Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

There's a paradox: the greater the stature someone has, the less it's necessary to churn out words of evaluation. Aretha was such a giant of a figure that one almost feels silence -- Respect-ful silence, as it were -- is the most fitting tribute. But, to try for a bit more than that...it's hard to e...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Drive are my two strong substitutions. (In the latter case, I close to hated the film, but couldn't deny its visual panache.) War Horse was, I suppose, pretty but, like the film overall, it left me wondering, to what end? My general feeling about the film is that Spielb...

So, I think it's kind of sweet that, the very week the Academy highlighted the dire need to acknowledge Popular Movies, filmgoers of America turned out en masse for a ridiculous movie about a giant shark.

#EmmysforSharknado

How is this different than the Hoop Dreams for documentary anger, or the foreign film changes after 2007, in your mind? The three changes are the same in the narrowest sense: each is meant to engender different results in the categories involved. But I think there are significant differences in the...

I can't remember a more universally scorned roll-out since New Coke in the 80s. Look it up; it was a complete fiasco. I guess the Edsel was viewed the same (that one was before my time), since it still endures in the popular lexicon as the definition of commercial catastrophe. I think this is seen b...

Kudos to you, Bog, for putting your time and effort where many of our mouths are. I'm sure you were heartbroken at the (apparent) outcome -- I was following it on various sites/twitter accounts, and the way it dribbled to a so-close-but-so-far end crushed me. But you're right to take the long view: ...

By the way: the idea that the only way to cut the show to three hours is to cut out "minor" awards is bullshit. Those of us who've been around long enough -- meaning Magilla and I -- know that, back in the 60s, there were about the same number of awards (no make-up or animated feature, but...

And moving it up to early February? Good god: there'll be no time to see the foreign/documentary nominees. And the precursor season, which already feels like fraternity rush, will be crammed into an even tighter window. Is there time now? Even last year, I only watched Faces Places, The Breadwinner...

I hate every single one of these notions. The only way to look at it without bile is to take Sabin's view, that it's only an awards show and not a crumbling American republic. Ask the people whose Tonys have been shunted off-air if they think that change was for the good. I could maybe be talked int...

For purposes of completeness, the NY Festival line-up. Though I think every film on the schedule will have previously been screened somewhere else: Opening Night The Favourite Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos Centerpiece ROMA Dir. Alfonso Cuarón Closing Night At Eternity’s Gate Dir. Julian Schnabel 3 Faces Dir...

All my prime substitution candidates have already been mentioned: I Am Love, Shutter Island and 127 Hours. The King's Speech was beneficiary of the ever-popular "we love EVERYTHING about you" best picture nomination sweep. I think this might be something of a dying tradition -- though La L...

He didn't confess anything. He admitted the Trump Tower meeting was to get dirt on his opponent , but still claims he didn't know about it beforehand as if he would've stopped it. In essence, he just threw his son under the bus. Gee, a lot of people think that bolded portion is a pretty big confess...

Robert Mueller's interior monologue: "Geez, I spend a year carefully piling up evidence, and then the SOB just tweets out a confession."

Catching up late on a couple of the so-far entries BJ cited: Even though A Quiet Place has a remarkably similar profile to last year's Get Out -- Spring sleeper with unique premise, a debuting actor as director, strong critical score, domestic gross between $175-190 million -- I'd say it's far less ...

I read all the Harry Potter books and saw all the movies , but even with that I have trouble remembering anything about the look of the Half-Blood Prince. By me, Prisoner of Azkaban was the only one of the series hat had any distinction as a film. This is the most surprising thing I've read here in...