It’s the eve of the 88th Academy Awards, which means we’re up to our necks in Oscar prognostication. Will Leo finally nab that Best Actor award? Is Mad Max: Fury Road getting any recognition? And what will host Chris Rock say about another year of whitewashed nominees? Awards predictions are a dime a dozen, yet the far …
There’s been an understandable amount of outrage around this year’s Oscars, one that, for the second year in a row, has been criticized for only nominating white actors in each category. What’s worse, some films in contention, titles like Creed and Straight Outta Compton, received nominations, but only for the white members of their productions. This issue is …
Don’t you hate that each year Awards Season seems to creep ever earlier in the calendar year? GOD! Can’t you just go one film festival without speculating whether it will be an Oscar contender, or whether it has the legs to survive such an increasingly long awards season? Geez, I can’t imagine why so many …
The experiment has failed. The Oscars simply don’t work. And no, I’m not just continuing to vent my frustration over Boyhood losing. For the last six years, The Academy has experimented with a different number of Best Picture nominees, starting with 10, then a variable number between five and 10 based on first place votes. That …
In anticipation of the Academy Awards this weekend, Nintendo has come up with its own strange twist on the event. In order to celebrate the 2015 Oscar nominees, they’ve decide to address who they believe should walk away with one of the statuettes – that is for imaginary categories. This latest PR effort from Nintendo …
Is there an Oscar thief on the loose? And if so, where do you pawn those off at? Leo DiCaprio’s house? The New York Times reported on Monday that the first Oscar won by Charlie Chaplin, an Honorary award which he won for The Circus in 1929, had been stolen. According to the French newspaper …
One week removed from the Oscar nominations, we’re still recovering from #OscarsSoWhite-gate, and the consensus seems to be that if only the Legos were white instead of yellow they would’ve been nominated after all. But really the conversation has started to move toward Hollywood rather than the Oscars, and how as a whole institution we …
The Oscar nominations are nearly upon us! Can you feel the excitement in the air? I can tell you’re just buzzing. Perhaps you should be, because however small it is, the announcement of Thursday morning’s Oscar nominations will be a historic moment. All 24 categories, not just a select few, will be announced during the …
If you want to get the trades talking about something other than the Oscars for a little while, consider creating a giant controversy and terrorist conspiracy threat in which a Christmas Day comedy release is completely canceled and gets all of Hollywood calling the act a disgraceful injustice that effectively kills American Expression and Free …
This week at the end of October is the point in the Oscar race where pundits begin spinning their wheels. The festivals are over, the critics’ awards haven’t started yet, and no new movies are arriving, leaving little to actually go on in terms of new predictions. Keep in mind, when an Oscar pundit talks …
We can debate all day which comic book hero is cooler: DC or Marvel? Superman or Spiderman? Justice League or The Avengers? Batman or anyone who isn’t cool enough to be Batman? But it’s no question that Marvel has a serious leg-up on DC in the movie business. Outside of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, DC …
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Thursday announced their annual crop of newly invited Academy members, a grand total of 271 industry individuals, many of whom were major nominees or players in 2013’s Oscar race. The list includes notables like Barkhad Abdi, Lupita Nyong’o, Michael Fassbender, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, former Oscar host Chris Rock, …
One of the most well-known awards for film are the Academy Awards. Better known as the Oscars, the awards have grown in stature over the years, with their choices becoming a point of discussion among many film fans in the lead up to, and following, the event. Previous winners have included Annie Hall for Best …
The shallow deep talk of True Detective by Emily Nussbaum: “Judged purely on style, HBO’s “True Detective” is a great show. Every week, it offers up shiver-inducing cable intoxicants, from an over-the-top action sequence so liquid it rivals a Scorsese flick to piquant scenes of rural degradation, filmed on location in Louisiana, a setting that …
Omar Written and directed by Hany Abu-Assad Palestine, 2013 Within its first scene, Omar recalls the romantic actions of Shakespeare’s Romeo, as our title character climbs up one wall and jumps down another, both via rope, to approach the shy and reserved girl he’s got his eyes on. But as star-crossed as these lovers may be, …
Gloria Written by Sebastián Lelio and Gonzalo Maza Directed by Sebastián Lelio Chile and Spain, 2013 The advantage that the new film Gloria has is its uniqueness. At one moment, the title character winds up face to face with a striking white peacock, a creature as rare as she. Though a number of actresses continue …
Every year, when awards nominations are announced, the word “snub” tends to be thrown around a lot. However, I think this happens because people want every great movie to be rewarded for their work without thinking of who should be cut. Thus I get treated to Huffington Post headlines like “OPRAH MOVIE SNUBBED” and “OPRAH …
One of the most prestigious awards in the film circuit is the Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars. Given out by The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, the Oscars have gained importance over the years due to the prestige they bring to winners, many of whom often find commercial success to go with …
The Broken Circle Breakdown Written and directed by Felix Van Groeningen Belgium, 2012 Some things are universal, crossing moral or literal boundaries. Some situations are, when described, so inherently sad that it’s hard not to well up with tears, just as some music is so joyous and hopeful that it’s hard not to react positively …
Venerable Woody Grant (a grizzled Bruce Dern) has a singular purpose in mind, to get from his adopted Montana home to neighbouring Nebraska to collect a million-dollar cheque that a suspiciously speculative postal disclaimer has promised to honour. Elderly and suffering with decaying mental functions, Woody clearly can’t see through the marketing scam, and his wife Kate (June Squibb) and son David (Will Forte) grow increasingly exasperated at his dangerous footbound expeditions before arriving at a mutual solution:
War Witch Directed by Kim Nguyen Written by Kim Nguyen Canada, 2012 The new film War Witch, Canada’s submission into the Best Foreign Language Film category in this past year’s Oscars (and one of the eventual nominees, though it lost to Amour), sidesteps a number of the pitfalls that crop up when any filmmaker tackles a …
Zero Dark Thirty Directed by Kathryn Bigelow Written by Mark Boal USA, 2012 This years’ Academy Awards are surprisingly history-heavy. Lincoln and Argo are both period pieces telling true stories of widely-recognised and declassified events respectively; whilst Django Unchained is a very Tarantino take on Southern slavery-era America. Zero Dark Thirty is the most historically …
85th Academy Awards Hosted by Seth MacFarlane Produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron Directed by Don Mischer Aired Sunday, Feb. 24th at 8:30pm (ET) on ABC It’s fairly well-established tradition at this point that viewers love to trash the Oscars: the nominees, the winners, the speeches, the ceremony. It’s an easy target, especially for …