2014 Oscar Nominations – This Year It's All About Who's Not There

Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters—i.e. the people who hand out those tiny little golden men everyone seems to be talking about today—have had their say. Here is my response.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Richly rendered, intoxicating and ingenious, Saving Mr. Banks is at times no less fantastical than stories about governesses who can fly. Director John Lee Hancock of The Blind Side fame, writers Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, and the superb ensemble of seasoned actors create a riveting backstage account of artistic collaboration, a clash of Hollywood titans marbled with moments of high comedy. The Walt-worthy giddiness, depth of feeling, and the stunning performances elevate the story above its premise as an unapologetically retro valentine to the studio that is the most literal Hollywood dream factory.

Thick with affection and old-fashioned showmanship, the movie is a Disney fairytale based on fact, namely the making of Mary Poppins, the much beloved 1964 musical fantasy that put Walt and his boys on the map as serious creators of live action family entertainment. There are knowing winks to Disney’s flying nanny, but Saving Mr. Banks is accessible and enjoyable to even those entirely innocent to the original film—if such people exist.

Captain Phillips (2013)

Sandwiched in between Gravity and All Is Lost, Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips is only one of many, incredibly well-made, gripping but grim survival tales to hit the theaters this fall—a season of soaring cinematic standards as much as of falling leaves.

Impeccably constructed and surprisingly complex, the movie succeeds on all notes but one: characterization. Based on the real-life takeover of an American cargo ship by Somali pirates, it offers an immaculate reconstruction of a chaotic incident, portrayed on screen with immediacy and intelligence. Full of kinetic energy, exciting and suspenseful, the film traces Captain Richard Phillips’ ill-fated journey on and off the Maersk Alabama in early April of 2009. The only problem is we don’t know enough about him, the journey, the ship, or the pirates to care.

“It’s just business,” pirate leader Muse (Barkhad Abdi) keeps repeating, a phrase not actuality uttered, but reflected in the attitude of Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks, portraying the kind of quiet, commanding role Oscar dreams are made of). Curt and professional towards his crew and extremely attentive to security measures, the title character is a civilian tasked with getting a huge cargo ship safely from Oman to Kenya down the Horn of Africa. It’s clear he just wants to get the job done as quickly and effectively as possible.

Cloud Atlas (2012)

“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future” – Sonmi-351, Cloud Atlas.

In Cloud Atlas, the infinitely ambitious, ingenious sprawling epic made by German director Tom Tykwer (of Run Lola Run fame) and Lana and Andy Wachowski (the creators of The Matrix), characters’ lives that transpire at different places in space and time are indelibly linked. A film about migratory souls and wayward civilizations, the movie intertwines not only the different narrative threads but the characters themselves; everything is connected. All human life is universalized through a thirst for freedom and a hunger (“Hunger? For what?” asks one of Tom Hanks’ many characters at some point) “for more.”

To begin to explain the plot(s) of Tykwer and the Wachowskis’ film would add up to nothing more than an enumeration of names, places, and times, and although the sheer scope of the film is worth describing, the complexly woven narrative doesn’t make for neat unpacking. Spanning a period of just under 500 years, this daring, daunting, dreamlike film is actually made up of six different, interlaced stories.

Based on David Mitchell’s visionary novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas begins in 1849 on a voyage in the Pacific Islands and ends some 200 years into our future, in a post-apocalyptic, neo-tribal Hawaii, linking the characters through life, death, triumph, defeat, art, fate, and above all, love.