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Five On Film: Talking Video Game Movies w/ ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ Writer Phil Johnston

Five On Film is an occasional feature on “Hey You Geeks!!” where directors, writers, actors or just plain awesome advocates of geek culture are asked five questions in line with the theme of their current work. In this edition, I chat about video game movies with Wreck-It Ralph screenwriter Phil Johnston. One of the most …

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A Clever ‘For Your Consideration’ Ad, for ‘Argo’

Studios often spend a tremendous amount of money promoting films that are nominated for an Oscar, in hopes of swaying Academy members to vote for their film. There has been quite a few interesting campaigns throughout the years, but all too often, they do little to impress. Here is a perfect a example of how …

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Nominations for 85th Academy Awards, honouring the best of cinema in 2012, have been announced

With the change of the calendar has come a flurry of awards and nominations for the year in film. The Producer’s Guild, Director’s Guild, and Writer’s Guild have announced their selections for the best efforts in various categories, and the Golden Globes, having already made their nominations, are set to air the awards ceremony on …

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Oscar Injustice: 4 Great Performances Ignored by The Academy

With the Oscars finally concluded and cleared up for another year, with familiar lessons learned and perturbing trends set for the rest of the year, time comes for evaluation and discussion, thoughtful or otherwise. And one thing is clear: if there was predictability to be had in 2012, it came in the acting categories. Although …

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Post Oscar Thought: Grown Up Films – An Endangered Species?

“When I was a child,” film reviewer Stephen Whitty wrote in “What Happened to Grown-Up Films?” for New Jersey’s state paper, The Star-Ledger, on the day of the Oscars, “most of the big hits in movie theaters were aimed at adults. Now that I’m an adult, most of the big hits in movie theaters are …

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Watch The Academy Award-Winning Best Animated Short Film, ‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore’

This past Sunday I took part in my yearly Oscar poll carefully selecting who I thought would win in each category. While I usually come away the big winner I’ve never once been able to correctly guess the winners of all three categories for short films (documentary, live action and animation). That all changed this …

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Oscar mistakes: ‘Departures’ winning over ‘Waltz with Bashir’

Throughout February, the Sound On Sight staff will take a look at the Academy Awards. In 2008, there was one film out of all the Oscar nominees that had a birthright claim to what film critics love to call “inventing a new cinematic language” or “creating a universe of its own”, and this was not …

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Strangest & Most Controversial Moments In the History of the Academy Awards

The saying goes: If Hollywood is really the movie capital of the world, then Oscar night is the world’s biggest wrap party, and like all parties, each event comes with unwelcome guests, embarrassing situations, strange fashions and controversial moments. In fact, controversy and the Oscars seem to go hand in hand and despite the fact …

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Oscar Shock: 5 Surprise Best Actors (And What Happened Next)

With the Academy Awards now just a week away, large doses of scrutiny are being shoved down the collective throats of the twinkling stars standing in line and hoping for their very own statuette. Odds are that when the nominations are announced every year, there will be at least one somewhat surprising contender, whether he/she …

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The Oscars: Why do we watch?

Throughout the first half of February, the Sound On Sight staff will take a look at the Academy Awards. Human beings are social animals. We need to feel another human’s touch, hear another’s voice, and despite what many “rebels” might admit, we need their acceptance. But one place we should not look for social validation …

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Why Can’t An Oscar-Winner Look More Like A Hit?

 Throughout the first half of February, the Sound On Sight staff will take a look at the Academy Awards. Whether one of the major studios takes the top prize at the Academy Awards or not, they have no squawk this year. Several years ago, as you might recall, the Big Guys were getting fed up …

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39 songs contend for Best Original Song Oscar; Rules slightly change

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences just announced the 39 nominees eligible for Best Original Song this year. The Academy doesn’t have the best track record when narrowing down the list to five. In recent years they’ve overlooked some of the best songs including Bruce Springsteen’s track written for Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. …

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A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Oscars (part 2)

I will leave the discussion of what/who won/didn’t win and why/why not to others.  I have only one concern:  Did it work? For the now befuddled, let me recap what I laid out back in January when the 2011 Academy Award nominations were announced: A year earlier, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences …

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Strangest & Most Controversial Moments In the History of the Academy Awards (Pt. 2)

Strange Win – Albert Lamorisse’s exquisite The Red Balloon remains one of the most beloved family films of all time. Weirdly, the 1956 film won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar = despite being a 35-minute French movie, and despite having no dialogue. Lawsuit – In 1988, the Academy itself managed to anger Disney over the …

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Oscar Season Chat #4: A Conversation with Producer (and Legendary Cop) Sonny Grosso

(Celebrating award week with a look at one of Oscar’s most notable champions: The French Connection. Thirty-nine years ago, Connection — besides being one of the biggest hits of the 1970s – was the top winner at the Academy Awards walking away with gold for Best Picture [collected by producer Phil D’Antoni], Director [William Friedkin], …

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Videocast: Front Row Center Episode 1a: ‘Incendies’ (Road to the Oscars)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Front Row Center, the new videocast from Sound on Sight. That’s right, for the first time ever, we’ve put our faces where our mouths are. Wait, that can’t be right. Anyway, in our first installment, we take on an appropriately patriotic subject: Justine and Simon discuss Canada’s (Quebec’s, really) entry …

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Visual Effects Shot Breakdown for Oscar Nominated ‘Hereafter’

Hereafter delivered nominations for Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell in “Achievement in Special Effects” at this year’s Academy Awards. This marks the first nomination for each of the four Hereafter senior artists. The effects in the film recreates the Indonesian tsunami from 2004 and the following five-minute video offers an extensive …

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