Oscars 2019 Preview and Open Thread: We Got to Move These Acclaimed Motion Pictures. We Got to Move These Short Nominees.

Welcome to Oscars Evening, Commentists! I'm back, and I've got some more capital-T Takes on these awards, specifically the prestige categories, the short films, and the feature films that well-adjusted people probably care even less about than they do the short films. But first, I want to yell about something

Oscar Night 2018 Open Thread

Good evening, Commentists! It's Oscar night, and I'm here to set the stage for your finest cinematological dick jokes. Here are the nominees for Best Picture, ranked, and my predictions for which of them will actually win. 10. Darkest Hour Impeccably acted and unexpectedly pretty to look at. There are no bad movies

Oscar Preview 2018: Salute Your Shorts

The animated features and short films are, collectively, some of my favorite awards-season categories. There's almost always something in there that's as good as most of the Best Picture nominees, and because it's not a Best Picture nominee, I get to feel smug about appreciating it. Also, a lot of

Oscar Preview 2018: Art for Film’s Sake

Good afternoon, Commentists! Today I'm cruising on through the more artsy categories today, and here's a status update: I have three more feature films to watch, and another seven shorts still, and as of tomorrow all of them will be available to me. We're really doing this! Let's get into

Oscar Preview 2018: Awards for Nerds

Good afternoon, Commentists. We're a week from Oscar night, and and my plan was to cover all the "technical categories" today, but that was before I did a little more research and discovered that there are seven technical categories and that they include costume design and production design. And, look,

Oscar Preview 2018: The Films No One Watches

Good afternoon, Commentists. We're ten days from the Oscars, and I believe that this will finally be the year that I can claim to have watched everything. Some of you may remember how close I've gotten the past couple of years; I missed the animated film My Life as a Courgette last year,

Oscar Preview 2017: Arts and Crafts

Up this morning, editing, writing, and the little things that make the actors look like they belong on the sets, and that make the sets look like places where the actors should be. FILM EDITING Arrival — I haven't seen a single movie this year that was better-paced than Arrival. Arrival is constantly bringing you information

Oscar Preview 2017: Best Pictures

I was planning on holding my favorite cluster of categories till Saturday, but it's been a long-ass week and you all deserve something fun to read about and dammit, I deserve something fun to write about. As cool as it is to get into the nuts and bolts of what's