And the winners were… 12 Years A Slave, Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto, Lupita Nyong’o… Hey, wait a minute.  Aren’t the Oscars tomorrow night? There was a time when the Independent Spirit Awards were genuinely, you know… independent.  Films like Leaving Las Vegas, The Apostle, Gods and Monsters, Election and Memento won Best […]

> The Academy limits the number of movie ads that can be aired on the Oscar telecast (until recent years, they didn’t allow any), so as not to make the night look like the awards are shilling for the studios.  (God forbid!)  It’s not clear whether that’s the reason only 2 movie promos made it […]

>Updated Oscar odds confirm a complete snooze is in store for Sunday’s Academy Awards as The Artist and director Michel Hazanavicius are heavy favorites to win Best Picture and Best Director, bringing a very French flavor — and depressed ratings — to ABC’s telecast.  Oscar ratings rise and fall based on the suspense of the […]

  Over the past 10 days or so, a multitude of groups have presented awards for 2013’s best, with prizes given to screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, animators, and production designers.  FROZEN solidified its commanding lead for the Best Animated Film Oscar, but that’s about the only conclusion to be found, as the other honors were spread […]

  Let’s face it:  anyone with an interest in the matter has been circling the same basic list of titles and names for weeks now, if not months, and the truth is that as much fun as it would be for some shocking surprise to find its way into tomorrow’s Oscar nominations–Mud or Brie Larson, […]

> This year’s Academy Awards have so far engendered the kind of enthusiasm and excitement usually associated with a suburban DMV office on a Tuesday afternoon.  People seem to be sullenly resigned to the inevitability of THE ARTIST‘s victory, even though it would be unlikely to get anything like a majority of the Academy’s estimated […]

  The success of TED having made Seth MacFarlane a legitimate name in the movie universe, the Academy and ABC have decided to make him an unexpected choice to host nest year’s Academy Awards telecast.  This isn’t a crazy idea, although MacFarlane has never done anything like it.  He’s obviously funny, he reaches that elusive […]

> Los Angelenos will have a chance to get advance looks at some of this year’s Oscar candidates at the AFI Film Festival, which begins in just about 2 weeks.  Today the Festival announced the Gala and Special Screenings, which typically make up the bulk of the high-profile titles, and they include quite a few […]