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A smart little horror-romance-road movie hybrid, and an eye-catching debut for British writer-director-DP-production-designer-FX-creator Gareth Edwards, “Monsters” was one of my top finds of June’s Edinburgh Film Festival, where it deservedly won the New Directors Award. Judging from this new poster and UK trailer, the film’s marketers are obviously feeding off the comparisons that have already [...]
‘Monsters’ poster and trailer
Posted by Guy Lodge · 11:42 am · August 10th, 2010
Filed in: Daily
OSCAR GUIDE: Best Picture
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:37 am · March 6th, 2010
And here we are. With one day until the Oscar ceremony, we wrap up our Oscar Guide series with a look at the 10 nominations for Best Picture. Yes, 10. The Academy decided to pump up the intrigue by expanding its Best Picture field this year in an attempt at securing some love for more [...]
Filed in: Daily
OSCAR GUIDE: Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 11:17 am · March 1st, 2010
In most cases, the adapted screenplay category of a given Oscar race is packed with Best Picture nominees or contenders. This year, however, there was a nice balance of adapted and original screenplays in the Best Picture category, and in fact, of the “top five” films that trickled down throughout the season, three were original [...]
Filed in: Daily
Stop the presses: ‘Avatar’ sweeps VES
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:50 pm · February 28th, 2010
ZOMG! Well, actually, it wasn’t a clean sweep, as “District 9” managed to win in the compositing category (one of many that saw “Avatar” as a multiple nominee). But it was unsurprisingly dominated by Cameron and company throughout, with six awards going to the blockbuster. Go to The Circuit to see the damage. (Also, while [...]
Filed in: Daily
OSCAR GUIDE: Best Film Editing
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 12:22 pm · February 12th, 2010
The Best Film Editing category tends to be a shadow of the Best Picture category in some ways. With there being 10 Best Picture nominees this year, however, the field was bound to nail down five of the contenders. So considering the old stand-by stat (no film has won Best Picture without an editing nomination [...]
Filed in: Daily
OSCAR GUIDE: Best Visual Effects
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 1:30 pm · February 5th, 2010
The field of visual effects contenders didn’t seem to need the annual bake-off reduction to know which way the wind was blowing this year. Three films seemed to be headed for recognition from the outset, and on nomination morning, the category made for one of the least surprising collectives of the day. Furthermore, it has [...]
Filed in: Daily
10 snubs that sting
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:40 pm · February 2nd, 2010
I’ve already highlighted my favorite aspects of this morning’s Oscar nominations. Still, before we move into Phase Two, I’d like to give one final respectful nod to the could-have-beens — the names that we sadly won’t be talking about anymore in the next five weeks of speculation. I listed my true favorites in my dream [...]
Filed in: Daily
The bright side
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:36 am · February 2nd, 2010
Well, I’ll start the good news selfishly, by noting that I didn’t entirely embarrass myself with my predictions: not counting the short categories (which I was too cowardly and uninformed to predict) I nailed 78/106, just two points behind Kris’s round tally of 80. But while I was pleased to see at least one of [...]
Filed in: Daily
Calling the longshots
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 5:47 pm · February 1st, 2010
So this Steve Pond piece, titled “How Oscar Could Surprise — and Scare — Us,” is what we like to call hedging our bets. It’s a chance to address some bubble matters so that we have something to point to and say, “Look, I toldja!” (Is that officially trademarked by Nikki Finke yet?) Anyway, I [...]
Filed in: Daily
OFF THE CARPET: The time is nigh
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 3:44 pm · February 1st, 2010
In so many words, this is it. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveils it’s slate of nominees bright and early tomorrow morning, and this being the first year with a 10-film Best Picture field, all eyes will be on the top category to gauge which way the wind blew on this AMPAS [...]
Filed in: Off the Carpet
Reitman: “Bigelow is going to win and she deserves to win.”
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:22 am · February 1st, 2010
Over at Roger Ebert’s little corner of the web, the Chicago Sun-Times critics has posted a great conversation with “Up in the Air” director Jason Reitman. There’s a bit of everything, really, but most noteworthy is his praise of “The Hurt Locker” and “District 9.” He proves he’s a lot more humble than his detractors [...]
Filed in: Daily
My dream ballot: part one
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:32 pm · January 31st, 2010
As I did last year, I’m preparing for Tuesday’s announcement of the Oscar nominations by running through my own favorites in each category — following on from the ideal ballots posted by Kris and Chad in the past few weeks. “Preparing” isn’t quite the word: it implies a link between the processes of predicting and [...]
Filed in: Daily
January winner predictions
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 10:59 am · January 27th, 2010
It’s time for me to go to the well one more time before next week’s big announcement. That’s right, six days and the mystery of the 10 will finally be answered. But first, some blind (since there are no nominations yet) guesses. Just trying to find the right balance here: Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker” [...]
Filed in: Daily
‘Avatar,’ ‘Star Trek’ lead the way with MPSE
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 10:13 am · January 22nd, 2010
For the first time I can ever remember, the Motion Picture Sound Editors have announced their list of nominees BEFORE the Academy has announced the Oscar nominees. Because these always came a few days after the big announcement, I have to say, I have never bothered to see how often they match up with the [...]
Filed in: Daily
CAS nominees
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 7:56 pm · January 20th, 2010
Ironic that his release drops tonight just as I’m transcribing an interview with sound mixer Greg Russell for tomorrow’s Tech Support column. The list of nominees for the Cinema Audio Society doesn’t exactly hold any surprises. The only film on the list that isn’t being predicted in the sidebar as of right now is “District [...]
Filed in: Daily
The home stretch
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:57 am · January 20th, 2010
Pete Hammond’s story concerning Academy members tapping out before listing a full slate of 10 nominees on their ballots is getting some traction today, but it’s hardly new news. Many voters never even bothered to come up with five nominees, so the switch to 10 was always going to yield a number of incomplete ballots. [...]
Filed in: Daily
‘Avatar’ leads VES nominations
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 5:49 pm · January 18th, 2010
No surprises there. James Cameron’s film landed 11 separate mentions from the Visual Effects Society (some more specifically indicated than others). “2012” and “District 9” each landed three nominations, while “Sherlock Holmes” and “Star Trek” each landed two. The nominees in the main field, “visual effects in a visual effects driven feature motion picture,” are: [...]
Filed in: Daily
THE LONG SHOT: Hollywood fights back
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:45 pm · January 13th, 2010
I may be looking out at my snow-caked garden as I write this, but it was in the spirit of spring-cleaning that I revised my nomination predictions this morning, ridding myself of most of the clinging personal hopes and hunches that lingered when I last updated them a month ago. It wasn’t the most drastic [...]
Filed in: The Long Shot
