Twenty years ago (when the Academy Awards were still in late March), one of the biggest Oscar upsets of all time went down in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion: Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. In this feature story for Collider, I make the case for why the Academy got it right. [...]
Streaming is TV. You can distill Steven Spielberg's opposition to Netflix competing for Academy Awards down to those three words. (Full disclosure: I'm #TeamSpielberg on this one.) Spielberg is about to make an official argument to the board of the Academy, the film industry org that produces the Oscars, that rules of eligibility should change. [...]
The biggest winner of the night? The Academy. (The list of actual winners can be seen at the bottom of this in-depth Oscar night analysis.) After a toxic awards season that was often completely outside of the Academy's control but was then further complicated by the Academy and its constant mishandling of how it was producing the [...]
Below are my predictions for the 2018 Academy Awards, in all 24 categories. The list has some commentary in the major categories, along with simple “Will Win” predictions and “Should Win” opinions for all categories. I also have "Should've Been Nominated" choices for the top half of the nominees, and to make those choices truly credible I add which of [...]
It started with a comeback. Now it ends with a reveal. Here's Part 2 of my return to Nick Flora's All Time Favorite podcast, where we have fun talking about our picks for the Best / Favorite Films of 2018. In this conclusion, we complete our Top 10 lists, counting up from 5 to 1. (To hear [...]
Episode 18 - THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL: Conversations On Cinema http://thebadandthebeautiful.libsyn.com/the-bad-and-the-beautiful-episode-18-alita-battle-angel-httyd3-lego-movie-2-cold-war-oscars-2019-predictions Alita: Battle Angel, @ 0:50 How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, @ 10:49 The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, @ 14:36 Cold War, @ 15:40 Academy Awards Preview: Awards Season analysis & Oscar Predix, @ 21:38 Outro, @ 46:39 On [...]
Released: February 22, 2019 Runtime: Program A (67 minutes); Program B (67 minutes) Program: Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts for 2018 (Parental Discretion strongly advised; some content not suitable for children) During every Oscar ceremony, there’s a stretch of categories with nominees that virtually no one has ever even heard of, let alone seen: the shorts. Divided into three competitive [...]
Field of Vision - A Night at the Garden from Field of Vision on Vimeo. February 20, 1939. Eighty years ago. A banner of George Washington, flanked by swastikas. In America. As Hitler's Third Reich amassed its power, 20,000 Nazi sympathizers packed into Madison Square Garden in New York City to champion their fascist creeds [...]
Don't call it a comeback. Okay, call it a comeback. Technically, that's exactly what it is. Like a fact. Or science. Or whatever. After skipping a year because of LIFE!, I return to Nick Flora's All Time Favorite podcast for our traditional "Best Films of the Year" two-part podcast event. Yes, it's an event! (...self-declared though it [...]
Of all the industry guilds, the Writers is the biggest wild card. Their arcane rules often exclude major Oscar contenders. This year, that includes Original Screenplay Academy Award nominees The Favourite and First Reformed. With that in mind: Bo Burnham's screenplay for Eighth Grade won the WGA's award for Best Original Screenplay of 2018. That certainly [...]