Note: I owe a debt of gratitude here to a high school friend, Michelle Iansiti, whose dad always insisted on seeing all the nominated movies and is the person who instilled this in me to do this and I have almost every year since. I saw Mr. Iansiti a few years back after many many years..and thanked him for this. 🙂
Usually I do a countdown each year starting about 5 days before “Oscar Sunday” aka “My Superbowl of Movies Sunday” and I basically stick with the top categories; Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture. I’m adding 2 categories this year as I did see almost all of them for Best Foreign Film & Best Documentary, and starting early since I will be gone later this week and unable to post – I’m setting up timed postings and will be hoping they work!! My listing will be what’s nominated in the category, my pick of whom I’d like to win, and what probably will win – which are not always one and the same ~ and a possible winner.
So let’s get started!!!

BEST DOCUMENTARY:

“Virunga”
Orlando von Einsiedel, Joanna Natasegara
Strong contender for the win. I loved this doc. It was well filmed and well done.

“Citizenfour”
Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky
My least favourite documentary of the list. Couldn’t stand Edward Snowden as I got the feeling he did this as he thought he was going to be a celebrity of sorts and be famous for all the wrong reasons. Clearly it didn’t work out so well for you did it Eddie.

“Last Days in Vietnam”
Rory Kennedy, Keven McAlester
This was an interesting watch of the end days of this horrible war. Not my choice for winner but still a good film.

“The Salt of the Earth”
Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, David Rosier
Did not see this one.

“Finding Vivian Maier”
John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
LOVED this doc. You almost just can’t believe what an amazing eye this woman had who never showed her work to anyone. Her photography is stunning and somehow I think it was meant to be that it was found and is being shown.

My Pick: Finding Vivian Maier
Will Win: Citizenfour
Possible Win: Virunga

BEST FOREIGN FILM:
Why is it that it’s almost a requirement for all foreign films to be depressing..I’ve always wondered this as so few aren’t. That being said, my favourite Foreign Film of the year, “Force Majeure” didn’t get nominated though it was expected to.. With that being said…

“Timbuktu”
Abderrahmane Sissako
Interesting and well filmed. Liked it..didn’t love it.

“Wild Tales”
Damián Szifrón
Didn’t see this one.

“Tangerines”
Zaza Urushadze
Good human nature story.. liked this one.

“Ida”
Paweł Pawlikowski
Such a completely different story and I’m not religious in the slightest but it left a lasting impression on me.

“Leviathan”
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Visually, I thought this film was great.. But an odd odd story-line at points.

My Pick: Ida
Will Win: Leviathan
Possible Win: Timbuktu