The Oscar for Best Original Song is one of the few categories that doesn't have a lot of patterns or indicators as to who will win. The only major precursor is the Golden Globe, however since the year 2000, the two kudos have matched up a whopping 4 times. Even last year when "Let It…
What's better than the same 5 guys being nominated for SAG, Golden Globes, and Oscars? Maybe the same guy winning. J.K. Simmons has swept his way through the awards season on the coattails of his now infamous character of Fletcher, the abusive jazz director that demands excellence and a commitment to honoring the greats. There's…
We have an interesting situation in the category for Best Cinematography. The last five winners were Life of Pi, Hugo, Gravity, Avatar, and Inception. So, the easy prediction is for the visual effects driven film. However, we don't have one this year. Instead there's the single-take Birdman, black and white Ida, symmetrical The Grand Budapest Hotel, period drama Mr. Turner, and Roger Deakins' Unbroken. The easy…
A few things happened this year to make Best Original Score, my usual favorite category, the thorn in my side. First, the academy disqualified the scores of Birdman and Whiplash because the former wasn't prewritten for the film and the latter because there wasn't "enough" score. That already angered me enough, but when they egregiously snubbed Gone Girl, I was furious.…
With the expansion of the Best Picture category to ten nominees/whatever they're doing with this sliding scale, Best Visual Effects has become one of the easier categories to predict at the Oscars. The winner tends to be whichever nominee is also nominated in Best Picture. Take Gravity, Hugo, Life of Pi, and Inception as examples from recent years. However,…
I have to admit that as the season wears on, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to write about Shameless. It’s still a bridge too far to call the show weak at this stage—in fact I think it’s attempting a number of really interesting things—but there is a spark that, for me at least,…
I don't like changing my predictions too close to Oscar night. It tends to lead to unnecessary second guessing and almost always leads to no good. However, this year it looks like I'm going to be changing back and forth all the way up to Oscar night. This year is like no other for the…
Best Actress is an open and shut category. Julianne Moore (Still Alice) was the early frontrunner, even when it was for a different film. Either way, whether she was in the running for Still Alice or A Map to the Stars, it looked like she would finally win her Oscar. She has everything: a pure Oscar bait role, a performance…
Perhaps inevitably, “Where’s the Black Lady?” does not quite reach the fever pitch of last week’s “Run,” though it sure tries like hell to. That said, Scandal packs in some really great scenes this week, and guest director Debbie Allen does some uncommonly great work here, as does Tony Goldwyn in what is one of…
I was aching for an episode featuring the entire group after the break, and must admit I never really latched onto Tyreese. But by the time his inner news radio reached a fever pitch and he told the ghosts to "turn it off", I was sold. WARNING: This article contains spoilers for those not caught up…
