Kaitlyn Bristowe and 'Bachelor' Creator Exchange Jabs After 'DWTS' Snub Beau Biden's Widow Is Dating His Married Brother Kate Hudson’s Ex Chris Robinson Files to Reopen Child Custody Agreement Angelina Jolie Looks Breathtakingly Gorgeous, Happy in New Perfume Ad Brad Pitt Reaches Out to Jen Aniston Amid His Divorce Bella Hadid Gets Support From Gigi as She Runs Into The Weeknd Zoe Saldana Glows in White Following Baby Announcement John Mellencamp: My Ex Meg Ryan 'Hates Me to Death' Oscar Nominations 2015 Snubs and Surprises: Jennifer Aniston, The Lego Movie, Selma, Jake Gyllenhaal Overlooked The 2015 Oscar nominees were announced Jan. 15, surprisingly leaving off Jennifer Aniston, Selma, Jake Gyllenhaal, and The Lego Movie. No Cake for Jen, after all. The 2015 Academy Awards nominees were announced early Thursday, Jan. 15, and several big contenders were overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The biggest snubs included Jennifer Aniston, who many believed deserved a Best Actress nod for her role in Cake, as well as Amy Adams for her Big Eyes character in the same category.
Nightcrawler star Jake Gyllenhaal was also left off the Best Actors list, and surprisingly, The Lego Movie did not make the cut in the Best Animated Feature category. Despite getting no love from the Oscars, Aniston received a Best Actress nod from her peers in the Screen Actors Guild, which will hand out awards live on Jan. 25. She was also nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for the same role at the 2015 Golden Globes, although the award ultimately went to Julianne Moore instead. Adams was also a big winner at Sunday night's Globes, receiving the Best Actress recognition in the comedy movie category. In their places, the actresses to be nominated included Marion Cotillard, Felicity Jones, Julianne Moore, Rosamund Pike, and Reese Witherspoon. Surprising to viewers was Pike's nomination for her role in thriller Gone Girl. Meanwhile, frontrunner films like Birdman, Boyhood, and The Grand Budapest Hotel all received nominations in the Best Picture category, but Angelina Jolie's Unbroken did not.
The World War II epic, based on the true story of late Olympian Louie Zamperini, did receive recognition from the Academy on Thursday, however, in the Cinematography, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing categories. The most obvious film to be snubbed was Ava DuVernay's Selma, a biopic about Martin Luther King Jr., which has generated immense acclaim. Selma was nominated in the Best Picture category, as well as Best Original Song, but actor David Oyelowo (who portrayed King) and director DuVernay were left off. The Internet then lashed out against the lack of minorities selected as nominees. (Not a single person of color received a nod in any of the acting categories this year.) Anyway, congratulations to all the white dudes on the Oscar nominations. — olilyttelton (@olilyttelton) January 15, 2015 huh, this Oscar guy sure likes white dudes — Lex (@lexcanroar) January 15, 2015 were the legos not white enough for the oscars — lauren ashley bishop (@sbellelauren) January 15, 2015
Social media users reacted most acerbically, however, to The Lego Movie's snub. The movies to be recognized instead in the Best Animated Feature category included: Big Hero 6, The Boxtrolls, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Song of the Sea, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Phil Lord, the writer of the Lego Movie, used humor to diffuse the snub. — philip lord (@philiplord) January 15, 2015 — Mike Hogan (@mike_hogan) January 15, 2015 Tell Us: What surprised you most? This week we see the premiere of The Lego Batman Movie, and according to our James Marsh it's a whole load of fun. To be honest, that in itself ought not to be a surprise at this point. A few years ago, The Lego Movie turned out to be surprisingly witty and well-made, and even that isn't the sole example of Lego's brand of quality tongue-in-cheek humor. All their cinematic efforts so far have been impressively entertaining, from the Ninjago and (many) Star Wars series, to the shorts peppered throughout the Lego videogames, to even some of their adverts.
With the Lego puppets already looking like caricatures, the brand invariably spoofs everything it touches, but most of the times it manages to do that with enough intelligence to reward both kids and adults. Which brings us to the question of the week: what subject, book, comic, film, series, anime, franchise or universe would you like to see get the Lego treatment? Chime in, in the comments below, and HAVE YOUR SAY! Do you feel this content is inappropriate or infringes upon your rights? Click here to report it, or see our DMCA policy.It’s easy to view “The ” with a degree of skepticism, if not outright suspicion. This is, after all, a movie that is based on a popular line of building block toys, and one that, unlike big screen adaptations of things like “Transformers” or “Battleship,” actually retain the original toy’s childlike designs. In fact, “The Lego Movie” goes out of its way to remind you of the tiny plastic construction toys that you grew up and probably manipulated in some unwholesome ways.
So a degree of cynicism is probably warranted, considering just how closely the movie could resemble a feature-length commercial (and to be sure, whole aisles of toy stores are currently being flooded by the stuff). But it turns out that “The Lego Movie” is an absolute blast—a whip-smart, surprisingly emotional family film where the toy property is seen less as a concrete template than a tool for seemingly limitless potential. When “The Lego Movie” starts, we’re deeply entrenched in the Lego Universe. We’re introduced to Emmet (Chris Pratt), who looks like a typical Lego mini-figure and is, of course, a construction worker, steadily working on building projects around his blandly upbeat city. (The most popular song in Lego-land is an obnoxiously infectious ditty called “Everything Is Awesome.”) As chipper as Emmet appears to be, he is also quite lonely. You see, Emmet might work in construction, but he’s not a very good builder and coworkers and neighbors (even the woman with a dozen cats) routinely ignore him.
All of this changes, of course, when he happens upon a mysterious woman named Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), who is poking around his construction site, and who is responsible for discovering The Missing Piece—a mythic object that could save the Lego Universe from imminent destruction at the hands of the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell). Wyldstyle whisks Emmet away with her, out of the clutches of the villainous Bad Cop (Liam Neeson) and Lord Business’ robotic henchmen, and together they travel to different corners of the Lego Universe, including an Old West town (where a honky tonk version of “Everything is Awesome” gently plays in the background) and Cloud Cuckoo Place, a magical, glittery land that looks like what would happen if a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper was brought to three-dimensional life. It’s in these different lands that the supporting players are assembled, including Batman (Will Arnett), a giant piecemeal pirate named Metal Beard (Nick Offerman), the adorable Unikitty (), a “1980-something space guy” named Benny () and Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), an old wizard and “Master Builder.”
Of course, the assorted Lego higher-ups believe Emmet to be one of these Master Builders, someone who can use his cunning and ingenuity to help get them out of the mess that they’re in and stop Lord Business and his evil plan to freeze the entire Lego Universe in place. Instead, Emmet is a goofy, earnest dude, but not the stuff that heroes are made of, or built from for that matter. So it’s up to him to prove that he really can succeed in his mission and save the day, despite being constantly undermined and lacking in the essential abilities necessary to become a Master Builder. If there’s one complaint about the earlier sections of “The Lego Movie” it’s that everything is moving so quickly that it’s hard to soak up all of the details of the movie’s massive, intricately detailed world. There’s so much beautifully designed stuff going on that it’s hard to focus on anything at all; you just want to luxuriate in the world before being blasted off to some other part of it.
But wanting more of something is much better than being underwhelmed with what you’re given, and the movie has a zippy, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”-style feel to the way that it incorporates other properties and aspects of the Lego brand (there’s an ongoing joke about the tenuous relationship between Channing Tatum‘s Superman and Jonah Hill‘s Green Lantern). There’s a joyful spirit to the movie’s storytelling that makes it possible for (literally) anyone or anything to show up next. As the movie chugs along, it becomes a full-on action flick, but one that is hilarious and rich and knowing. At some point it becomes clear that the movie is also gently sending up the “go retrieve the doodad” plot that has become a staple of virtually every major Hollywood tent pole, playfully deconstructing the genre while simultaneously celebrating it. (It’s also pretty ballsy for a movie based on Lego, multi-national corporate toy giant, to have as it’s villain a character who promotes the blandness of capitalism.)
As directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, who last gave us “21 Jump Street” (and are behind this summer’s sequel), there’s a subversive a streak that manages to give everything an edge without ever taking away from the whirligig fun of the movie. And the movie is absolutely sensational to just watch. The animation was largely handled by Animal Logic, an Australian company that had been responsible for some of the Lego-branded “Star Wars” specials and who bring this universe to life using an uncanny combination of stop motion animation and computer generated imagery. (The fact that the movie has been in production since 2011 should not surprise anymore.) There’s a clunky, imperfect quality to the animation (supervised by longtime “Robot Chicken” collaborator Chris McKay) that is utterly charming, and the animation is even more brilliant when viewed in 3D. Few movies, especially animated films which usually come from the same mold, can truly be described as unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
Still, “The Lego Movie” is one of those movies. Talking about plot specifics, including a third act twist that takes things into decidedly more meta-textual territory (further advancing the movie’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”-ness), would be to spoil the exploratory fun of watching “The Lego Movie,” a movie that takes some very strange zigs and zags throughout its brisk 100-minute running time. Maybe the most unexpected aspect of “The Lego Movie,” though, is how emotional it ends up being. So many children’s films flatly talk about the power of imagination and creativity. But by setting the “Lego Movie” within a world that can endlessly be built and rebuilt, it gives that message some actual oomph. Those with the power of imagination have the power to reshape everything around them, including their place in the world and what that world stands for. Instead of empty platitudes, “The Lego Movie” is filled with the building blocks of actual change. “The Lego Movie” is the first great studio film of 2014, one that fills you with childlike wonder and awe, no matter your age.