Donât let movie snobs and the Academy push you around. There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to like this yearâs Best Picture Oscar nominees, and weâve dug up the dirt on each one.
Maybe youâve felt like youâre on an island with a particular movie, surrounded by people and film critics who love it, while you are absolutely convinced itâs a terrible flick. It can be tough to speak up with that contrarian stance, lest you be attacked for not âgetting it.â
But donât worry, Oscar nominee haters. You are not alone.
Every one of this yearâs Academy Award nominees for Best Picture has its detractors, and theyâve spoken up online to raise some valid points.
Amazonâs customer reviews are a goldmine for negative criticism on any film, while IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Twitter add plenty of snark to the conversation.
Maybe you loved all of this yearâs Oscars. Maybe you didnât. Either way, it canât hurt to take these rotten reviews with a grain of salt.
Hollywood will tell you why you should love these movies on Oscar night. Why not read to some arguments to the contrary?
American Sniper
The Clint Eastwood-directed âAmerican Sniperâ faced broad criticism for glorifying the life of Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. history.
Several one-star reviews on IMBD slammed the film as thinly-veiled propaganda that elevated American lives above the lives of Kyleâs Iraqi victims.
âThe filmâs approach is to display every Iraqi man, woman and even child as intent on murdering âgoodâ American troops and therefore deserving of their fate,â wrote IMD reviewer Qrobur from the United Kingdom.
New York-based user Bolesroor called the film âsimplistic propaganda masquerading as an award-worthy story.â
Iftekhar Tanveer added that the film âdoesnât have any conceivable storylineâ in another IMDB review.
But while the politics of the film proved divisive, there was no debating its greatest misstep: the inclusion of an obviously fake doll meant to pass for a ârealâ baby.
The following scene shows Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle in an emotional exchange with his wife. It doesnât take an eagle-eyed viewer to notice that the baby in Cooperâs arms is quite clearly made of immobile plastic.
Pay close attention to Cooperâs right hand at the 40-second mark. You can see him wiggle his thumb to move the fake babyâs arm.
âAmerican Sniperâ has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
Boyhood
If there was an award for Most Patient Director, Richard Linklater would win it for 'Boyhood.'
The film is, if nothing else, an amazing experiment in endurance filmmaking. Linklater filmed the same cast of actors once a year for 12 years to realistically show a boy's life as he grows from age six to 18. Unfortunately, some felt that âgimmickâ to be a distraction from the filmâs arguably weak storyline.
âNot worthy of your time,â said one-star reviewer Tiger on Amazon. âThis is not a movie per se. It is a documentary and not a very good one.â
Several people made the joke that the âHarry Potterâ films already showed kids growing up one year at a time, so âBoyhoodâ was nothing new.
I really don't get the hype around Boyhood. They already did that with Harry Potter and those movies had wizards.
â Black Wolverine (@WolveyJohnson)
LOL @ calling Boyhood "12 years a boy"
â hey it's me...ya boi (@Begho10)
Others noticed deeper problems with the film, particularly in one subplot that involved the protagonistâs mother. At one point in âBoyhood,â the mother tells a Mexican plumber named Enrique that he seems smart and should go to school. Her words of encouragement come after about three sentences of broken conversation with him.
Years later (spoiler alert), Enrique now speaks perfect English and runs his own restaurant. He sees the boyâs mother at the restaurant and doesnât charge her for her meal, while thanking her for turning his life around.
Several people called the Enrique subplot an obvious âwhite saviourâ storyline, and criticized the film for having only two Mexican characters through 12 years of a story set in Texas.
âLucky Enrique, all sprinkled with magic white lady approval,â wrote blogger Cara Blouin.
Creating a film in Texas with only ONE Mexican American is analogous to Woody Allen's NYC w/out people of color.
â JessieNYC (@JessieNYC)
I think the worst scene in Boyhood was the one where the Mexican waiter thanks the white mom for off-handedly suggesting he go to school
â Lucas Neff (@RealLucasNeff)
My hate for Boyhood's white-savior storyline spilled over onto Facebook.
â Edgar Alex Hilbert (@AlexHilbert_)
I had completely forgotten about the Enrique scene in Boyhood, probably blocking it out because of how corny and awful it was.
â Dug K. (@Manos15)
âBoyhoodâ received six nominations this year for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette), Film Editing and Best Original Screenplay.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Birdman is another film with a gimmick, though that gimmick is much different from the one seen in âBoyhood.â Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu shoots most of the film as though itâs one single, continuous shot, without any editing. Itâs made to feel like the camera is an invisible witness to real-time events at the theatre where the film takes place.
The filmâs ârottenâ reviewers mostly took issue with this emphasis on the camera, and criticized the film in a broader sense for catering to the Hollywood elite.
âThis movie is made by people, and for people, that can stare at a completely empty canvas for two hours and go âooh ooh ahh ahh,ââ wrote user handmadepasta in a one-star Amazon review. âYou can shoot 2 hours of horse manure in one take; itâs still horse manure.â
Amazon customer John J. Bugeja said he couldnât bring himself to watch more than 10 minutes of the film.
âWhen the camera tries to be the star of the movie, thatâs when I turn it off,â he wrote.
Others were irritated by the constant drumbeats playing throughout the film.
How annoying are the drums in - very annoying.
â Richard Brookes (@RJBrookes)
âBirdmanâ was tied for this yearâs lead with nine Oscar nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Best Actor (Michael Keaton), Best Supporting Actor (Edward Norton), Best Supporting Actress (Emma Stone), Cinematography, Best Director, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Best Original Screenplay.
The Imitation Game
Any film based on a true story is bound to upset history buffs with every departure it takes from the true story. That was the main snag for critics of 'The Imitation Game,' based on the life of brilliant mathematician Alan Turing.
'The Imitation Game' revolved around Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a team of codebreakers working at Britain's Bletchley Park codebreaking school to crack Nazi encryptions during the Second World War.
Many Turing aficionados criticized the film for condensing events at Bletchley Park and playing up its commander, Alastair Denniston, as a villain.
One Amazon reviewer gave the film a one-star rating and labelled it a âtravestyâ that falls far short of portraying the life of its historical focus. Several others slammed it for making the code device 'enigma' the center puzzle of the film, even though the device had already been solved by the time Turing started working for the British government.
âThe Imitation Gameâ was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), Best Supporting Actress (Keira Knightley), Best Director (Morten Tyldum), Film Editing, Original Score, Production Design and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
"Silly." "Farcical." "Absurd."
Those were the most common negative criticism of Wes Andersonâs âThe Grand Budapest Hotel,â which tied âBirdmanâ with nine Academy Award nominations this year.
Anderson is well-known for his whimsical, oddball style from past films like âMoonrise Kingdomâ âThe Royal Tenenbaumsâ and âFantastic Mr. Fox.â That style is on full display in âThe Grand Budapest Hotel,â and it proved to be too overwhelming for some.
The filmâs biggest bashers slammed it as a ridiculous, meandering caper from a director who is well-known for that that kind of thing.
Less than 10 minutes into The Grand Budapest Hotel and I'm reminded why I hate all Wes Anderson films.
â John Daigle (@notJDaigle)
If u don't like the way that Anderson makes movies,then The Grand Budapest Hotel will probably make u hate him even more.
â Rukiki Mariana (@ruciki)
âCartoon movie simply stupid,â wrote Phillip R. Hinds on Amazon.
âWhat in the world is wrong with the movie critics these days?â said Amazon reviewer Harold Jacobs. âWhat a dreadful movie. We kept watching hoping it would improve, but it sank deeper and deeper. Toilet mouth dialogue, forced humor, stupid situations. There are some well-known names connected with this movie. It certainly hasnât enriched their careers.â
âThe Grand Budapest Hotelâ has been nominated for Best Picture, Cinematography, Costume Design, Best Director, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Production Design and Best Original Screenplay.
Selma
Few people took issue with the Martin Luther King, Jr.-centered âSelma,â which dramatizes a key march in Alabama during the civil rights movement of 1965.
Still, there were some detractors.
Just as we saw with âThe Imitation Game,â some took issue with âSelmaâs representation of history, and with its portrayal of President Lyndon B. Johnson in particular. Others simply felt the emotional message of âSelmaâ didnât quite hit the right note, whether because it felt like other anti-racism movies or because of the overall tone of the film.
IMDB reviewer Danny G called MLK Jr. one of his âheroesâ before comparing âSelmaâ to a âhorror movie.â
âI despised this film for being overly depressing and gloomy,â he said. âWhy club us over the head with horror and fear? Was that really necessary to tell such a powerful story?â
User Arfdawg-1 on IMDB called âSelmaâ a âTV movieâ and accused it of re-writing history.
Others used the film to raise broader issues about modern-day race issues in the United States, including the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and the riots in Ferguson, Missouri.
Several Twitter users said the film made them want to âhateâ white people.
If you saw Selma it really make u hate white ppl
â key (@Keyannaaa)
All Selma did was make black people hate white people more.
â DeJ Loaf of Bread (@_J_A_P_A_N)
Me: Have you watched Selma? Loy Mad: No. Me: Are you gonna watch it? Loy Mad: I don't know if I wanna hate White people right now.
â Tats Nkonzo (@TatsNkonzo)
âSelmaâ was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song (âGloryâ).
The Theory of Everything
Best Actor nominee Eddie Redmayne received near-universal praise for his performance as Stephen Hawking, the brilliant scientist crippled by ALS (Lou Ghehrigâs Disease) in âThe Theory of Everything.â
But while most people loved Redmayneâs performance, some took issue with the filmâs overall focus on Stephen Hawkingâs struggles instead of his science.
âThis movie is about a man with a horrible illness who happens to be a magnificent scientist. The story should have been told the other way around,â reviewer Christopher-172-288573 wrote on IMDB. âThis movie drags the viewer through the weeds of Hawkingâs pain and suffering and never lets up until the final minutes of the movie.â
User daveinlv called the film âa hodgepodge of 50% theatrics, 49% personal life drama and 1% science and even that of questionable accuracy.â
He wasnât the only one to critique the filmâs lack of science and emphasis on family melodrama.
âIts subject is more or less: how to cope and go on living with a very disabled person as a spouse,â wrote Motherspot on IMDB.
Movie Dude on IMDB offered this brief summary: âSick guy who is famous for unexplained reasons has troubles in his relationship.â
âThe Theory of Everythingâ is nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Eddie Redmayne), Best Actress (Felicity Jones), Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Whiplash
âWhiplashâ wasnât the typical âtough teacher pushes student to find himselfâ film. It was more âtough teacher pushes student to the brink of sanity and exhaustion.â
The film stars Miles Teller as a driven drum student and J.K. Simmons as his taskmaster music instructor. Simmonsâ character believes the only way to make someone great is to hammer them to their breaking point, and he does that relentlessly to his students, including Tellerâs character.
The filmâs worst critics took issue with Simmonsâ over-the-top cruel character, while praising the film as a whole for the acting and technical filmmaking prowess on display.
Amazon reviewer Kate Smart hailed Simmonsâ performance as the âdrill sergeantâ music teacher, but slammed the film for the impression it leaves.
âWhat a terrible message,â she wrote. âI was actually elated at one point because I thought, âFor once the teacher isnât the hero! Heâs going to be exposed for the sociopath he clearly is!â But alas, another hope crushed.â
Amazon user PeterRealPerson rankled at the casual slurs Simmonsâ character hurled at his teenaged music students to motivate them.
âHomophobic and anti-Semitic insults, psychological and physical torture presented as working methods to motivate a teenager! Do I really need to write more to express how wrong this movie is, despite all the good acting and speedy editing?â
Connie L. Eakes had a more succinct Amazon review. âWhen did two hours of emotional shaming and abuse become mainstream entertainment?â
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Thatâs a whole lot of negativity for a bunch of films vying for the title of Best Picture. But donât let it turn you off. The film are, if nothing else, worthy of debate and worth seeing for the conversation they bring up.
If you loved all the films, maybe youâll see them a different way now. And if you hated them, maybe youâll speak up the next time someone talks about that âawesomeâ scene that you just couldnât stand.