For me, Going Clear doesn't pass the "Is It More Interesting Than Reading The Wikipedia Page For The Same Topic?" test. But Gibney's always had that problem.

Also, am I the only one who found the film super mean-spirited and unfairly invasive at times?

I'd like to second every single word of this.

There was a period of my life where I had every single episode of this podcast on my iPod. All of 'em. Because I liked knowing that, wherever I happened to be, I could listen to any episode I wanted to. I fell asleep listening to the show countless times. There's this complete chunk of my life which has DIF and WAYDM playing in the background throughout. I can say with certainty that without this show I wouldn't be the same person I am today. I wouldn't be pursuing the things that I'm pursuing, and I wouldn't have been as motivated to do so in the first place.

I'm in a very different stage of my life now. This show has a fraction of the direct impact on my daily life that it used to, but I can't deny that the things I do spend my time on wouldn't have happened without it. I'm a contributing editor at two film-related websites. Without this show, I bet I wouldn't have moved past my blog. I'm studying film in college. Without this show, I might very well be doing something else.

And, perhaps most importantly, I co-host my own series of podcasts now. My editor over at Movie Fail wasn't a big podcast guy when I first suggested the idea of talking about the Oscars two years ago. He went along with it, but that was the sole podcast we did for a full year. Last year, we did another Oscar podcast, and I posted it on Facebook. And Teague commented that we should do more. In the year since, we've started a Game of Thrones podcast, a Legend of Korra podcast, and many other random one-offs, and we've got Teague and DIF/WAYDM to thank.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that I'm so, SO grateful to all of you guys for everything you've given me. I hope I can return the favor someday. And I'm so glad that the forum will be sticking around, because I love this place so much.

My Predictions

Best Picture
- Boyhood

Best Actress
- Julianne Moore, Still Alice

Best Actor
- Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Best Supporting Actor
- J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress
- Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

Best Director
- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Birdman

Best Adapted Screenplay
- The Imitation Game

Best Original Screenplay
- Birdman

Best Foreign Film
- Ida

Best Documentary Feature
- Finding Vivian Maier

Best Animated Feature
- How To Train Your Dragon 2

Film Editing
- Whiplash

Best Song
- "Glory" (Selma)

Best Original Score
- The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Cinematography
- Birdman

Costume Design
- The Grand Budapest Hotel

Makeup and Hairstyling
- Foxcatcher

Production Design
- The Grand Budapest Hotel

Sound Editing
- American Sniper

Sound Mixing
- Whiplash

Visual Effects
- Interstellar

I haven't seen any of the shorts nominees so I won't try to predict those.

A couple months ago, I looked at the copy of Blade Runner on my shelf and thought, "Hey, I should get around to watching that." So I popped it in. After about fifteen minutes, I remembered that I'd seen the movie before.

I also remembered that I'd done this exact same thing about a year prior.

So this movie has yet to click for me. Maybe someday. It sure is pretty!

Oh no, that was probably the best scene in the movie! The TV is on in the background, talking about him as some abstract mythic figure, and meanwhile he's fucking with his hair because it doesn't look right. The movie is about revealing the humanity in a man who has become purely a political item. He's not a righteous hero, and he's not a filthy traitor. He's just a dude, doing what he thought was right based on the things he knew to be true.

So why would the documentary be "stylized"? If it's anything but totally naturalistic, Snowden becomes a character instead of a person. That's why Citizenfour is so extraordinary. Poitras presents it as a historical document, and it's a vital one. You can call it bland or easy, but you're looking for a film that Poitras isn't interested in making.

Last time I checked, there's been a grand total of one trailer and no other advertising whatsoever. Unless you count every single garbage film "news" site covering every time JJ Abrams sneezes in case there's a clue.

I have an unhealthy Binding of Isaac addiction. I got Real Platinum God a month or two ago and I still play at least an hour a day. I need help.

Without having listened to the episode yet, here are my predictions:

Interstellar (and it wins):

It'll likely be a Best Picture nominee, and if there are VFX in a BP nominee, it wins the VFX Oscar. I'm pretty sure this has happened 100% of the time. They like to give it to the "classy" option and avoid having to bestow their prize on some lowly vulgar blockbuster.

Dawn of Planet Ape:

Because mocap is still cool right guys? It'll be the nominee that probably deserves to win but gets edged out by the BP nominee.

The other 3 are more of a toss-up, but I think we can safely eliminate Maleficent and Museum Nights 3 because no one cares about them. So that leaves us with Godzilla, Cap 2, GotG, Hobbit, Transformers, X-Men.

I have a hunch that only one superhero movie is getting in. I'd throw X-Men out, because we've seen that shit like ten times before. And of the remaining 2, Guardians is a lot more visually creative, so I think that's in.

So, the remaining two spots: Godzilla, Hobbit, Transformers. This is where things get real tricky for me. Does Hobbit get the legacy vote? Maybe, but on the other hand, no one cares about those movies. Transformers always seems to get in, but will this be the year people are finally tired of it? Godzilla has less going for it on the surface (other than having really, really good effects), but it's also the only monster movie of the ten, so it stands out. It also might have that "classic" cred, if it reminds people of the original. I think Godzilla's in.

This last spot is a coin-flip. I think it comes down to which film has worn out its welcome the least. Transformers is on its fourth installment, but that's spread out over six years. Hobbit's only on three, but over three years. Does that even matter? Does it even make sense? I'm struggling to find a deciding factor here.

Well, how about this. We know that a fifth Transformers film is coming, but The Hobbit is over and done with. I think that legacy vote wins it the spot.

tl;dr -

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER
DAWN OF APE PLANET - THE APEOCOLYPSE - PART ONE
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (do their responsibilities cover Ape Planet? food for thought.)
GODZILLA
THE HOBBIT: THE LAST ONE, FUCKING FINALLY

But how are Jackson's Hobbit films in any way "child-like"? They're attempting to be just as grim and mature as LOTR. And the violence in The Hobbit is far more gruesome than anything in LOTR. There's like a million beheadings on-screen in The Hobbit.

I could write a full-length essay on the clear implications of that scene but some people would still INSIST that it was merely platonic. So in that sense, I guess it was ambiguous? But everything about the staging, cinematography, structure, and score of that scene indicates otherwise.

I have to disagree. Most movies shot on digital are still incredibly ugly. Just compare Dumb and Dumber, which was obviously shot on film, to the recent sequel. There's a clear visual difference. I'm not saying Dumb and Dumber requires the majestical warm glow that film provides, but I'll take it over the bright and shiny and boring images of most digital film. If you're David Fincher or someone like him, you're capable of using digital cinematography's glossy, plasticky sheen to great effect. Look at Gone Girl. That's a film for which digital cinematography is thematically appropriate. But you need to actually use it with a knowledge and purpose. It's not ever going to automatically look better than film. "Sharpness" is all well and good, but that's not the end-all-be-all, you know? And besides, film stock captures images at a much, much higher resolution than digital is capable of. 70mm IMAX is something crazy like 18K.

I know I sound like a pretentious douchebag, but this is not just some ineffable visual feeling that digital projection can't replicate. I mean, that's part of it, sure. But what it comes down to is that, objectively speaking, film is a better medium. Even when it comes to film preservation. 100 years from now, we'll probably have lost more than a few 2014 films because they never got transferred to whatever the newest digital medium is. But there'll still be prints of Interstellar around, ready to be scanned and transferred.