The 5 Best Leading Male Performances of 2013
I have way too many fragments of a Best Performances of 2013 list to not write something up. The idea to break apart the list by, for lack of a better term, Oscar category was born out of the desire to highlight some stellar supporting work, which sometimes gets ignored when talking about the very […]
Final 2014 Oscar Nominations Predictions
No intro; this rundown is long enough. I’m really excited to see how things shake out tomorrow. Here are my best guesses. Best Picture American Hustle Captain Phillips Dallas Buyers Club Gravity Her Nebraska Saving Mr. Banks 12 Years a Slave The Wolf of Wall Street Hustle, Phillips, Gravity, Nebraska, 12 Years are your locks. […]
2014 Oscar Nominations Wish List
I say this every year, but it deserves repeating: quality has got nothing to do with the Oscars. Sure, the Academy is a large voting body, but each member has his or her own biases—just like film critics do—and for every member who thinks The Wolf of Wall Street is the best movie of 2013 […]
Predicting the 2014 Golden Globes Winners
This Sunday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will carve for itself a unique place in the 2013/2014 awards season. How do I know? Because it must. There still isn’t much consensus among this year’s major categories. The critics groups like 12 Years a Slave and Her. American Hustle and Gravity have loads of support—some from […]
All Is Lost Review
RATING: (3 STARS) J.C. Chandor, as writer and director, might have his name all over All Is Lost, but make no mistake: this is Robert Redford‘s movie. With no one to play off of (or even speak to), he needs to shepherd us along a harrowing journey without any explicit reason to care about him […]
2014 Oscar Predictions: Resetting the Board
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. And check out my 2014 Oscar Predictions: Technical Categories page for projections in Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and more. I’d planned to dive a little deeper into Best Documentary Feature today, but I’ve got quite a […]
2013 Fall Movie Preview
Want to know how good a movie season I think fall 2013 will be? Check out my list of honorable mentions: Blue Is the Warmest Color, Dallas Buyers Club, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Oldboy, Parkland, The Past, Prisoners, Rush. That’s a strong-ass crop of films if I ever saw one, yet none could even […]
The Deep Breath Before the 2014 Oscars Plunge
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. The signs of fall are all around us. Temperatures are dropping (from sweltering to comfortable). Darkness knocks earlier every night. Most importantly, fantasy football research consumes most of my time. We’ve received a glut of movie news […]
2014 Oscar Predictions: What’s Changed?
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. In the mean time, I’m running down what’s changed over the past few months, since I last updated by 2014 Oscar Predictions just days after the most recent Oscar ceremony. I’ve also listed the few films from […]
10 Things We Learned from Cannes 2013
10.) The Coens can do no wrong. Of course you knew that already, right? Wait, you didn’t?!? Well Inside Llewyn Davis was one of the best received films of the festival, and it took home the Competition’s Grand Prix award. So let me reiterate: The Coens can do no wrong. They are the best filmmakers […]
The 2013 Cannes Lineup
Looking over the 2013 Cannes lineup, which was announced this morning, it’s hard to identify the “big story.” The Competition lineup contains a good mix of the expected and some pleasant surprises (Roman Polanski’s Venus in Furs being the most high-profile of those surprises). No stunning omissions or head-scratching inclusions. Just a rock-solid-sounding group of […]
Projecting the Cannes 2013 Lineup
Now that the 66th annual Cannes International Film Festival (May 15-May 26, 2013) has its jury president (Lincoln director Steven Spielberg), speculation over what films will compete for the 2013 Palme d’Or has intensified. I’ve identified 30 titles that seem like plausible Cannes selections. It’s impossible to say whether any or all will be ready […]
