American Sniper Wins Oscar for Achievement in Sound Editing

DonDiego thought the 2015 Oscar TV Presentations show was below average this year.

His interest in motion pictures has decreased over the years. Of this years nominees he's only seen Interstellar [better than expected; but too "easy" paradoxical ending] and The Grand Budapest Hotel [because it was on cable TV already; a pleasant film, fun to watch].

The only movie he's likely to pay to see is American Sniper.

Anyone out there with any insights/recommendations to stir poor old DonDiego into seeing more?

I suspect that American Sniper is similar to the old Dirty Harry movies. Yet, instead of Harry shooting mostly Anglo-Saxon American criminals at close proximity, Chris kills mostly Muslim terrorists from great distances. While I've also not viewed American Sniper, after further consideration I've concluded that the two movies are exactly the same only different.

Does this help?

Top 20 grossing movies of 2014; an undistinguished list with none of them likely to make the top 100 list of great movies. Birdman is yet another example of an Oscar winner that nobody watched or cared about

Gone Girl was very good and Hunger Games (not as good as the first) was good if you have been following them. Interstellar was ok, but it took way to long to get to the obvious conclusion

1 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
2 Guardians of the Galaxy
3 American Sniper
4 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
5 The LEGO Movie
6 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
7 Transformers: Age of Extinction
8 Maleficent
9 X-Men: Days of Future Past
10 Big Hero 6
11 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
12 The Amazing Spider-Man 2
13 Godzilla (2014)
14 22 Jump Street
15 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
16 Interstellar
17 How to Train Your Dragon 2
18 Gone Girl
19 Divergent
20 Neighbors

I have nothing bad with your list, nor any movie on your list. I admit to viewing exactly zero of these films, however.

I saw Sniper. it was OK. I refuse to get entangled in the politics surrounding it - and I dont believe politics played any role in its making. Seems like poor Clint Eastwood gets in trouble every time he makes a film anymore. Luckily, I suspect he doesn't give a crap.

The film shows some of the hardships soldiers endure with PTSD and coupling "soldier life" with "family life". I think "the Hurt Locker" did a better job portraying this issue but Sniper was ok too. No reason to cough up $10 for it on the big screen. Wait for cable or netflix.

I agree 2014 was a sucky year for movies.

Actually DonDiego has seen a few of these, even paid to see some:
__Guardians of the Galaxy - teechur wanted DonDiego to accompany her; DonDiego was pleasantly surprised that he enjoyed it more than he'd expected; clever fun.
__The LEGO Movie - saw on cable TV; mindless fun; the feature song "Everything is Awesome" sticks with one after the film, but less than "It's a Small World" after the ride. DonDiego has adopted "Everything is Awesome" as his own motto and theme song.
__X-Men: Days of Future Past - teechur says she took DonDiego to see this; DonDigo doesn't remember any of it.
__Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - saw on cable TV; just OK, more a special effects showpiece than a meaningful film; nothing in the Planet of the Apes-based filmography beats the original for impact.
__Godzilla - saw on cable TV; disappointing all around.
__Interstellar - (see original post, above)
__Divergent - saw on cable TV; pretty much mindless dystopian fare; DonDiego usually likes dystopian fare, but this really seemed pointless.

I agree with DD on divergent; endless movie

"We're number 5. We're number 5" --- the legos

The only Best Picture nominee I DIDN'T see was "Whiplash".

My personal favorite was "The Imitation Game". Fascinating story from world history, and extremely well acted. "Birdman" was fine, good acting and all that but just too quirky for me. Budapest Hotel was a joke. Bored me to tears. Same with Boyhood. I totally appreciate the commitment and novelty of using the same actors for 12 years, but NOTHING happens in the movie. You watch a kid grow up. I could have turned the movie off and been more interested by watching my own 11 year old son sleep for three hours.

I would have rather seen "Nightcrawler" in the mix. Gyllenhall's acting was outstanding and the last 45 minutes are edge-of-your-seat tense.

Nightcrawler looked interesting. I will try to watch that soon.

We've been using our Amazon FireTV stick more than I thought we would. We watched Gone Girl and The Theory of Everything. I liked Gone Girl although my interpretation differs from a lot of folks that expressed their opinion about it online.