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Vote for your favorite fandoms in our very first Fandom Academy Awards!

Please message us if you participate and you’ll be entered to win a prize so awesome that callmechristinae and I want it for ourselves!

The winners of the awards will be announced at the end of February during our Academy Award episode!

We here at A Little Nerd Music (just in time for the actual event!) bring you our well researched and thoughtful opinions on who we think will be going home a winner in each category.  Ok, to be honest we haven’t seen EVERY one of the nominees.  But we went at this like a logic puzzle in high school math.  Hopefully this helps in your Golden Globes office pool.

MOTION PICTURES

Best Drama

“Boyhood”
“Foxcatcher”
“The Imitation Game”
“Selma”
“The Theory of Everything”

Christina: I would love for Boyhood to win considering the sheer amount of work and foresight that went into making it, and I think it will take the top prize.  Selma could also get an added boost considering the current social climate.

Kelly: I think this will come down to Selma, Boyhood, or The Theory of Everything and either one of those will sweep it.  Because I haven’t seen any of these, I’m just going to pick The Theory of Everything.

Best Comedy/Musical

“Birdman”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Into the Woods”
“Pride”
“St. Vincent”

Christina: Birdman is probably the closest there is to a sure thing this year.  A very outside shot for The Grand Budapest hotel.

Kelly: I’ve only seen Into the Woods and I really want it to win, but I know that Birdman will probably win.

Check out more predictions behind the cut!

What Is It: Into the Woods is the big screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical of the same name that won 5 Tony Awards in two runs on Broadway including Best Score and Best Book.  When faced with a curse put upon their family by an evil witch, a baker and his wife must venture out into the nearby woods to find four items to break the curse: the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold.  In their journeys through the woods, they meet Jack (of beanstalk fame) who is looking to sell his white cow, Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Granny’s house, Rapunzel whose long blonde hair pulls her prince into her tower, and Cinderella who is dressed in gold from head to toe, trying to go to the King’s Festival.  It is the people they meet along the way who help them break the curse and who also cause all the terror in the second act, finally facing the repercussions of their decisions they made in their original fairytale endings.


My experience: As a drama nerd in high school, I was a part of a cast of Into the Woods in 2004, so my excitement for this movie has been brewing for a long time.  I was very hopeful because of casting decisions like Anna Kendrick as Cinderella and Emily Blunt as the Baker’s Wife, but also their decision to cast Broadway names like Lilla Crawford as Little Red Ridinghood and James Corden as The Baker.  I am so happy that I was not disappointed.  Emily Blunt’s vocals absolutely blew me away and she had excellent chemistry with James Corden.  Not only that, but the cast and crew of the movie were able to bring all the most-loved parts of the stage production onto the big screen.  In the play version, the runtime is 165 minutes with 2 hours of that being only Act One.  In the movie version, they managed to cut it down to only 124 minutes and it never felt cut off or felt like it was lagging.  That is a tough feat to achieve.


Why You Should See It: If you are a fan of musical theatre, I strongly encourage you to go out and see this movie (if you haven’t already).  If you have been a part of a production of Into the Woods, it is a great throwback for you.  With someone like Meryl Streep headlining the movie, you would tend to think that all the other actors would fall behind her, but if anything, I feel as if they brought their A-game to their performances and, in some instances, even outshined someone as legendary as Meryl Streep.  Emily Blunt’s amazing portrayal of The Baker’s Wife has won her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical and Meryl Streep is right behind her with a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her portrayal of The Witch.  The movie itself has been nominated for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) at the 2015 Golden Globe Awards as well.  If you have the chance, you need to get out there and see this movie!  I guarantee that you will not be disappointed!


The Future: The movie was released on Christmas Day and will most likely be running for another few months.  Please take a day to see it!  While there is no sequel to this movie, you can also look for Anna Kendrick in two more musicals in 2015: The Last Five Years with Tony Awards nominee Jeremy Jordan due in February and Pitch Perfect 2, the sequel to the wildly successful 2012 movie, which is out in theatres this May.  And later this year, James Corden will be taking over for Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show on CBS.

What Is It: Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb is third of the Night at the Museum movies, in which a magical Egyptian tablet brings everything in the American Museum of Natural History to life at night.  The films are based upon a children’s book by Milan Trenc.  In this film, the tablet is slowly eroding and losing its magic and Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) must travel to the British Museum in order to save it and his friends.  Notably this is the final film of comedy legends Mickey Rooney and Robin Williams.

My experience:  First off, I haven’t seen a kid’s film in the theater since, I think, Toy Story 3.  It was refreshing to see all the kids completely enraptured in a film without everyone criticizing and nitpicking upon leaving.  As fun as the movie was, I found myself bawling like a baby during Robin Williams’ final dialogue. 

Why You Should See It: It’s definitely a light hearted film suitable for the entire family.  If you’re just looking for a movie that is enjoyable and entertaining, I definitely recommend seeing this.  Especially if you enjoyed the previous movies.  Personally I found this one stronger than the previous Battle of the Smithsonian.  If that isn’t enough to draw you in, see it just to enjoy Robin Williams in his element one last time.

The Future: This movie concluded the trilogy nicely, and I think the absence of Robin Williams would be felt too keenly for any additional films to be made.  Hopefully the studio doesn’t try to stretch the franchise too thin to squeeze out an extra few dollars.  That being said, I would love to see some spinoff films or TV specials based around some of the other characters.  Who wouldn’t love to see a little more of the minifigures Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Octavius (Steve Coogan)?  And someone PLEASE give me more of Rami Malek’s Ahkmenrah.

What Is It: The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is the third and final volume of the movie adaptations of The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.  The book is a children’s classic, following the adventures of Bilbo Baggins (the younger version being portrayed by Martin Freeman in the film and the older version once again being portrayed by Ian Holm) as he travels with a band of dwarves to take back the Lonely Mountain and its treasure from the dragon Smaug.  After the great success of the book, Tolkien’s publishers begged for a sequel.  This work would eventually result in one of the best selling books of all time: The Lord of the Rings.  Peter Jackson also adapted LOTR into one of the most successful film franchises of all time, culminating with the Academy Award Best Picture winning The Return of the King.

My experience: I was a little late to the party in seeing this due to a horrible nagging cough I’ve been fighting (I didn’t want to be THAT person in the theater).  Unfortunately I think most of the weight and emotional pull of the movie is due more to the fact that it is likely the final film of a beloved franchise more than the film itself.  The Hobbit films as a whole suffer from wanting to include every moment from the book as well as connect it to the Lord of the Rings films.  This film in particular would likely have benefiting from some harsh editing, especially concerning the battle in the beginning which felt like it was tacked on from The Desolation of Smaug.  With Lord of the Rings being nearly five times longer than The Hobbit in terms of word count, it’s hard to justify them getting equal film trilogy treatment no matter how much extra information Tolkien had written in other places. 

Why You Should See It: Despite the weaknesses of this latest trilogy, it is still a part of one of the most epic stories ever told on screen.  The visuals, the acting, and the dialogue are all strong enough to keep you interested throughout the film.  While not for the weak of heart, I imagine a marathon of all six films would prove to be an impressive cinematic experience.  If you’ve been a fan all along, it’s the final chapter of a significant part of your childhood.  One could argue these films have left as big a mark on film as Tolkien’s books have left on literature.  The films flaws are definitely not enough to ruin that experience.

The Future: Unless Christopher Tolkien has some sort of mind bending change of heart and decides he really doesn’t dislike movie studios and the adaptations of his father’s work as much as he currently does, we will never see The Silmarillion on the big screen.  But look forward to the endless combinations of extended editions and box sets that will be compiled for years to come.