We noted yesterday that one of the useful things a pre-Oscars awards group can accomplish is mixing new titles and talent in with the conventional wisdom pool of front-runners, and the National Board of Review did that today.  A full list of its winners is here, but the headline is that the group (which […]

  The last two days have launched what will be a nearly non-stop parade of movie (and some television) accolades that won’t end until early March, when the final “and the Oscar goes to” is announced at LA’s Dolby Theater.  It’s a struggle that will consume millions of dollars and uncountable hours in campaigning along […]

  It’s been a relatively quiet week in Oscarland:  12 YEARS A SLAVE expanded well if not phenomenally, ALL IS LOST continued to struggle at the box office despite superb reviews, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB had a moderately successful debut, while BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR showed little box office range.  Next week will be far more […]

  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 […]

  Over the weekend, this year’s Oscarland acquired its first helping of Conventional Wisdom, thanks to the initial release of 12 YEARS A SLAVE (Fox Searchlight) in theatres and the unveiling of SAVING MR. BANKS (Disney) at the London Film Festival and to selected critics.  That Wisdom may very well change a dozen times between […]

  Like presidential politics, the Oscar race doesn’t really stop anymore; one campaign gets underway before the last has even ended.  Argo had yet to collect its statuettes in February before we were already hearing about the awards chances for movies screened at Sundance the month before, especially when Oscar savant Harvey Weinstein bought the […]

  There are 4 ways an Oscar night can be memorable: A Great Host:  Seth MacFarlane was bad–maybe not James Franco bad, but bad.  The ways he was bad, though, weren’t in any way unexpected.  Meta-gags and courting offensiveness are the things that have made him very, very rich.  When you hire Seth MacFarlane, you’re […]

Based on the fast national ratings for Sunday, the Academy Awards telecast should average around a 13.4 rating with adults 18-49 (adjusting the preliminary 12.1 rating upward to account for the Pacific time zone seeing the show three hours before the normal network feed pattern).  If our estimated adjustment is correct, this would be the […]