For the first time in its history, Netflix is officially on the board as a major Oscar contender. Their 1970s Mexico-set Spanish language drama Roma -- from Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) -- was named Best Film of 2018 by the New York Film Critics Circle. Cuarón also won for Best Director and Best Cinematography; [...]
The 2018 Oscar Race has begun, and green catches the first gold. The National Board of Review was the first (in what will be a long line of year-end critics groups) to announce its annual choices for the best achievements in filmmaking, naming Green Book the Best Film of 2018. In addition, the Board also published [...]
You can have prestige or you can have popularity, but you can’t have both. That’s the conclusion I come to when reading some of the think-piece alternatives to recent changes made by the Academy to the Oscars ceremony. Many of them are reflected in this worthwhile piece by IndieWire’s Tom Brueggemann, “How To Make The [...]
In the wake of the changes to the Oscars telecast, the most controversial addition has been the new category “Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film”. Dubbed “The Popcorn Oscar”, it exists as a crass ploy for ratings that many fear will sacrifice the prestige of the award for the sake of (hopefully, maybe) more viewers. To [...]
The Oscars have officially gotten desperate, and it’s not a good look. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences – the producers of the Academy Awards, with a membership of Hollywood’s elite – has made some big changes to their annual telecast (although it was the Governor's Board of 57 people, not the full [...]
Yes. And no. In the history of the Academy Awards, no film has ever received more than 14 Academy Award nominations, and that's only happened three times: All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997), and La La Land (2016). To think that a comic book tentpole released in February could go on to set a new [...]
It’s not the Oscars. It’s you. Well, it's us really. A lot has been made of why the Academy Awards telecast has been in a steep decline over the last decade, falling this year to its lowest rated show ever. The conventional punditry has boiled that down to two reasons: more blockbusters need to be [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09M3C4VD1Fg Don’t get sidetracked by the confusing, too-clever-for-its-own-good title. The winner of the 2017 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short is a deeply moving human portrait. (Watch the full 40-minute movie above.) Mindy Alper is a 56-year-old woman who has suffered from phobias her entire life. As a child, depression, anxiety, and social triggers were compounded by [...]
On the day the Oscar nominations were announced back on January 23rd, I tweeted this: I'll take 8 for 9. But the one I missed was the big one: The Shape of Water. The year's nomination leader with 13 went on to win Best Picture of the Year at the 90th Annual Academy Awards. It [...]
Below are links to my reviews of all nine Best Picture nominees for the 90th Annual Academy Awards, listed in alphabetical order. To read my Oscar predictions, click here. Academy Award Nominees for BEST PICTURE 2017 Call Me By Your Name *** out of **** (4 Nominations) A sexy gay romance, the lush and lavish [...]