> The New York Film Critics Circle famously (notoriously?), having decided that they simply couldn’t wait to announce their 2011 awards until, y’know, they had actually seen all the movies (when Warners couldn’t rush them a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close–which doesn’t open until December 25–the Circle simply ignored it), has made its […]

  It’s time to gather for the 2020 Academy Awards, which… may be the most boring in recent memory.  The favorites currently seem to be overwhelming, and with no host to carry us through the proceedings, if 1917, Sam Mendes, Joaquin Phoenix, Renee Zellweger, Brad Pitt and Laura Dern win, it’s going to be a […]

  Almost anyone could win Best Supporting Actor this year.  All of the nominees delivered acclaimed performances in highly-praised films, and all are previous winners, so none of them would necessarily take precedence as someone who’s “owed.”  It’s possible to construct plausible cases for and against each one: Tommy Lee Jones, LINCOLN Pros:  Jones is […]

  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 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 […]

>We'll have some analysis later (good news: Extremely Loud! Margin Call for Screenplay! Bad news: no Michael Fassbender? No David Fincher?), but for now, here's a link to the full list of Oscar nominees: http://oscar.go.com/nominees?cid=ealert_012412_oscars_nom_nomindex_oscarpagevideovisitors Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

  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 […]

> Nobody remembers the comic strip “L’il Abner” anymore, but there used to be a character in it named Joe Btfspik, who was so unlucky that he walked around with a perpetual dark cloud hanging over his head.  this week, Brett Ratner may feel like he knows how Btfspik felt–but at least poor Joe didn’t […]