My Award Nominations: Best Actress

People are always moaning about this being a weak category. Every year it seems. I don't know about you, but I had a hard time deciding who to leave off this ballot. There are just as many worthy contenders missing the cut here as there are in the Best Actor race.

I'd love to shine my light on more of the under-recognized actresses of 2014, but these five (a handful of them already Oscar-nominated) were tops for me. Herewith, my Best Actress nominees:

One Category at a Time: Actress

Can we call a moratorium on Best Actress always being called a "weak" category? More often than not this kind of talk stems from people who are too lazy to search for talented leading ladies flying well below the mainstream radar, and who balk at the notion of an awards-caliber performance coming from a less-than-awards-caliber film.

Yet nearly every year the Academy comes up with five terrific nominees, and if it seems like the pre-nomination field is thinner than that of the leading men on the other side of the gender divide, it certainly speaks more to the systemic male dominance of the film industry than to the quality of the lesser seen -- though not necessarily fewer -- Oscar-worthy female performances.

In fact, having a category in which the multi-nominated Oscar heavyweights don't figure in as prominently as they would in, say, Best Actor, can be a blessing, as it forces audiences and Academy members alike to seek out titles that could use the exposure. If this crop of nominees can encourage a few more people to go see Wild or Two Days, One Night, then it aught to be celebrated rather than dismissed as "weak".

Foreign shortlist arrives; 'Shocking' omissions as always (but is it really shocking at this point?)

Nine films have been chosen to move on in the race for Best Foreign Language Film, and will be screened for nominating committee members over the coming weeks.

Every year, there are critically praised titles that miss this cut and have their awards hopes dashed early. For many, it even dictates whether or not they'll get a North American release. Suffering the cruel sting of omission this year is the Belgium's Two Days, One Night, centred around an acclaimed performance from Marion Cotillard (although many believe she still has an angle on a Best Actress nomination).

'Boyhood' wins big with New York Film Critics

Richard Linklater's Boyhood came away with three prizes from the New York Film Critics Circle this afternoon (Picture, Director, and Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette), launching what I can only hope will be a successful campaign to Oscar glory... in SOME category at least! I still have a hard time seeing this winning the Academy's top honour (appeal may not be broad enough), but its artistic relevance might push it to a win in Screenplay or even Director -- could you imagine a Picture/Director split for a THIRD consecutive year?!? Crazy, but not out of the question. At any rate, I would consider it a triumph to see it collect even one trophy at season's end, and this impressive showing with the New York crowd is a good start.

My Award nominations: Actress

My picks for Best Actress of the year:

SAG shines light on some unexpected outliers

As the critics groups mostly fall in line with the same, repetitive choices this time of year, it's always a brief treat to see what the Screen Actors Guild nominating committee can come up with to surprise us.

The major talking points with this year's crop are the unexpected inclusions in the Supporting categories of Nicole Kidman in the critically polarizing The Paperboy and Javier Bardem for his charismatic Bond villain in Skyfall. Both Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor have had lots of wiggle room (at least more than the Lead categories which are beginning to solidify), and either of these nominations could have an influence on Academy balloting which begins in just one week.

The crowded Lead categories are naturally more noteworthy for the performances that were excluded than the ones they let in. Best Actor has seemed like a six-way race for some time now between Day-Lewis, Cooper, Jackman, Washington, Hawkes, and Phoenix all vying for five slots. It was Phoenix who suffered the unavoidable SAG snub, a victim of his film's challenging nature. I've been wondering if his undeniable performance is in fact deniable after all, but up against leading men in five more universally liked movies could be the kiss of death. For the leading ladies, it was Emmanuelle Riva who got left off the ballot, but Marion Cotillard got in. Let's not kid ourselves: two Lead Actress nominees for foreign films at the Oscars was always going to be a long shot, and with Cotillard more of a household name stateside than Riva, this could be the slate we see on Oscar night (although I'll be rooting for Quevanzhane Wallis, who was ineligible with SAG, to be nominated).

The Ensemble category filled out with all the usual Best Picture contenders, though some might be surprised by The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I'm not. If ever there was a film that could play to old Academy types, this is it. All nominees with brief thoughts after the cut.

Review - The Dark Knight Rises

Batman faces his greatest challenge yet in The Dark Knight Rises, in which Gotham city is threatened by potential nuclear Armageddon at the whim of a coldly calculatory and brawny terrorist, forcing the reclusive billionaire to dust off his batsuit after eight years out of the saddle. How to move on from the emotional and physical scars incurred from that fateful clash with The Joker and Two-Face, unaware of the even greater emotional and physical hurdles to come? As it proves the greatest challenge yet for Batman, so too does The Dark Knight Rises prove the greatest challenge yet for the trilogy's writer-director-producer Christopher Nolan. How to follow up the unprecedented commercial and critical success of his 2008 hit The Dark Knight with a third and final chapter that can satisfy geeks, general audiences, and critics alike? Well, he may have stumbled across that finish line somewhat, but cross it he has, giving his franchise the epic and stirring conclusion it deserves.

Compositing numerous character arcs and plot threads with which Batman aficionados will already be familiar, The Dark Knight Rises takes off with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) been shaken from vigilante retirement upon the appearance of a new villain in town; the mask-wearing international master criminal Bane (Tom Hardy) who enacts an ambiguous plot which Wayne's concerned butler Alfred (Michael Caine) suggests might be connected to foes from Batman's past. It doesn't help matters that the Caped Crusader's list of allies is as flimsy as his injured right leg. The city wrongfully holds him responsible for the death of Harvey Dent eight years earlier, but he still has friends in GCPD Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), a young cop named John Blake (Joseph Gordon Levitt), and wealthy socialite Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) whose investment in Wayne's company have yielded a clean energy source which could be weaponized if allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Also along for the ride is anti-heroine Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a slick cat burglar whose allegiances are in question and flux as she tries to steal and slink her way out of an increasingly dangerous Gotham.

Review - Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris opens, as one would expect from a filmmaker as nostalgic as Woody Allen, with a music montage starring the great city itself. And yet what we see is not quite the same city immortalized in art, song, and story from decades past. While landmarks such as Le Champs Elysees or The Eiffel Tower feature prominently, Allen carefully includes in each shot some peripheral reminders of how times have changed the City of Love; a scaffolding here, a chain-link fence there, tourists reading maps, the lights of congested traffic overpowering the old-fashioned streetlamps – all juxtaposed against a 1920s jazz standard on the soundtrack, recalling his 1979 masterpiece Manhattan.