It’s that time of year again. The winter months – when Hollywood whips itself into an award season frenzy, and we see oorganizationafter organization announce their own nominations for this year’s gongs, while everybody tries to predict who will take home an Oscar. Before this award season even started, there was ‘buzz’ around certain titles, but the latest announcement has added an unexpected twist to the tale. The International Press Academy has predictably heaped love upon Alejandro Inarritu’s Birdman, but left Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher almost entirely on the bench.
The International Press Academy was founded by a Mirjana Van Blaricom – a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – in 1996, and has handed out its awards since 1997. Having ten nomination spots to fill for the category of Best Motion Picture, the organization listed some expected choices, while the surprises lay in the omissions.
Along with Foxcatcher, Nolan’s Interstellar and Eastwood’s American Sniper were also missing. Though these movies make scattered appearances in some of the other categories, this unexpected turn of events only adds to the excitement, as we realize just what an incredible year for film 2014 has been. It has delivered such a wide range of cinema worthy of recognition that one oorganizationalone couldn’t fit them all in. If today’s announcement is anything to go by, we are in for a hotly contested award season indeed.
The Satellite nominations, for film and television, can be viewed in full on the next page: