February 24th, 2019
It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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February 24th, 2019
It’s Oscar Day, and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I would be happy with half of the Best Picture nominees winning.
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February 12th, 2019
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. This week we look at the four acting categories, continuing with Best Supporting Actor. In this category, there is a favorite, but an upset isn’t out of the question.
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January 23rd, 2019
The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year for reasons no one has been able to adequately explain to me. Because it was the day after a long weekend, it took a bit of time to get all the normal work done and digest the results. And there were some interesting results to digest. No one film led the way with total nominations, as two films, The Favourite and Roma tied with 10 nominations each.
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December 12th, 2018
The Screen Actors Guild were the third group to announce their nominations for this awards season. There’s not a lot of surprises on this week’s list. A Star is Born led the way with four nominations, while The Favourite was right behind with three.
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September 20th, 2017
I think it is a really good week on the home market. The biggest release of the week is Wonder Woman, which is also one of the best wide releases of the year. The extras are strong and the Blu-ray Combo Pack / 3D Combo Pack are Pick of the Week contenders. It isn’t the winner, as The Big Sick is one of the best movies I’ve seen all year and the DVD / Blu-ray Combo Pack is loaded with extras.
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September 18th, 2017
The Hero is one of several limited releases that were able to earn some measure of mainstream success, but was never able to expand even semi-wide. Is it a film that could only thrive in the art house circuit? Or does it have more mainstream appeal? Or was it too mainstream, which is why it didn’t do amazing business in art house theaters?
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June 9th, 2017
It is not a particularly busy week as far as limited releases are concerned. However, there are a few that have a shot at earning some mainstream success: Beatriz at Dinner, I, Daniel Blake, and My Cousin Rachel. There’s a chance none of them will do well this weekend, but hopefully they can all find an audience.
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February 22nd, 2016
The Good Dinosaur looks like it will be the first Pixar film to lose money. It cost nearly $200 million to make, while there were reports that the advertising budget was $150 million worldwide. It needed to make over $500 million worldwide to have a shot at breaking even any time soon. It made barely more than $300 million, which wasn't enough to pay for its reported advertising budget. Is it as bad as its box office numbers would suggest? Or is there a reason this film failed to connect with audiences besides quality?
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February 7th, 2016
Grandma was Lily Tomlin's first starring role in nearly 30 years. She clearly wasn't rusty and there was even some Oscar-buzz for her performance. That didn't pan out. Is it as good as its reviews? Or was nostalgia at play here? Were critics just so happy Lily Tomlin was back that their judgment was clouded?
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