12 Anticipated 2015 Movies That Have Already Lost The Oscar Race

4. Our Brand Is Crisis

The Hype: A retelling of an acclaimed 2005 documentary of the same name, starring Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton, and produced by Oscar dream team Grant Heslov and George Clooney. Plus, though director David Gordon Green's output is wildly inconsistent, when he gets in serious mode he tends to deliver pretty impressive results (George Washington, Joe). Also, it's written by Oscar-nominated scribe Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and is about American political campaign strategies, which is always going to be a hot-button topic with the Academy. Why It's Lost The Oscar Race:Reviews were critical out of TIFF, most noting that though the movie aims to be satire, it doesn't dig deep enough or get ugly enough to be truly funny or potent. It ultimately plays it too safe and so, though Bullock and Thornton make for a compelling double act, there's only so much they can do with Straughan's script. This one seemed like an awards slam dunk over the summer, but now it's out in the wild, it's a dud.