This is a well-argued piece, and I think it makes a reasonable point. But it seems a bit thin in comparison to other years. I was also very surprised by Carol's lack of a nod in the BP category (it seemed like a shoo-in), but on the other hand:

I definitely can't disagree with Tangerine. My only question is whether that sort of guerrilla filmmaking is simply not respected at the Oscars as having enough "polish". (Which is a totally real form of discrimination: ignoring the types of movies that tend to give voice to the non-white, non-rich, etc. I just think…

Can't argue with Oscar Isaac. He gave at least two of my favorite performances this year.

"Parody" was the wrong word. More like rehash. It felt like a great character actor turn, but nothing felt particularly new to me.

Del Toro would be a shocking pick to me for supporting actor — I thought he was basically doing a parody of every other character he's played. But, then again, I was underwhelmed by Sicario all around. As for Will Smith vs Matt Damon, the latter's charisma singlehandedly carried one of the biggest films of the year.…

For all the droll comments to the effect of "whole lotta white people, big surprise…", I'm curious what more diverse films you feel deserved mention. Creed was great, but I hardly see it as an Oscar contender (it's shocking enough that Mad Max was nominated for non-tech awards.) Spike Lee's films received polarizing…

I've only seen 25 (23 excluding shorts). Damn you, Original Song and Foreign categories!

See, I got the sense that the director was going for McCarthy, but didn't have the words or wisdom to actually back it up. In my original review I compared it to some of the Rock Against Bush-style music I spent my teens surrounded by. Full of anger (nearly all of which was justified) but not quite mature enough to…

I'm pretty supportive of all of the nominees, though I am quite surprised Revenant is leading the pack. I would have expected Spotlight and Carol to sweep it.

This one makes me sad. It doesn't seem to be as critically revered as I would have expected, but I quite loved Love & Mercy. Sound editing in particular.

I thought The Danish Girl was a pretty weak movie, but completely support his nomination. (I had the same feelings last year with Theory of Everything.) Redmayne is certainly picking Oscar-baity films, but his performances have been anything but safe. Maybe he has some sort of hero complex, where he can only star in…

My girlfriend was insisting she'd be nominated the other day, and I completely shut her down. There's no way they'll pull a Meryl-in-Into-the-Woods again, I said…

I think Sicario was nominated for exactly what it deserved: the cinematography was great. The first half was a great movie — second half seemed to mistake vague moodiness for depth.

Wholeheartedly agree, particularly for Look of Silence. In general I understand the hesitation, as the truth of a documentary can sometimes overwhelm the craft (see: Citizenfour.) But this one was constructed with as much subtlety and intentionality as any work of fiction I've seen this year. It's practically a…

Wait, I think I missed an important hipster memo. I'm supposed to be cynical about LCD Soundsystem just because they came back from hiatus? But what about all those other amazing bands that did the same thing? Surely the Eagles…

Even beyond the fact that it's Larry the Cable Guy, I find the premise of the show pretty terrible. If you reward not laughing, most sane human beings will probably find a way to not laugh. There have only been a handful of times in my life where I was actually unable to stop laughing, and nearly all involved thoughts…

Sussman is the fucking man. What a gutsy showing.

I'm probably the thousandth commenter to point this out, but the title of this article is pretty ridiculous. Not because it's offensive (if any evangelical Christians are actually commenters here, I'd imagine they can handle this) but because it's lame and sort of embarrassing, in the way that it'd be embarrassing if…

As someone who also does science for a living, I absolutely loved the comparison of The Martian with religious films. It's a metaphor.

I think there's an implicit "No Oppenheimer documentary" rule in these lists. Otherwise every scene in the Act of Killing would have dominated 2013