Monday, January 18, 2016

Oscar Nominations: What a Day! What a Lovely Day!

I know, I know, who wants to read about these four days after they came out, but I was traveling, and I picked up a pretty nasty cold while I was out, so I spent the past day and a half lolling around in a dayquil-tinted fever dream. ...Which I'll probably do today as well.
What a strange, silly year it's been for the Oscars--and that's mostly reflected by this year's crop of strange, silly nominees. Sure, there are dull moments, poor choices, and default votes, but there's also a guy in a bright red suit playing a flamethrower guitar, so we take what we get. And what we got was actually pretty good, at least by Academy standards. So let's see what exactly it is we got!

Note: I'll put an asterisk next to the nominees I predicted, so you can see how I did.


Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Oscar Predictions 2015, part 5: summing it up

Alright boys and girls, here's how it is: the Academy announces their nominees in two days time, but I'm going to be on the road for those two days, so I've got to speak now, or forever hold my peace. (See it's funny because I'm driving to a wedding.) This means that there are a couple last sign-posts I'm missing--the Directors Guild nominations come out later today, which are probably the most important precursor of all, but oh well. So if I'm a little less accurate than usual, that could be why. Or it could just be because this year for Oscar has been insane and silly and I've loved it. So here we go: these will be my super serious final predictions, sans commentary, allowing myself one alternate.

As far as big changes are concerned, I've moved Steve Carell into best actor for The Big Short, which meant bumping Johnny Depp in Black Mass out, pushed The Danish Girl out of production design for Mad Max: Fury Road (which was very, very silly), and changed my visual effects alternate from Avengers to Ant-Man, and followed a hunch I've had since October, moving Bridge of Spies into Sound Mixing and kicking Straight Outta Compton straight outta the category. So not much, which is surprising considering how very not sure of all of these that I am. Oh well. Accuracy is for losers.

And I know it's silly to go on for five days about the Oscars without offering (mostly) any opinions of my own about what should get nominated, but chalk it up to the annoying release schedules we deal with in the middle of the country. Given how long it takes some movies to ooze their way into states other than New York and California, I really can't put together a respectable top ten list until at least mid-February. But rest assured, top ten lists are coming! Rejoice! Just know for now that if I could guarantee one nomination, it'd be George Miller for best director for Mad Max: Fury Road, and if I could prevent any nomination, it would be a toss-up between Helen Mirren's supporting actress bid for Trumbo, Eddie Redmayne for best actor for The Danish Girl, and Christian Bale for supporting actor for The Big Short.

So here we go!

Monday, January 11, 2016

Oscar Predictions 2015, Part 4: Craft Categories

Welcome back for another salvo of movie-related words! If you're still here on day four, then you're a stronger person than I. For day four, we're jumping into the categories that build movies from the ground up, the ones that really ought to get more attention--the ones that most people kind of tune out. Which is a shame, because year in and year out some of the best artistic work in movies come from these categories. Now, because there are 10 categories, because the people involved (and sometimes even the work they do) are fairly unknown, and because trying to predict these categories can be like trying to pin a tail on a drunken toddler, I'll probably keep the commentary fairly brief. So let's get to it!

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Oscar Predictions 2015, part 3: Directing/Screenplays

Funny, I don't know why this happens every year, but it turns out I'm writing my director/screenplay categories on a day when I'm kind of tired and/or busy and/or my fingers have literally fallen off. So, once again, I'm going to try to slay the brevity dragon, if only so I can go do something mindless and silly like play with kittens or lose a land war in Asia. So let's just jump into directing and screenplays--and tradition makes me honor-bound to tell you that I pair these two categories because they're the two categories for which I am gonna totally get not nominated in 10-100 years.


Saturday, January 9, 2016

Oscar Predictions 2014, part 2: acting categories

Hello again! I'm back after an eventful day of movies yesterday (I saw The Revenant and The Hateful Eight, and, spoiler alert, neither will really be featuring in my best of the year lists. Yeesh.) to yammer on about pretty famous people for a bit. And why are we even on this good green Earth if not to yammer about the rich and fancy? So today will talk about the acting categories, aka the categories with people who regular moviegoers recognize (but for those of you who don't say things like "you go Sandy Powell" or "get some, Edward Lachmann!" or "Aw HELLS yes Jack Fisk!" on Oscar morning, just know that you're missing out).

Friday, January 8, 2016

Oscar Predictions 2015, Part 1: Picture

And just like that a year has passed, which means it's once again time for me to toss my silly obsession mindlessly into the void and wait like a crazy person for the inevitable, echoing emptiness that awaits! But see, it's not just any wild-eyed, furiously typed little cry of madness this year--this just so happens to be my tenth straight year of writing up Oscar predictions and determinedly pasting them somewhere for public consumption. That's right--I've been doing this ten years. I'm so old my grandkids have been doing Oscar predictions for a decade. Madness. And yet, for whatever reason (and that reason probably is "because the inside of my head is horrifying and nonsensical"), I'm glad I've been throwing up into your internet spaces for a decade. And I hope that I'll still be doing it in a decade, and in a decade after that (if we still have internet), and a decade after that (if the radioactive spiders haven't gotten to my computer yet) and so on and so forth.

So here's how it'll go: today I'll do best picture plus a few throwaway categories, tomorrow will be acting categories, Sunday will be directing, Monday will be craft categories, and I'll wrap it all up and put a little bow on it Tuesday. Note that I'm doing things a little early this year--I'll be on the road and internet-less from the 12th (after my little bow post) to the night of the 15th--and as the Oscars are announced the morning of the 14th, that means my reactions will be a little delayed as well. Somehow I'm sure we'll all manage together.

So here we go!