Awards season has been dragging on for such an interminable time that everybody more or less knew all this week’s Oscar nominations before they had been announced. So here, just to liven things up, are a few amendments – a few new categories that are perpetually overlooked by the Academy, along with the most worthy nominees.
Let’s all pray that the Academy latches on and adds some of these categories into the show itself next year.
Best film to make more than $200m
The Lego Movie
Big Hero 6
Guardians of the Galaxy
Godzilla
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Best sequel
How to Train Your Dragon 2
22 Jump Street
The Purge: Anarchy
The Expendables 3
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Physical transformation most transparently undertaken as an Oscar-winning tactic
Jennifer Aniston (Cake)
Steve Carell (Foxcatcher)
Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
Andy Serkis (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes)
Best actor caught slumming it in a superhero movie
Glenn Close (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Paul Giamatti (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
Peter Dinklage (X-Men: Days of Future Past)
Jenny Agutter (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)
Robert Redford (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)
Best use of incessant drumming on a movie soundtrack
Birdman
Whiplash
Drumline 2: A New Beat
Commando (retrospective 30-year anniversary nomination)
Best name for that Tom Cruise film nobody went to see
All You Need is Kill
Live Die Repeat
Edge of Tomorrow
Best film that you only watched because its title made you think it was about something else
Foxcatcher (A beagle)
Whiplash (Car accidents)
Selma (Marge’s sister from The Simpsons)
Birdman (Icarus)
Cake (Some cake)
Best British actor playing an American
David Oyelowo (Selma)
Tom Wilkinson (Selma)
Tim Roth (Selma)
Carmen Ejogo (Selma)
Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
Tom Hardy (The Drop)
Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
Keira Knightley (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit)
Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler)
Best American actor playing a Brit
Scarlett Johansson (Under The Skin) Actually, this is probably ineligible because she’s actually just playing an alien who happens to have a British accent. Let’s just scrap this category
Best Cumberbatch
Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Turing (The Imitation Game)
Benedict Cumberbatch, Classified (Penguins of Madagascar)
Benedict Cumberbatch, Smaug (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies)
Benedict Cumberbatch, Sauron the Necromancer (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies)
Benedict Cumberbatch, Photobomber (Every single red carpet of the year)