We’ve reviewed all the performers in the Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress and Best Actor categories, and now it’s time to look at the filmmakers themselves.  Here’s a last rundown of the factors for and against each Best Director nominee, with merit taken for granted and precursor awards put aside.  Also, read […]

> Possibly because the Golden Globes take place in much less proximity to the Emmys than they do to the Oscars, and thus aren’t the crucial part of network gamesplaying that they are for the movie studios, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s TV awards have always tended to be more adventurous and genuine than the […]

  So, is it over? It certainly feels over.  Voting for the Academy Awards ends tomorrow, and last night’s win at the Writers Guild for Best Adapted Screenplay cemented Argo’s astonishing streak of victories over the past 5+ weeks.  With the Oscars still almost a week away, it’s already at the heart of the Argo […]

  On with the show!  (Note:  all times are PST) 5PM:  You just know CBS was hoping the AFC playoffs would run just a little bit longer, to screw with the start of the Globes. 5:05:  Best bit so far:  Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitting with the cool film crowd. 5:07:  Fey:  “Matthew McConaughey lost 63 pounds […]

  Provocative, almost existential questions have circled this year’s Oscars since seconds after the nominations were announced.  Should the awards, and the Motion Picture Academy’s voting membership, mirror the actual state of the film industry, which is overwhelmingly dominated by older white men, or a Platonic ideal embodying a more diverse vision of what the […]

  It’s a very good weekend to be a Weinstein.  First Weinstein Company’s The Master set new per-theatre records for a live-action movie release without a stage show, and now the tidings from Toronto are lined with gold: David O. Russell’s SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, the studio’s romantic comedy-drama starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert […]

  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 […]

  As we did with Best Supporting Actor and will do the rest of this week with the other major categories, this is a final look at the rationales behind and against each nominee’s likelihood of winning.  We’re assuming deserved merit for all, and we’re not going to count up precursor wins.  So, onward: BEST […]