Tag: announcements

Just a quick reminder, get your votes in for part five in our “most influential” poll series before the 2:00pm (PST) cut-off.  It looks like there’s a pretty tight race for the #3 spot.  We’ll have the final first round poll later this afternoon and then next week it’ll be onward with the 20 survivors.

It’s my fault you haven’t seen John and Chad’s columns this weekend.  After I drop off family at the airport and my life gets back to normal later this afternoon, you’ll have them.  Cross my heart.

It’s times like this I’m so thankful for our contributors here at In Contention.  You may have noticed a somewhat thin post count and commentary on my part the last couple of days.  Chalk it up to family being in town and a little ceremony I’ll be attending later this morning.  Yes, I’m finally picking up that Masters degree I’ve been striving for the last two years.  Luckily, Cannes news has been coming fast and furious and Guy has been Johnny on the spot, so my shortcomings have (hopefully) gone unnoticed, but I thought I’d offer up something akin to an excuse.  And yes, you got me: I figured I’d toot my own horn.  It’s never too early in the morning to be full of yourself.

Anyway, a few more posts this morning (including a review of “Up” if I can get around to it) and I’m outta here for the rest of the day (and likely, the weekend).  Pretty stoked for our commencement speaker.  Enjoy the Cannes smorgasbord.

Things have been a bit thin around here lately, we know.  We’ve tried to keep the train moving in these post-Oscar months, but when you’re as focused on the season as we can be around these parts, a long slumber is necessary.  But May is here and it’s time to whip this place back into shape.

Things are going to be moving into a more structured frame next week.  We’ll be bringing back the daily round-ups for starters, to give you guys a more streamlined look at what’s going on across the web.  They are quite popular during the season so we figured we’d keep the ball rolling as we move into the summer.

Also, Guy will start writing our Page to Screen series.  Remember, this will no longer be a script review column, as it has been the last two years.  Instead, we’re going back to the roots of the series, reviewing source material of film adaptations.  Guy will kick things off on Wednesday with a look at Collette’s “Cheri.”

We’ll also drum up some lists again (finally) and try to keep them coming weekly on Tuesdays, like last year.  Cannes will be upon us in a couple of weeks, then the massive summer movie season and, before you know it, the Oscar months will be breathing down our necks once again.

One final note, since I get a dozen inquiries a week about it.  The first prediction update of the season (since our year-in-advance stab) will drop on Monday, May 24, the day after Cannes has hopefully cleaned up some of the picture for us.  Stay tuned for that.

Anyway, just a heads up.  Carry on…

FYI, we changed servers last night, so if you notice any hiccups, bear with us.

Off to NYC for an extended weekend. I expect Guy will check in with news and notes soon enough but I’ll be offline until late afternoon — unless Virgin America finally has those nifty on-board ethernet connections up and running this time.

Obviously we’re a bit slow to get the gears moving with consistency in these post-Oscar days, but I just wanted to drop in to mention a few brief changes to the site.  As noted a few weeks back, the weekly Page to Screen column will be reverting back to the old source material review idea of its roots.  Guy and I will be hammering that out and I’m thinking we’ll kick it off some time in April.  Tuesdays.

Meanwhile, John is moving over to a weekly columnist position.  He’ll be coming at the film landscape from all angles (home video, books, general topics of interest, etc.).  The first installment will hit this Friday and he’ll be back each week on the same day, a nice segue to the weekend.

Finally, we’re also looking at adding a box office component on the weekends.  Still hammering out the specifics there, but keep a lookout.

As you were.

Still dealing with the server switch and various other things (Vegas and a bad night at the craps tables will take the motivation out of anyone).  Plenty to chew on (DiCaprio and “Inception,” the “Public Enemies” materials that look oddly un-Mann, etc.  We’ll be here griding away soon enough.  Sorry for the delays.

It’s been a blast the last six or seven months.  Before long we’ll all be in the thick of the Oscar mess once again, but before we close this chapter, I really should take a moment to thank our contributors for assisting in keeping the big machine running.

Thanks to Gerard for the consistently comprehensive coverage of the technical categories, something of a commodity to us here at In Contention and still poorly represented across the Oscarweb.  Thanks to John for the informative and controversial stances he takes, which give the readership an opportunity to really cut loose with opinions and make this a fully realized community.

Thanks to Brian and Blake for their help filling in the cracks, and a big wet kiss to Guy for hitting the pavement with me day in and day out.  It’s a tough gig, believe it or not.  Guy’s a believer now.

We’ll be making some changes to our coverage in the upcoming year.  I’ll get into specifics at a later date, but for now, expect the following:

Daily coverage continues
When we debuted the new look of In Contention last May we shifted slightly away from awards-only seasonal coverage to day-to-day commentary.  We’ll keep that going in the off-season as Guy and I will continue to contribute regularly.  The summer months offer lots of enticing options at the multiplex, but before we know it, it’ll be September and a whole new season will be breathing down our necks.

“Page to Screen” goes back to the source
I’m doing away with the somewhat recent evolution of our “Page to Screen” column as a screenplay review column.  Instead, I’m going back to the roots of the idea — roots set way back in 2002 — and reverting back to reviews of source material.  The idea has already been lifted in other quarters (name and all), but we’ll be looking at novels like “The Lovely Bones” and “Cheri,” as well as films set to be remade, such as “Bad Lieutenant.”  We may even have a bit of fun with it — “G.I. Joe” anyone?

More festival coverage
I’m warming up to the festival circuit finally, after years of resistance.  I had a good time this year at the AFI and Santa Barbara fests, but I plan on making the Telluride and Toronto treks this year if credentials come through.  Guy will certainly be back on board for the London Fest and, as always, John will be filing from Toronto.  I was going to try my hand at Cannes but time is slipping away from me.  Maybe.

That’s a taste of what you can expect.  We’ll address all of these in full, plus a few other changes, in due time, but for now, sit back, relax and enjoy the Oscar silence.  One final note, however: we’ll be changing servers over the weekend so things will be quiet post-wise.  If any technical glitches show up, bear with us until we come through the other end.

It feels good to slwoly make my way to the computer this morning without the usual onslaught of Oscarweb tid-bits.  Sure, I could link to all the bitching about the show (really, the Times is embarrassing itself with the insular sniping), but why bother?  It’s a done deal.  “Watchmen” is on the way.  It’s going to warm up soon.  We’ve conquered the season.

Smells like…victory.

We still have some year-in-advance nick-knacks to toss up by the end of the week, so never fear on that front.  Soon it’ll be the slow transition to the usual film coverage.  For now, the quiet is nice.

Deadline for finalizing your Oscar picks is apparently Sunday at 7:59 e.s.t. (talk about right down to the wire).  Be sure to get all your guesses in by that cut-off, and if you haven’t signed up already, come join us!

Sasha Stone also has an Awards Daily pool going.

Just a heads up, I’ve decided against blogging during the Oscar ceremony this year.  I’m sure you’ll be able to find some activity at other outlets, but I don’t have the endurance this year.  Last year I helped IC friend John Campea at The Movie Blog with podcasts during the commercials.  It was fun but nerve-racking.  (We’ll be doing pre- and post-show podcasts over there, however, so you’ll still get to hear my lovely voice.)  And I’ve certainly done the live blogging thing.

But this year, I feel like I owe it to Bill Condon and Larry Mark, Roger Goodman and Hugh Jackman to really sit and watch this thing happen, because I have a feeling it’s going to be a hell of a show.  Plus, it’s been a long time since I stayed the hell away from a computer during the show, so maybe I owe it to myself, too.

Never fear, of course.  I’ll put up an open thread in case you want to come and chat amongst yourselves, dish the threads, complain (or exclaim) about the winners, etc.  But if the server starts to buckle, forgive us.

The diligent folks at AwardsPicks.com have come up with a slick Oscar pool system that was just too good to pass up, so I went ahead and started a group for the IC readership and staff.  Go register now (which is seriously a painless process) and join our little group, then start making your picks.  The pool is called “In Contention Oscar Pool — 2009 Academy Awards Game.”

There is a nifty interface to alter the point values for each category, so based on how predictable a category seems to be at this stage, a value between 1 and 10 has been allotted.  All the points add up to 100.  No idea what I was doing, but whatever, it should work out.  Most points for correctly guessing Best Documentary Short.  Least for Best Animated Feature and Best Supporting Actor — duh.

Join up and see how you fare with the rest of us!

Hey guys.  Sorry to the IE users out there who had trouble over the weekend.  We narrowed it down to one of the ads screwing things up.  Hopefully you can see the site properly now.  Apologies once again.

I totally forgot to tabulate my year-in-advance prowess (or lack thereof) when the nominations landed over a week ago, but according to the old site, I guess I nailed 34 nominees correctly.  None of them particularly impressive, I guess.  Most of them we probably all saw coming.

Speaking of year-in-advance predictions, I might as well take a moment to remind everyone that this year’s slate, as always, will be revealed the day after the Oscars (Monday, Feb. 23), as usual.  Be sure to check back for those (which will be as wrong as any year, I imagine, but hey — it’s fun).

Since I’ve been hoofing it in Santa Barbara since the day of the Oscar nominations, I haven’t had a moment to clean up the predictions sidebar with new pics and the usual asterisks to signify my predictions.  Well, it’s done now.  All the pics represent my predictions in the various categories, all subject to change, of course.

I don’t anticipate writing any lengthy “Off the Carpet” columns unless something really shakes the race up, but it all seems to be falling into place, no?  Then again, when you get comfortable with the season, that’s when it surprises you.