Some Thoughts, Even More Mistakes
Unpredictable races, momentum-swinging scandals, and aggressive campaigns have been the defining features of the 2025 awards season. After a couple of ceremonies where the bigger categories seemed locked up months in advance, the intrigue and volatility of the lead-up to this year's Oscars has been a bit of a welcome departure, even if the discourse … Continue reading 2025 Oscars: Predictions and Picks
“You have all these actors who have become famous for playing these characters, but they’re not movie stars. Captain America is the star, Thor is the star.” Those were the comments made by Quentin Tarantino in 2022, which added fuel to a debate that had been ongoing for several years. Long before these remarks were … Continue reading For Film Fans, It’s a Good Thing That Timothée Chalamet Wants to Be Great
One word kept coming to mind when I thought about how to sum up the 2024 year in film: ambition. That may sound strange, given that this year was largely considered to be somewhat underwhelming due to a variety of reasons, most notably the impacts that the Hollywood strikes of 2023 had on the industry. … Continue reading Top Ten Films of 2024
In the simplest of definitions, Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain is a small movie with a lot of big ideas. It touches on family, loss, the weight of our past, and how we choose to deal with suffering, among other things. But, it remains grounded due in small part to its fairly simplistic, if circuitous, plot—and … Continue reading ‘A Real Pain’: A Touching Examination of the Complexities of Human Connection
The film Civil War is set in a not-so-distant future in which Americans are in the depths of a brutal conflict with each other. It features bloody violence, military combat, journalists willing to risk their lives, and a tyrannical president. Yet, many audience members left the theater wondering what, if anything, writer/director Alex Garland was trying to … Continue reading What Does Civil War Have to Say?
The 96th Academy Awards are finally just two days away. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer has been at the center of awards season for several months now, and it seems like the main question heading into Sunday's ceremony is just how big of a night will it have. Despite how inevitable Everything Everywhere All At Once's chances … Continue reading 2024 Oscars: Predictions and Picks
The fifth annual Not A Real Person Yet awards (The NARPYs) have arrived. Only a handful of days away from the 96th Academy Awards, I am once again handing out my own list of completely made up awards—none of which exist at the Oscars—in order to honor the 2023 world of film. I do this … Continue reading The 5th Annual Not A Real Person Yet Awards
The 2023 year in film felt like, above all else, a return. A return to a time when people actually showed up to the movie theater, as evidenced by the fact that this year the domestic box office topped $9 billion for the first since 2019; a return to a time when, due to the … Continue reading Top Ten Films of 2023
Did Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig just save the movie business? Over the weekend, films fans finally got to experience the movie event of the year. Barbenheimer, a term created by online fans which obviously references the same-day release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, not only lived up to the hype but actually exceeded most expectations. … Continue reading What Can Hollywood Learn From the Barbenheimer Success?
I must admit I was skeptical when Succession first premiered in 2018. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, stories about the mega wealthy and the elite power holders in our society were at an all time high. While I agreed with the messaging of these shows and films which condemned the structures set in place in … Continue reading They Were Never Serious People
We are just two days away from the 95th Academy Awards, and the question on everyone's mind is will Everything Everywhere All At Once actually do this. The frenetic, action-packed multiversal drama has dominated throughout the entirety of awards season, and established itself as the clear frontrunner in many of this year's major categories, including Best … Continue reading 2023 Oscars: Predictions and Picks
The fourth annual Not A Real Person Yet awards (The NARPYs) have arrived. Only a handful of days away from the 95th Oscars, I am once again handing out my own awards to honor the films of 2022. I do this to celebrate the best films from the previous year, as well as shine a … Continue reading Celebrating the Films of 2022 With Awards That Don’t Exist at The Oscars
The nominees for the 95th Academy Awards were announced this morning, and while I always expect a healthy mix of good, bad, and surprising from the Academy, I felt generally pleased with their choices this year. While there were a handful of surprises—as well as some selections and omissions that I disagreed with—I would describe … Continue reading 2023 Oscar Nominations: Snubs, Surprises, Winners, and Losers
Was 2022 a good year for movies? That is the question I found myself trying to answer as I thought about the best way to briefly encapsulate this past year in film before getting to my list. The most optimistic answer that I could come up with was that it was an extremely up-and-down year. … Continue reading Top Ten Films of 2022
It feels like Hollywood has been stuck in a sustained state of anxiety over box office numbers ever since theaters reopened nationally in 2021. Every time a new expensive feature debuts to a disappointing opening weekend and fails to reach expectations, pundits and Hollywood insiders share theories as to why this is happening, while lamenting … Continue reading Babylon, Box Office Flops, and How Not to Market a Movie in 2022
I don't know if I've ever had as many conflicting feelings going to the Oscars as I do this year. The lead-up to this year's show has been filled with more confusing and frustrating announcements than any Oscars of my lifetime. It feels strange to start off this blog on such a dour note though … Continue reading 2022 Oscars: Predictions and Picks
The third annual Not A Real Person Yet awards (The NARPYs?) have arrived. We are only a handful of days away from the 94th Oscars. But before the Academy disappoints us with their choices, I need to hand out my own—much more legitimate, prestigious, and relevant—awards. For the third year in a row, I've created … Continue reading Celebrating The Films of 2021 With Awards That Don’t Exist at The Oscars
Results of My Predictions: 80/105 (76%) As always, we received a mix of good, bad, surprising, and confounding choices from the Academy this morning. Overall, I would say I was mostly pleased with this year's nominees. There were a handful of genuinely exciting nominations that help illustrate the positive ways in which the Academy has … Continue reading 2022 Oscar Nominations: Snubs, Surprises, Winners, and Losers
The nominees for the 94th Academy Awards will be revealed tomorrow. After a poorly received and scarcely watch ceremony last year, I'm very interested to see what the voters decided to nominate this year. Getting inside the mind of an Academy voter is a difficult and terrifying task, so I have no doubt I'll be … Continue reading Predicting the Nominees for the 2022 Oscars
Oscar nomination voting officially ended yesterday. On Tuesday, we will find out which films have been nominated in every category, including which ten will compete for Best Picture. With those announcements looming, I couldn't help but wonder what ten nominees would be the best case scenario for film fans, the Oscars ratings, and the film … Continue reading Which Best Picture Nominees Would be Best for Film Fans, Oscar Ratings, and the Industry?
The most depressing New York Giants season of the century mercifully came to an end yesterday. After a decade filled with almost nothing but incompetence, it felt like we truly reached rock bottom over the course of the last six weeks of this regular season. Those six weeks included injuries, Mike Glennon, Jake Fromm, the … Continue reading Losers.
There seemed to be primarily two types of film fans in the world at the beginning of 2021. Some were completely pessimistic about the direction the film industry was heading. They were anxious about the impact the pandemic would have on the future of moviegoing and could not imagine a positive resolution down the road. … Continue reading Top Ten Films of 2021
They are finally happening. The 93rd Oscars take place this Sunday night. There is no doubt in my mind that they will be the weirdest Oscars of my lifetime. My expectations for the show are mixed following the strange and brutal year in film we just went through. Overall, I'm just hoping for a fun … Continue reading 2021 Oscars: Predictions and Picks
It's my second year of doing this and I still haven't come up with a clever name for these awards. On Sunday night, this year's delayed Oscar ceremony will take place. Over 14 months after Parasite's historic Best Picture win, the Academy will finally hand out their awards to the "best" films and performances of 2020, … Continue reading Celebrating The Films of 2020 With Awards That Don’t Exist at The Oscars
The actual ceremony may still be over a month away, but this morning we finally received the nominees for the 2021 Academy Awards. The pandemic made this one of the strangest movie years and awards seasons of all time, but perhaps the most bizarre thing about the Academy's nominees this year is that.. they're actually … Continue reading 2021 Oscar Nominations: Snubs, Surprises, Winners, and Losers
Not A Real Person Yet 