In a Broadway season with seemingly just one overwhelming favorite (that would be Neil Patrick–wait for it–Harris), the Tony Award nominations were bound to have their share of omissions and oddities.  The full list of nominees is here, but these are some of the major categories and thoughts: Best Play ACT ONE ALL THE […]

  Verbal Kint once noted that that greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.  Just as impressively, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has accomplished the exact opposite:  against all evidence, its members have convinced a major television network, countless media outlets and millions of viewers that it does exist, […]

  Movie audiences can’t get enough of watching things blow up, and tonight’s ACADEMY AWARDS has the potential to explode before our very eyes.  Everyone knows the litany of what’s gone awry along the way, from the host/no-host mess, to the Most Popular Film Oscar that never was, to the foiled attempt to hold the […]

  Television as a medium seems to become more exciting and surprising practically every week these days, but one thing remains the same:  The EMMY AWARDS is still the weak, erratic sibling of the other major awards shows, even when the telecast itself is slickly packaged, as was mostly the case with tonight’s rendition from […]

The Oscars telecast on Sunday 2.28.2016 started right on par with recent telecasts, just above 35 million viewers for both 2016 and the average of every telecast since 2007.  Generally speaking, the average Oscar show audience rises through the first hour, then holds steady until about 10:00 or 10:15 pm when the In Memoriam segment […]

> Deadline reports that Warners has set the release schedule for its 2 Oscar contenders.  Clint Eastwood’s biography of FBI patriarch (and cross-dresser) J. EDGAR, starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, is opening November 9 in a few big cities, with wide release on November 11; and EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, the Stephen […]

  We’ve taken a look at the major Comedy and Movie/Miniseries categories at Sunday’s Emmys, and now it’s time for the big guns:  the Dramas.  Incredibly, the state of TV drama is so strong these days that one could make a case for any of this year’s nominees deserving the big prize (and even a […]

  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 […]