Aussie Oscar nominee David Lee hasn’t seen the film he’s nominated for and isn’t going to the ceremony

HE’S up for an Oscar, but this Aussie hasn’t even seen the film he’s nominated for, and won’t be at the gala event because he’s working on his next Hollywood blockbuster.

AUSSIE sound mixer David Lee, basking in the glow of his Oscar nomination for Unbroken at his Scotts Head home on the NSW coast, admits he hasn’t even seen the film.

“It’s just come on at the Nambucca cinema so I’ll be in there next week,” the 58 year old said.

The veteran sound recordist, who won an Oscar in 2000 for The Matrix, was one of just two Aussies nominated this year, along with Adelaide’s Tim Crosbie, part of the X-Men: Days of Future Past team who are up for Best Achievement in Visual Effect.

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Australia's Oscar nominee ... David Lee at his home in Scotts Head. He was nominated for his work on Angelina Jolie's directed movie Unbroken. Picture: Lindsay Moller

Other local hopefuls including The Lego Movie, Naomi Watts (Birdman, St Vincent), film editor Kirk Baxter (Gone Girl) and Sia Furler’s Golden Globe nominated song Opportunity from Annie were all snubbed.

Lee was too busy working overtime on Cate Blanchett film Truth to make Unbroken’s December premiere and said he won’t even be able to make February’s Oscar ceremony as he’ll be doing sound for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on the Gold Coast.

But Lee appreciates just how unusual it is for an Australian technician, working primarily on local films like Muriel’s Wedding and Mao’s Last Dancer, to pick up a second Oscar nod.

“I’ve still got a grin from ear to ear,” he said.

Tim Crosbie, 47, from Rising Sun Pictures in Adelaide, popped a bottle of champagne with a friend just after midnight when his nomination was announced — with X-Men beating out short-listed blockbusters including the latest Hobbit and Transformers films.

“It’s up there with births, deaths, marriages: Oscars” he said. “It’s massive.”

The naturalised Australian, born in England, paid tribute to the 46 VFX artists who worked for seven months on the two minute ‘kitchen’ sequence, where character Quicksilver slows time to the equivalent of 10,000 frames a second while battling guards.

Despite watching it untold times, he’s never got bored with it. “It’s so rare to have that happen,” he said. “Sometimes all the stars align and you’re looking at something really special.”
Unlike Lee, he’ll be at the Oscars: “You try and keep me away!”

Leading this year’s nominations are Birdman, up for nine gongs including best film, director and best actor — capping a remarkable comeback for Michael Keaton — The Grand Budapest Hotel (9), The Imitation Game (8), American Sniper (6) and Boyhood (6).

Frontrunner ... Michael Keaton in Birdman. Picture: 20th Century Fox.

Surprise nominees include Marion Cotillard for best actress for the little seen Two Days, One Night (she faces an uphill battle against favourite Julianne Moore in Still Alice) and a best actor nod for Bradley Cooper in American Sniper, after he was overlooked by the Golden Globes. But Cooper’s at best an outside chance against frontrunners Keaton and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything).

Notable snubs include Christopher Nolan (Interstellar) and David Fincher (Gone Girl) who missed out in best film and best director categories, Jennifer Aniston (Cake), Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler) and Amy Adams (Big Eyes).

But “arguably the year’s biggest snub” according to Variety was the Aussie made The Lego Movie, which missed out on best animated film.

Pundits suggest the film’s jokey tone and a bias among the professional animator voters towards traditional storylines and animation may have been to blame. The film’s co-director Phil Lord showed off a photo on Twitter of his home made Lego Oscar, and wrote: “It’s okay. Made my own!”

Not bitter ... The Lego Movie's co-director Phil Lord’s homemade Lego Oscar.

And after 12 Years a Slave’s triumph last year, the 2015 nominations came under sustained criticism for lacking diversity. The Daily Beast called them: “The Whitest Oscars Since 1998” with Selma’s African American director Ava DuVernay overlooked, and female writers and directors more generally, including Angelina Jolie (Unbroken) missing in action. The nominations though reflect the Academy, not US society: the vast majority of voters are over 50, three quarters are male and 94 per cent are white. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s (Birdman) best director nomination was a notable exception.

PICTURES: Oscar nominees