Oscars Checklist

By: Connor Lenahan

This morning brought the nominees for the 2015 Academy Awards. More importantly, it brought about a happy time for me. Not only do we now get to talk about the best movies of the year – this is one of my favorite topics of conversation – but it tells me what I need to watch for the sake of the ceremony by late February. Tonight I finally got around to seeing Whiplash, which is too good for words at the moment. Now I know what I need to hit before the awards are handed out on February 22nd.

For Best Picture I still need to make my way to The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Selma, and American Sniper. Theory of Everything looks to be wrapping its run up while the latter half of said list is just opening here in the past few days.

It took a while but now most of the films that contain the Best Actress nominees are out. Still Alice, Wild, and Two Days, One Night are all up soon.

But past that there is almost entirely overlap for Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Director. The only non-overlapping movies are The Judge, which will probably be the one hold out for films I don’t end up seeing before the awards, and PT Anderson’s Inherent Vice, a movie I will probably end up snagging on some random Sunday morning.

But here’s the point: This is an amazing time of year if you like going to the movies. Now is the time to go catch up on all the great work put forth this year. Given the nominees this year there are a lot of quality films that came from smaller sources – case in point, Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash. Even once you look past the major categories you will still find great movies – Gone Girl, Interstellar, Nightcrawler.

What else is better in the middle of a harsh winter than cuddling up for an amazing movie? Nothing. That’s why this is a beautiful time of year.