Guardians of the Galaxy director, James Gunn has never been a guy to mince words, but now that he’s got the most profitable movie of 2014 under his belt, those un-minced words carry some serious weight, and it turns out he’s as mystified as we all are by this year’s Oscar nominations.
Gunn recently took to Facebook to vent a laundry list of Academy Award frustrations including, as you might expect, the relative lack of nominations for Guardians of the Galaxy.
“I think our Guardians costume designer, Alexandra Byrne, our Production Designer, Charles Wood, and our Sound team from Skywalker Sound were snubbed as badly as anyone. All three of these departments created looks and sounds from nothing, from cultures that hadn’t pre-existed, and created something beautiful that has already shifted the aesthetic paradigm of Hollywood films. […] I suppose they’ll just have to be happy having made a film seen by more people than have seen all seven of the Best Film nominees combined.”
He also had something to say about the age-old weirdness of a movie being nominated for Best Director but not Best Picture (the Academy does this almost every year).
“Foxcatcher was nominated for Best Director and not for Best Film. I don’t get it. What other department, exactly, was holding Foxcatcher back from being nominated for Best Film? The Director has creative control of a film – although there are some great films made without great directors, it is impossible to distinguish that without being on the inside. It really bothers me when awards for Best Director and Best Film go to different movies.”
Like a lot of people online, Gunn also had some harsh words for The LEGO Movie not being nominated for Best Animated Feature.
“The LEGO Movie was flat out snubbed. It was one of the best films of the year, not to mention one of the best animated films. It deserved to be nominated for Best Animated Film. Considering the average Academy voter is 63, perhaps the Tinkertoy Movie or the Erector Set Film would have fared better.
In the end, the Academy is just a bunch of people, like you or me, doing what they think is best. And they should have the right to not vote for whomever they want…besides the LEGO Movie. I mean, that’s just f*cking ridiculous.”
Good to know we still have somebody at least marginally sane inside the movie industry.
Via The Wrap
