> Even though the Oscar race has had clear favorites in THE DESCENDANTS, THE ARTIST and THE HELP since last fall, the first 2 haven’t sparked any huge enthusiasm among the general public, where after almost 2 months, Descendants has yet to gross $50M, and Artist, which Harvey Weinstein hasn’t dared put into general release, […]

> The Motion Picture Academy came up with 2 great choices and a puzzler in their selections for this year’s honorary Academy Awards.  (Remember–as of last year, the honorary Oscars are no longer part of the televised ceremony, but will be presented at a private banquet on November 12.) The unoffcial lifetime achivement award goes […]

  …and now it’s all real.  AMERICAN HUSTLE and GRAVITY lead the Academy Award nominations with 10 each, with 12 YEARS A SLAVE right behind at 9, and those three are probably the leading candidates for Best Picture as of this moment.  But there’s plenty more to talk about, so here are the marquee categories […]

  The Broadcast Film Critics Association is one of those organizations that wants everyone to be happy, including the television network (CW) that carries its yearly telecast, so it gives out a number of MTV-like silly awards, like Best Actor/Actress In an Action Movie (a chance to award Robert Downey, Jr for The Avengers!) and […]

> Until its final 45 minutes, the one thing that could be said about this year’s Oscar telecast was that it was at least brisk.  Merely 2 hours and 15 minutes into the show, there were amazingly only 3 awards and the In Memorium segment still to go.  But for ABC, running under the appointed […]

  It wasn’t a great morning for the Weinstein Company, which saw both of its major candidates rejected by the Directors Guild of America in that organization’s nominations, the last to be announced before Thursday morning’s Oscar unveilings.  The DGA chose: Ben Affleck, ARGO Kathryn Bigelow, ZERO DARK THIRTY Tom Hooper, LES MISERABLES Ang Lee, […]

After its Golden Globes win for Best Drama, the odds of winning Best Picture for Argo improved a bit (moving from a $7.50 payout on a $1 wager to $5.25 and moving past Les Miserables into second place).  But the favorite remains Lincoln, which also actually tightened to a $1.29 payout (from $1.40 last week), as Les Miz and especially Zero […]

> After what seemed as long as a presidential primary season, the Oscar nominations are finally here. What do they tell us? THE ARTIST Is Still The Film To Beat. There were plenty of surprises sprinkled throughout today’s nominations, but none that seriously challenged the conventional wisdom. If Martin Scorsese were still looking for his […]