Tag: announcements

Things could be a bit quieter around here throughout the week.  I’m off to New York for a week and will update where the mood strikes me, I imagine.  But after tomorrow’s “best of the decade” column, well…just leave a light on for me.

It’s frankly enough to drown everything out into a low, muffled hum.  But regardless, we’ve begun collecting the precursor nominations and awards for the season here.  Most recent addition include the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the Indiana Film Critics (seriously) and, of course, the Golden Globe nominees.

Also, under the radar yesterday, the sidebar predictions were updated.

Just an FYI, Anne and I are pretty much slammed today.  Everything decided to bunch up at the end of the week.  So we’re going to hold off on Oscar Talk until tomorrow morning.  Stay tuned.

The town has all but shuttered entirely since Monday.  Screeners are showing up constantly (the FedEx and UPS folks are getting their annual workout).  The bird is thawing.  There’s just not much going on.  Anne and I will be doing a podcast Friday rather than taking the week off, but look for it later in the day as we each have a screening earlier that afternoon.  Guy will be back in today with a new Long Shot column and Chad and John will have their Friday columns, but beyond that, you’ll understand the gearing down these next few days.  FYI.

I find myself back east for my grandmother’s funeral this afternoon, so Anne and I have postponed this week’s podcast. We hope to have it for you Sunday. FYI.

A morning screening and various other things have me a bit out of pocket, so no column, but predictions have been tidied up in the sidebar.  Plus, we went ahead and added a set of documentary short predictions, now that the shortlist is out.

I’ve been preparing for my obligatory best of the decade column, which will drop in December after we’ve assessed 2009’s offerings.  I’m covering bases on films that inevitably slipped through the cracks, but I’m looking to be as thorough as I can.  If there’s a film you can think of that blew you away between 2000 and now but know in your heart of hearts hasn’t hit my radar yet, chime in.

With Anne in New York, me in San Francisco and relatively little to discuss (though we can wax for 20 minutes on anything, really), we figured we’d rest up, reload and hit it again in a week’s time.  Until then…

With Guy taking a much-deserved vacation and me crisscrossing the country (back West in San Fran now), consistency has been an elusive goal. Apologies.

No column today, as mentioned previously.  We’ll pick it up weekly on 9/21, but I thought I’d run a comb through the sidebar today.  Some weak spots, no doubt, but we’re still knocking the dust off things as the season prepares its post-Toronto launch.

The summer season is winding down, the festival season is gearing up, and within the month, we’ll be neck-deep in Oscar chatter that won’t let up for roughly 200 days.  It’s what you come to the site to read, so here’s what you can expect.

First, a new feature at In Contention.  Later today I’ll be posting the first installment of Oscar Talk, what will eventually be a weekly podcast discussion between yours truly and indieWIRE‘s Anne Thompson.  Today Anne and I will offer up a festival preview among other things, and we’ll try to do another one from Telluride, but we won’t pick it up weekly (and consistently) until September 25, after the madness of Venice, Telluride and Toronto has calmed down.  I’m really excited as this is something the two of us have considered for a while now, just a weekly discussion of movie and awards news from two of us in the trenches — hopefully we won’t bore you.  Watch (er, listen) for that on Fridays.

Our festival coverage is taking a bit of a quantum leap this year.  We’ll be taking on Venice and Telluride for the first time as Guy heads down to Italy for the former on September 1 and I hustle up to the Colorado mountains for the latter on September 4.  John will once again cover Toronto for us beginning September 10 and Guy will handle the 53rd BFI London Film Festival beginning October 14.  I will also be covering the AFI and Santa Barbara fests here in Southern California once again.

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Sorry for the down time this morning, folks.  We had some final server issues to work out and things spilled over into the work day.

The site hit a snag while I was at a screening so, apparently, you’ve all been hitting a blank screen this afternoon.  It happens.  Sincerest apologies.

In other news, what morons actually thought the Eminem stunt wasn’t staged?  This actually required the resources of some outlets?  Slow news day indeed.  Maybe a blank screen was more appealing.

We’ll be closing down the latest influential films poll in a couple of hours, and seeing as we’re in a neck-and-neck race for the final slot, every vote counts.  Later this afternoon we’ll move into the second round.