times critic who Riggan has to woo threatens to shut down production of the play before it even starts with a scathing review of the opening night performance. Does Riggan have a hit on his hands or will he even make it past opening night?

My Verdict: 3.5/5





The unforgettable true story chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernay's "Selma" tells the story of how the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and his brothers and sisters in the movement prompted change that forever altered history.


My Verdict: 3.5/5




Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.


My Verdict: 4/5




Nick Dunne, a small town guy who made good in the big city as a magazine writer blames the recession and the loss of his job for the decline of his marriage to his intellectually superior wife with a substantial trust fund. Questions of his motives and character begin to arise after his wife's disappearance on the morning of their fifth anniversary. As the search for his missing wife plays out over the ensuing days, guilty suspicions are fueled into a national frenzy by the media circus camped outside his house. Is this idyllic, everyman truly capable of murdering his wife?


My Verdict: 5/5



My Ranking for the Best Picture



                             1. Boyhood

                             2. American Sniper

                             3. Whiplash

                             4. The Theory of Everything

                             5. The Imitation Game

                             6. Birdman

                             7. Selma

                             8. The Grand Budapest Hotel


                             
Best Picture: Boyhood

Best Director: Richard Linklater - Boyhood

Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything

Best Actress: Julianne Moore - Still Alice

Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons - Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette - Boyhood

Best Cinematography: Ida

Best Production Design: The Imitation Game

Best Costume Design: Maleficent

Best Film Editing: Whiplash

Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay: The Theory of Everything

Best Writing - Original Screenplay: Birdman

 
Best Foreign Language Film: Ida


  



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