SURVEY SAYS: Best ‘Best Picture’ Nominee

Last week I asked NewsDash readers, “Which nominees for ‘Best Picture’ have you seen, and which do you think should win?”

More than one-third (35.6%) of responding readers have not seen any of the movies nominated for Best Picture this year. However, one-third (34.2%) have seen “The Grand Budapest Hotel, and 28.8% have seen “American Sniper.” Slightly more than 23% have seen “The Imitation Game;” “Birdman” and Boyhood” were each seen by 15.1% of responding readers; 4.1% have seen “Selma;” 9.6% have seen “The Theory of Everything;” and “Whiplash” was seen by 5.5% of respondents.

Asked which Best Picture nominee should win the Academy Award, readers who took part in the survey voted as follows:

• “American Sniper” – 48.4%;
• “Birdman” – 6.4%;
• “Boyhood” – 3.2%;
• “The Grand Budapest Hotel” – 8.1%;
• “The Imitation Game” – 9.7%;
• “Selma” – 4.8%;
• “The Theory of Everything” – 3.2%;
• “Whiplash” – 0%; and
• None of them – 16.1%.

I asked NewsDash readers to share a movie they think should have been nominated for the “Best Picture” Academy Award. They suggested:

• “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”
• “Captain America”
• “Into the Woods”
• “Unbroken”
• “Interstellar”
• “Maleficent”
• “Guardians of the Galaxy”
• “Cake”
• “St. Vincent”
• “How to Live on a Dollar a Day”
• “Gone Girl”

The relatively low number of respondents who left general comments were not very excited about the Academy Awards or its process. Several commenters said they rarely see movies. Editor’s Choice goes to the reader who said: “If Michael Moore complains, then it must be my kind of film!”

Verbatim

What can you say? Overpaid, self-agrandizing ...blah-blah-blah. Gave up on them years ago. Now I just go see what sounds interesting to me.

Why do they always have to pick the most vile of movies?

I more appreciate the antics of the host(s) than the sometimes 'boorish' speeches of award-winners. Not to say all are boorish though...

There are too many! I wish they would go back to only 5 like it used to be.

Interstellar was much better than "Gravity" ever thought of being, and as I recall, it won a number of awards.

The only best picture nominee I have seen is The Grand Budapest Hotel and it is one of the worst movies ever. I can't believe it was nominated. Can't comment on any of the others.

I was surprised that American Sniper was nominated since it is a movie people want to see and not one the Academy thinks they should see.

Selma should have received nominations for Best Actor and Best Director in addition to Best Picture.

Hollywood's idea of what makes a "Best Picture" and mine rarely agree, so I don't usually pay much attention to the Oscars. I thought American Sniper was a great picture, and since it was the only one of the listed pictures I was remotely interested in paying money to see, that makes it a Best Picture to me!

Boyhood was a complete waste of nearly 3 hours of my life. Concept was interesting, movie was terrible.

Didn't see anything really outstanding

Verbatim (cont.)

A movie and a soda is so expensive these days that I just wait for it to come out on a free HBO weekend or Netflix. Eventually I will see these movies and I can still defer the max to my 401(k)! (hehe)

I haven't seen any of the movies that were nominated. But I did see the trailers for many of them and as a Marketing Professional I feel that, based entirely on In-Theater advertising, Birdman was hands down the finest film of the year.

Why does anyone care about this? Just a bunch of overpaid people, patting themselves on the back.

If Michael Moore complains, then it must be my kind of film!

Updated my Netflix list- thanks!

What a waste of time and resources.

I had to look at your list to find out what pictures were nominated - that's how much attention I pay to all of this!

We rarely go to movies. Oftentimes I think about seeing some of them AFTER the awards, but rarely do. We did happen to see St. Vincent this year. It was good, but probably not Best Picture material.

In the grander 'scene' of things shouldn't we get back to realizing this is entertainment and these are merely actors.

Who has time to go to the movies?

The voters are obviously very liberal so any picture that has any patriotic or religious theme or even hint of it will never win.