My Award Nominations: Best Documentary

True confession: I don't get out to as many docs as I should. Oh sure, when a buzzy Oscar frontrunner is playing somewhere I'll seek it out, but I always fall into the habit of playing catch-up with the year's other worthy titles (especially the Oscar nominees) in January and February.

Of course, access to those titles is seldom easy. Some of them come and go so fast you have to wait for months until they show up on some online platform. Wim Wenders' The Salt of the Earth won't even get a limited theatrical run until the end of March. (Hey, Sony Pictures Classics/Mongrel Media: If you want my money, release your Oscar-nominated movie BEFORE the Oscars! #BadForBusiness)

Since my viewing queue of 2014 non-fic pics has peaked at eight, I've made this post a one-stop shop for my capsule reactions to all of them, starting off with the five that I myself would nominate for my own Best Documentary distinction:

One Category at a Time: Documentary

Since the Academy opened up voting in Best Documentary Feature to the entire membership two years ago, the results of that change have been immediately transparent. In the past, when only the small turnout of members at official screenings could cast a ballot, the winning documentary would usually be one that tackles a "serious" subject. But with the first two winners under this new regime being relatively lightweight music docs (Searching for Sugar Man and 20 Feet from Stardom), it seems to suggest that this category will now always lean the way of populist crowdpleasers so long as every Academy member has a say.

Of course, there's no guarantee that such an audience hit is going to be nominated every single year, just as there's no guarantee that the buzziest title will be one dealing with feathery subject matter. You need look no further than this year's frontrunner for proof that doc-lovers can still flock to movies that bill themselves as Important with a capital 'I'.

DGA reaffirms Boyhood/Imitation Game as Oscar front-runners

The Directors Guild of America has named its five Best director nominees for 2014, and they are:

Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Clint Eastwood, American Sniper
Alejandro G. Inarritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

This has to be a good sign for the Weinstein Co. and The Imitation Game, who needed this nomination in a competitive field to still vie for the Best Picture title. I'm more confident now than ever that it will be the movie to win the whole thing in the end.

But will Tyldum himself pull a Tom Hooper and triumph in Best Director, or is there no way anyone takes this away from Richard Linklater?

As for the Oscar nominations (less than 48 hours away!), will this group repeat? I can't help but think that the smaller, more discerning directors branch of the Academy might pass over Wes Anderson's idiosyncratic comic stylings on favour of  a fringe contender. The other four, however, feel solid to me.

[UPDATE:]

And now the documentary nominees, all of which made the Oscar shortlist have been unveiled:

Dan Krauss, The Kill Team
John Maloof, Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier
Jesse Moss, The Overnighters
Laura Poitras, Citizenfour
Orlando von Einsiedel, Virunga

For all the talk of Citizenfour being the frontrunner (which it is), it's interesting to note that Finding Vivian Maier has now scored more guild mentions than any other doc this year.