Powerful is the word for The Power of the Dog, a contemporary, revisionist Western that streamed on Netflix, which led the field when Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. It galloped away with 12 nominations, including best picture, director (Jane Campion), actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), supporting actors (Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee), supporting … [Read more...]
Oscars 2021: Radical reinvention was good thing for awards show
It sounds heretical to say this, because the pandemic has taken such a toll on the film industry this year, but COVID-19 is the best thing to happen to the Academy Awards broadcast. The virus and its social distancing protocols, which previously sank the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and other awards programs prompted Oscars producer Steven Soderbergh – an Oscar winner … [Read more...]
Hap’s Oscar predictions, 2021 edition: ‘Nomadland’ will take top flick
Following a year of COVID-caused theater closings and postponed blockbusters, the Motion Picture Academy will try to put a positive spin on the industry this Sunday evening when the 93rd annual Oscar winners are announced. Understandably, it will not be the usual ceremony. For starters, the main venue will be Los Angeles’s iconic Union train station – featured in such major … [Read more...]
Oscars, woke: Nominations feature record diversity
It wasn’t that long ago that the Oscar nominations were a blanket of white — #OscarsSoWhite in 2015 and 2016 — an embarrassment to the Motion Picture Academy and a poor reflection on the increasingly diverse array of quality films produced by Hollywood. Well, what a difference a few years make. When the 2021 Oscar nominations were announced Monday morning — much later than … [Read more...]
And the Oscar winners will be …
New Jersey casinos have started to take bets on the Oscars, but you probably do not have time to head that way and place a wager. So instead, take my scientifically projected winners’ list and bet with your friends and family or simply impress them by calling out the winners just before they are announced on the air. Regardless of how you use this valuable information, … [Read more...]
‘Joker’ gets last laugh with Academy nods
Speaking of jokes and jokers, did you hear the one about the comic book movie with a clownish, homicidal leading character that unexpectedly landed at the top of the Oscar nominations list this morning with 11 mentions? Joker, which scored nominations for best picture, director, actor, adapted screenplay and in seven other categories, becomes only the second comic book … [Read more...]
Hap’s fearless Oscar predictions: Malek, Close, ‘Green Book’
According to the showbiz bible Variety, this is the most wide-open Oscars race in decades, with no conclusive front runner emerging from the preliminary awards. Yet that does not stop me from predicting tonight's winners, just in time for you to place a bet with your neighbors or bookie. By the end of a probably long evening, here is what the list of those clutching gold … [Read more...]
Big box office winners also dominate Oscar nominations
After a year when the Motion Picture Academy scrubbed its bad idea to create an Oscar category for Most Popular Picture, some of the highest-grossing films were nominated for the top statuette of 2019. Black Panther became the first superhero movie to earn a Best Picture nomination, poised to compete against two other mainstream popular high box office films – Bohemian … [Read more...]
The Oscars: Who and what will win, and why
This year, the Academy Awards turn 90, and the race for the best picture of 2017 is pretty wide open. This is certainly no runaway Titanic or Lord of the Rings year, and by the same token, as long as Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are kept far away from the envelopes, it seems unlikely that there will be audible gasps in the wee hours of the morning after Sunday. … [Read more...]
Oscar predictions: A whole lotta ‘La La Land’
The preliminary awards – you know, the Golden Globes, the SAG awards, the BAFTAs, etc. – have narrowed the field for Sunday evening’s 89th annual Academy Awards, making the job of prognosticator much easier. In fact, the Las Vegas oddsmakers are calling most of the top categories to be statistical runaways. Still, nothing is ever completely sure at the Oscars, though this … [Read more...]