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The Weekend in Critics Awards

Posted December 10, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  The big prizes this weekend were the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards, LAFCA has a habit of showcasing its iconoclasm (the organization has only given its Best Picture prize to the eventual Oscar winner once in the past 18 years, for The Hurt Locker), and this year was no exception. Best Picture went […]

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OSCARLAND: The Critics Choice Nominations

Posted December 16, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  The Broadcast Film Critics Association and their “Critics Choice” awards seem on the whole way too eager to please, desperate to have as many movies and stars in their tent (and on their CW awards telecast) as possible, with the wealth spread to 10 Best Picture nominees, 6 nominees in each major acting category, […]

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OSCARLAND: Do the Oscars Need To Be Popular?

Posted February 23, 2015 by Mitch Salem

  Here’s a factoid:  during the 1970s, that halcyon decade when the rebel filmmaker inmates finally, if briefly. took over the Hollywood studio asylum, viewed by movie history ever since with wistful nostalgia, every single winner of the Best Picture Oscar was one of the Top 10 box-office grossers of its year.  This includes big-budget productions like […]

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THE STATUETTE STAKES: Brett Ratner’s Really Bad Week

Posted November 9, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> Nobody remembers the comic strip “L’il Abner” anymore, but there used to be a character in it named Joe Btfspik, who was so unlucky that he walked around with a perpetual dark cloud hanging over his head.  this week, Brett Ratner may feel like he knows how Btfspik felt–but at least poor Joe didn’t […]

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OSCAR STRATEGIES: What the Nominees Are Doing–and Should Be

Posted January 10, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  OK, so you’ve got your Best Picture nomination.  You’re one of the chosen 9 films with a chance to reap the glory (and success) that follows an Academy Award win.  You’ve got 46 days until the awards are given out, and 41 days until the polls close.  What do you do now?  Here, title […]

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OSCARLAND: Producers Guild Produces a Tie

Posted January 19, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  The Producers Guild of America didn’t clarify much of anything tonight by giving its Best Picture award to both 12 YEARS A SLAVE and GRAVITY.  That provided all 3 of the presumed frontrunners with a prize for the weekend, since SAG gave its top award to AMERICAN HUSTLE last night.  With the Directors Guild […]

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ShowbuzzDaily’s Oscars Live-Blog

Posted March 27, 2022 by Mitch Salem

This is already an Oscars like no other, thanks to the Academy’s decision–at the behest of ABC and its concern over ratings–to give out 8 awards before the telecast begins, with brief taped excerpts to air throughout the show.  (Spoiler alert:  Dune took Original Score, Production Design, Editing and Sound, with Eyes of Tammy Faye […]

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SHOWBUZZDAILY OSCARS LIVE-BLOG

Posted February 27, 2012 by Mitch Salem

> This year SHOWBUZZDAILY live-blogged the ceremony.  We’ll have round-up pieces later tonight and tomorrow, but read below for the minute-by-minute feel of the experience as it happened– 8:35PM: But the fun couldn’t last, and with the suspense so thin you could cut it with a straw, THE ARTIST takes its prize. And the friggin […]

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