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:

'Birdman' Shocks as PGA Winner

I was hoping I'd be wrong about The Imitation Game coasting to a Producers Guild Award, and subsequently the Oscar, on the preferential ballot system.
I knew there was at least a decent chance of it not having quite enough support to edge out other Best Picture heavyweights like Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Any of those three seemed like plausible victors with the guild, given how they had all the requisite Oscar nominations needed to win the big prize.

But this, I did not see coming.

Inarritu rockin' the blazer and the hoodie... and the PGA Award for Best Picture.

Boyhood Expectedly Wins Big at Critics Choice Awards

Boyhood took home lots of hardware yet again at the BFCA Critics Choice Movie Awards. This group tends to reflect the consensus opinions as to how the Academy will vote at this point in the season, plus they're a large group, so their winner selections aren't without some significance. That said, there's still plenty of wiggle room for some underdog contender to make a move between now and February 22nd.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, for instance, won the Best Comedy prizes both at the Globes and last night, despite being beaten out again in the screenplay and actor categories by Birdman. Does this suggest that Anderson's film is more loved overall than Inarritu's?

And then there are the specialty film categories. The BFCA honoured The LEGO Movie, Force Majeure, and Life Itself in the Best Animated, Foreign, and Documentary categories respectively, probably because all of them were the presumed frontrunners (or at least co-frontrunners) for the Oscar win... until all three of them got snubbed by the Academy! At least these races are still somewhat interesting at a stage of the season when most races start ossifying.

You can read some of my passing thoughts after the cut.