I didn’t see the Grammys this weekend.  In fact, I tend to avoid them like the plague.  But it was nevertheless an impressive slate of winners, so that’s a unique start. In any case, it’s worth pointing out that Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett’s “The Weary Kind” wrapped up a long awards march by […]

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• Greg Ellwood shrewdly notes potential motive to announcing Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) first as presenters at this year’s Academy Awards. [Awards Campaign] • Tom Hooper and Geoffrey Rush respond to the notion of cutting “The King’s Speech” to appease a PG-13 rating. [Inside Movies] • “Master Class: Editing James […]

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I really should take the time to write up Saturday’s women’s panel here in Santa Barbara, not least of all because it seems to have been neglected in most outlets.  It’s an undervalued annual program, always moderated with class by Madelyn Hammond and featuring some of the most formidable female talents working in the industry. […]

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So the 83rd Annual Academy Award nominations were finally announced this week, and I did fairly well in handicapping the nominees. Outside of Best Sound Mixing, I never missed more than one nominee in a category. Unfortunately, there were no categories where I scored 100% (apart from Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay). Oh well. […]

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Welcome to Oscar Talk. In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty […]

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On the face of it, the nominees for the 83rd annual Academy Awards seemed fairly unremarkable. Aside from the deafening nature of not hearing Christopher Nolan’s name in the line-up for Best Director (the only true shock of the major categories), everything seemed to be within the expected parameters (even Javier Bardem sliding in, which […]

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Tonight’s PGA awards were the first stab at the preferential ballot for this year’s Best Picture hopefuls.  The big winner in the feature film field was…oh my…“The King’s Speech.” Considering this is a beefy organization (not quite as big as AMPAS but big) and its nominees are likely to match the Best Picture 10 pretty […]

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Yesterday I dug through the 15 documentary feature short-listers to offer an idea of how that race might turn out.  Over the weekend, the perceived heavy of the crowd, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” (which is the most awarded doc of the year), was taking down yet another prize at the Cinema Eye Honors.  Director […]

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It seems hard to believe that it’s been more than six months since I wrote this year’s introductory Tech Support column ( a dissection of the art direction race). Much has changed since then, naturally, as we are less than a week away from the big day when we find out the nominees for the […]

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While Guy has been surveying the foreign field, I’ve been diving in elsewhere. It has been considered a banner year for documentary filmmaking. So naturally, the Best Documentary Feature race has been an interesting one to watch since the season’s early days.  Two months ago the Academy announced 15 finalists (whittling it down from 101 […]

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After taking a stab at winner predictions early last month, it seemed now would be a good time to re-assess.  Only three adjustments, though — for Best Picture, Best Film Editing and Best Original Score.  I’ll try my hand at another set post-nominations. Best Picture: “The Social Network” Best Director: David Fincher, “The Social Network” […]

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The year is winding down.  Today, as part of the week’s on-going year-in-review specials, I’m offering up my annual “if I had a ballot” post. In years past I’ve tended to defer to studio campaigns for category placement, but this year I figured, “Screw it.”  After all, if I actually had a ballot I could […]

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I guess I’ve been pretty hard on the Best Original Song category this year. It’s not like any given year tends to have a deluge of impressive fodder up for consideration or anything, but on the whole, outside of a concentration of contenders that have a fighting chance at recognition, it just seems to be […]

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Via press release, the nominees are: “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” “Earth Made of Glass” “Inside Job” “Smash His Camera” “The Tillman Story” “Waiting for Superman”

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I haven’t bothered taking a stab at predicting this year’s Oscar winners yet.  Now seems like the right time, given that everything has been seen (save for two Sony entries with comedy stylings that look to be commercial enterprises more than awards plays). I’m long on the record as thinking “The King’s Speech” is the […]

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Cue the annual outcry over what titles didn’t make it — judging from the Twitter reaction, this year’s most-mourned snubee is the Chinese critical darling “Last Train Home.” (I’d join the pitchfork-wielders, but I haven’t had an opportunity to see the film yet.) More surprising, however, is the omission of such widely fancied contenders as […]

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• Guy didn’t much care for “127 Hours.” That got you talking. • Happily, Kris did, and got talking to director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy. • The British Independent Film Award nominations threw some surprises into the mix, handing scads of noms to “The King’s Speech”… and “Kick-Ass.” • Chad’s Life Without Oscar […]

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When I saw Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for Superman” at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June, I noted that “the film casts a broad net when it would have been something more as a focused study” and that “modest stretching to make the point” dilutes the overall impact of the film.  However, I also made […]

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