The Oscar nominations are here, and the biggest surprise is how few surprises they provide.  The closest thing to a shock was in the Best Actress category, where Ruth Negga and Isabelle Huppert were in, and that meant Amy Adams and Annette Bening–both of whom had been considered possible longshot winners–were out.  Otherwise, Michael […]

  The race is officially on, with Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel (both from Fox Searchlight) tied for the lead with 9 nominations (The Imitation Game has 8, while Boyhood, not so much a technical showcase, has 6), and although with just a couple of exceptions (not even an Animated Film nomination for The […]

  AMERICAN HUSTLE walked away with the big prize at tonight’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning the accolade for Best Ensemble Cast of a Motion Picture.  Although the Ensemble Cast Award is commonly considered SAG’s equivalent of a “Best Picture” honor, it really isn’t, because not every Oscar contender is notable for its ensemble (GRAVITY […]

  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 […]

  The Screen Actors Guild Awards are important, because the Actors branch is the largest single constituency of Oscar voters, but they’re also very different from the Oscars.  Their major award isn’t a “Best Picture” prize, per se, but one for Best Cast–this hurts intimate dramas like Gravity and All is Lost, while helping starry […]

  The big news this week in Oscarland was the confirmation that Martin Scorsese’s WOLF OF WALL STREET (Paramount), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey, Jonah Hill and many more, which wasn’t finished in time for its scheduled November 15 opening, will arrive on Christmas Day, just in time for the potential Oscar equivalent of an election’s […]

> The Golden Globes are given out by 80 international journalists whose opinions, when they’re not voting on these awards, are of no importance whatsoever to anyone on the planet other than their particular loved ones.  But the combination of a usually entertaining TV show (hosted again this year by Ricky Gervais) and enough years […]

  As the last notes of the not-remotely-accidentally-chosen “Fight the Power” fade from the closing credits of the 88th ACADEMY AWARDS telecast, 10 quick thoughts on the show and awards. 1.  Sometimes smart is all but indistinguishable from lucky, and that was the case for the Academy this year, which had chosen Chris Rock to […]