Tune in to the 84th Academy Awards, this Sunday, February 26 at 7pm EST on ABC.
The Artist
Other Nominees:
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Other Nominees:
Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
Martin Scorsese (Hugo)
Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris)
Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)
Continue reading My Final Predictions for 84th Academy Awards
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
by Janice Y. Perez
February 14, 2012
With barely two weeks left for the 84th annual Academy Awards and with the surprising outcomes of other recent film awards, bloggers, aficionados, and Oscarologists have this one escalating conundrum: Meryl Streep (in The Iron Lady) or Viola Davis (in The Help)?
Though the rest of this year’s Best Actress category has a slew of strong and solid performers (Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs, Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn), it’s undeniable that the focus has been solely on Streep and Davis, whose respective portrayals of the last century’s most polarizing female political figure and a docile—but headstrong—maid in 1960s Mississippi have thwarted the two in what appears to be the most thrilling Best Actress race the Academy has seen in a long time.
It’s close. It’s so close. I can taste it. And it tastes awesome. The 84th annual Academy Awards is less than two weeks away. Take my birthday. Take Christmas. Give me the Oscars and remain silent during the show. I must not be disturbed. If you want to know my thoughts, follow me on Twitter (@suddenlydog), as I’ll be live tweeting for my third year.
There’s always plenty to get excited about each year, but here are my top five reasons the Oscars are worth watching this year:
Though nothing has been confirmed, the prospects of Muppets appearing at the Oscars is enough to get me excited. “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets is nominated for Best Original Song. It would be a hugely missed opportunity if the Jim Henson creations of my youth didn’t appear on stage for the number (that is, assuming the songs are performed on stage this year—there’s only two, so why not?). And don’t forget—Miss Piggy is a fashionista. Could she be strolling the red carpet? Joan Rivers did leave some shoes to fill. I think our porcine friend could cram her hooves in them with little effort.
Continue reading 5 Reasons This Year’s Oscars Are Worth Watching
The 84th annual Academy Award nominations were announced today. Here is the complete list of nominees and my analysis along the way. Stay tuned for the Oscars on Sunday, February 26.
The Artist – Following its PGA win, this film is primed to win the big prize on February 26.
The Descendants – I’m not surprised by this nomination, though I don’t think the film is deserving of it. It’s a flawed film, but AMPAS likes Alexander Payne.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – This is one of two surprise nominees in this category and the only one I have not yet seen.
The Help
Hugo – If it were up to me, this would win Best Picture. In my opinion, it’s the strongest and best-composed of the nine nominated films.
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball – Overall, a terrific film and deserving of this honor.
The Tree of Life – This is the second surprise nominee in this category. Arguably the most polarizing film of the year, don’t expect Tree to win here.
War Horse – Spielberg gets a Best Picture nomination, but is snubbed for Best Director. This doesn’t bode well for War Horse‘s chances.
After completing the eight-year odyssey that was my 170 list, I’ve turned my sights to a new list: the Oscar Best Picture winners. To date, I’ve seen 65 of the 83 winners (and I’ve seen all Best Picture nominees since 1998).
As the 84th Academy Award nominations are to be announced later today (8:30am EST/5:30am PST), I’m turning my focus to these immortalized films and I’m giving myself until the 2013 Oscars to complete the list. That said, I’m declaring 2012 “The Year of the ‘Best Picture’.”
Here are the remaining 18 Best Picture winners I have left to watch:
(Re-posted from The Hollywood Reporter)
by Michael O’Connell
December 28, 2011
For the 84th annual awards, the one-sheet pairs the Oscar statuette with images of eight winning films from eight decades.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the poster for the 2012 Academy Awards on Wednesday morning. And it promises the 84th annual Oscars will celebrate — as one might expect — movies.
Under the banner “Life. Camera. Action,” the poster features eight Oscar-winning films from eight decades of the show. Gone with the Wind (1939), Casablanca (1943), Giant (1956), The Sound of Music (1965), The Godfather (1972), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Forrest Gump (1994) and Gladiator (2000) make up the films highlighted. Only one of them, however, did not win best picture. That distinction goes to Giant, which won George Stevens an Oscar for directing.
Academy President Tom Sherak addressed the chosen tagline, “Celebrate the movies in all of us,” in an accompanying release. “Whether it’s a first date or a holiday gathering with friends or family, movies are a big part of our memory,” said Sherak. “The Academy Awards not only honor the excellence of these movies, but also celebrate what they mean to us as a culture and to each of us individually.”
The poster is available for public download on the Oscar website.
Awards season is upon us and several critics circles, SAG, and the Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globes) have listed their best films lists, awards, and nominations in a variety of categories. There’s no reason for me to sit back silently and not get my two cents in. Overall, there haven’t been many surprises, though a few notable snubs immediately come to mind upon reading some of these lists and nominations.
Based on my years of following such lists and awards shows, I’ve put together my “official” Oscar nomination predictions for the four acting categories and Best Picture. I follow each prediction with a “preliminary” winner. These are not my “official” winner predictions, as those will come closer to the Oscars.
The nominations for the 84th annual Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24.
Demián Bichir – A Better Life
George Clooney – The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio – J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin – The Artist
Brad Pitt – Moneyball
Alternates:
Michael Fassbender – Shame
Ryan Gosling – The Ides of March
Preliminary Winner:
Jean Dujardin
Being originally from New England, fall has always been my favorite season. You’ve got the cool, crisp air and the bright-colored leaves. Then there’s the holidays and my birthday. But chief among it all … the movies! We’re ramping up for awards season, so now’s the time for the studios—big and small—to put out some of the best cinematic fare of the year. I spend all year keeping my eye on awards contenders, but the fall is when the best films are released. It’s a simple principle: the last thing you see is the first thing you remember. And that’s why studios wait until the end of the year to put out their big guns. These are the films that voters are most likely to remember (and consider) for the year’s top awards. Here are just some of the remaining films to be released this year that are primed for awards consideration, as well as some of the categories for which they stand to potentially receive nominations. (Note: This is not an exhaustive list, as several earlier releases are worthy of consideration in various categories.)
If you’re anything like me and you determine which movies to watch based, at least partly, on awards viability, then set your calendars for these upcoming releases (release dates listed below).
This 2008 Oscar-nominated animated French short film was directed by Emud Mokhberi, Thierry Marchand, Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, and Quentin Marmier. It’s a quick watch, at just 2:26.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badHUNl2HXU]
Based on the Michael Lewis-penned book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, the film version with the abbreviated title is backed by a slew of awards favorites, including screenwriters Steven Zaillian (Oscar winner for Schindler’s List, 1993) and Aaron Sorkin (Oscar winner for The Social Network, 2010); director Bennett Miller (Oscar nominee for Capote, 2006); and producers Michael De Luca (Oscar nominee for The Social Network), Rachael Horovitz (Emmy winner for HBO’s Grey Gardens, 2009), and Scott Rudin (Oscar winner for No Country for Old Men, 2007). And then, of course, there’s the acting talent, lead by Brad Pitt (Oscar nominee for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008) with a supporting performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman (Oscar winner for Capote).
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, “Oscar voters, pay attention.”
There are several things I love about the fall, my favorite season. Chief among them is that it’s the start of awards season—all of the year’s best movies are reserved until this time of year with the thought being that Academy Award voters are most likely to remember the last movies they see. (It’s not a surprise that films that open earlier in the year are largely ignored come February’s ceremony.) It’s all about strategy. And it works. Just ask Billy Beane (portrayed by Pitt in Moneyball), who leveraged an unconventional strategy to build a successful baseball team in 2002. (Excuse me while I pat myself on the back for this pretty awesome segue.)
Summary:
Billy Beane was once a would-be baseball superstar who, stung by the failure to live up to expectations on the field, turned his fiercely competitive nature to management. Heading into the 2002 season, Billy faces a dismal situation: his small-market Oakland A’s has lost its star players (again) to big-market clubs (and their enormous salaries) and is left to rebuild his team and compete with a third of its payroll. Driven to win, Billy takes on the system by challenging the fundamental tenants of the game. He looks outside of baseball, to the dismissed theories of Bill James, and hires Peter Brand, a brainy, number-crunching, Yale-educated economist. Together, they take on conventional wisdom with a willingness to re-examine everything and armed with computer-driven statistical analysis long ignored by the baseball establishment. They reach imagination-defying conclusions and go after players overlooked and dismissed by the rest of baseball for being too odd, too old, too injured, or too much trouble, but who all have key skills that are universally undervalued. As Billy and Peter forge forward, their new methods and roster of misfits rile the old guard, the media, the fans, and their own field manager, who refuses to cooperate. Ultimately, this experiment will lead not only to a change in the way the game is played, but to an outcome that would leave Billy with a new understanding that transcends the game and delivers him to a new place. (courtesy of Yahoo! Movies)
Director: Bennett Miller
Screenwriters: Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin
Producers: Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, Scott Rudin
Cast: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Chris Pratt
Genre: Drama, Sport
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Official Site: moneyball-movie.com
Runtime: 133 min.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiAHlZVgXjk]
the170 