Since I’ll be talking about all of these films again at length tomorrow between Best Actor/Actress and Best Film, I’m not going to bug you with too much except to say it’s a pretty strong field nominated this year… but it’s one of the categories that seems to have the least suspense to it. It’s both inevitable and right that Alfonso Cuaron win the award tomorrow.
The Nominees:
David O. Russell – American Hustle
Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity
Alexander Payne – Nebraska
Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave
Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street
The Winner
Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity. Certain astrophysicists can say what they like about the scientific realities that the film missed, but it misses the point entirely. Cuaron corralled a lot of strange elements together for this film, and he did a lot of it without having much beyond a greenscreen to guide him. Yes, perhaps someone could have carried the film a bit better than Sandra Bullock, but I’m not sure anyone could have directed the film better than Cuaron did.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2014.