2012 Oscars Update: MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors) Nominations
The MPSE (finally!) announces the nominees for their Golden Reel Awards. Let’s not waste time (especially since they’re pretty meaningless to us now), here they are:
Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Marvel’s The Avengers
Prometheus
Skyfall
The Dark Knight Rises
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: Costume Designers Guild Nominations
The Costume Designers Guild Nominations were announced today. About a week too late, but — they’re here.
That leaves MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors) as the only guild left to announce their nominees (unless they’re being really quiet about it).
This means nothing, since we have our Oscar category, but — they’re here.
EXCELLENCE IN CONTEMPORARY FILM
Beasts of the Southern Wild
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Silver Linings Playbook
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty (more…)
2012 Oscars Update: ACE (American Cinema Editors) Eddie Nominations
The American Cinema Editors have announced their nominees (about three days too late), and, since we already have our Oscar nominees, the most we can really do is see how close the guild was to the nominees, and then maybe figure what that might mean for what’s gonna win. (But even so, we’ll have the actual winner in a few weeks, which will probably help more.)
So here are the nominations (only the important ones) for the 2012 Eddie Awards:
Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Essentially your Oscar list. The only change we’ll see in a second. (more…)
And the Nominees Are… (2012)
Wake that ass up this mornin’. It’s Oscar time, bitches.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have just announced the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards.
I’ll be analyzing all the nominees and stuff later. Right now, it’s just about the nominations. It’s 6 am in the morning. I’m going the fuck back to sleep, and I’ll deal with what it all means later.
So here they are, your nominees for the 85th Academy Awards: (more…)
Oscars 2012: What I Think Will Be Nominated
The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced tomorrow.
This Oscar season has been one of two things — very abrupt or very exciting. Possibly both. Maybe it’s because I stayed out of listening to anything Oscar-related this year and am going almost entirely on my gut and experience, but this feels like going 0-60 in three seconds. I haven’t had time to settle in and get warmed up yet, and all of a sudden the Oscar nominations are upon us.
The Oscar nominations are coming out real early this year, probably to shake things up in the race, which a lot of people have felt was boring in recent years, because the awards season went on for so long that we knew exactly who was gonna win even before the ceremony. Really all they did was stop having the ceremony in March (which was stupid to begin with) and pushed the Oscar nominations up a week (which caused some confusion in this town, given that most people were still on vacation around the time nominations ballots were due, and because they’re switching over to almost completely online voting, which raised some issues with the older section of the Academy (most of them), who have no fucking idea how to use that series of tubes that is the internet to vote). I guess two weeks makes all the difference.
I’ll give them one thing — this year, we don’t really know anything yet. I have a good idea about what’ll be nominated, but even so, you can’t be too sure about certain things. At this point, there is no clear frontrunner for Best Picture. And since they’re announcing the nominees so early, not all of the awards shows are gonna sync up, leaving an air of mystery to the whole thing. That said, I’m sure by Oscar night, we’ll have a damn good idea what’s going to win, as we always do. But for now, it’s kind of exciting, even though I feel like they could have waited a week and split the difference.
(more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: BAFTA Nominations
Today, the nominations for the BAFTA awards were announced.
Let’s not waste any time and get right into them. They’re the last clue we’re gonna get as to the Oscar nominations puzzle:
Best Film
Argo
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
No shock here, these are the five Best Director nominees and the expected five Best Picture locks. Curious to see if they go Les Mis or not. Everything’s pointing toward Lincoln this year.
More nominees after the jump: (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) Nominations
ASC has just announced their nominations. Here they are:
Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey
Les Misérables, Danny Cohen
Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda
Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski
Skyfall, Roger Deakins
Since my Oscar nominations predictions are coming out later today, I’ll spare the discussion of these nominations until then, except to say — yes. In a few minutes, once I type them all out — BAFTA nominations.
Oscars 2012 Update: VFX (Visual Effects) Society Nominations and CAS (Cinema Audio Society) Nominations Announced
Two more guilds have announced their nominations, making tomorrow’s guesses at what’s going to be nominated a little bit easier.
The only groups left to announce their nominations are BAFTA (which is tomorrow), ACE (American Cinema Editors, which apparently announce on Thursday, but they were supposed to announce CAS then too, so…), MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors, which will announce at some point in the next week) and the Costume Designers Guild, which announces next Thursday. Which is pretty good. This helps us on most of the categories for Thursday.
So let’s get started with the Visual Effects Society Nominees: (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: DGA (Directors Guild) Nominations
The DGA has just announced their nominations.
I’m sure you all know that this is the most accurate predictor for the Oscars there is, the DGA winner having gone on to win the Best Director Oscar all but six times.
And as for the nominees — they’re actually really good about it. Last year, four out of five nominees matched, with David Fincher missing out and Terrence Malick getting on (most likely due to the latter’s Best Picture nomination and the former’s lack of one). 2010, four of five (the DGA had Christopher Nolan and the Oscars had the Coen brothers). 2009, all five. 2008, four of five (Nolan again. They replaced him with Stephen Daldry at the Oscars). 2007, four of five (DGA had Sean Penn, Oscars had Jason Reitman). 2006, only three of five (DGA missed Spielberg and Paul Greengrass in favor of Bill Condon and Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris). 2005, all five. 2004, all five. 2003, four of five (DGA had Gary Ross, Oscars had Fernando Meirelles). 2002, four of five (DGA had Peter Jackson, Oscars had Pedro Almodovar). 2001, three of five (DGA had Baz Luhrmann and Christopher Nolan and the Oscars had Robert Altman and David Lynch). And 2000, four of five (DGA had Cameron Crowe and Oscars had Stephen Daldry).
So basically, they’re gonna get you at least four nominees. And when they do miss, it’s usually because either the Best Picture situation is murky (2006), a foreign director gets on (2003, 2002), really seasoned directors get on (2001), or they just fucking hate one particular director (2010, 2008).
That said, let’s look at this year’s DGA nominees: (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: WGA (Writer’s Guild) Nominations
The WGA nominations have been announced.
This is one of those things where if feels like a bigger deal than it is. Since with the WGA, they deem so much shit ineligible that the categories almost never match up with the Oscars. But we go through the motions anyway.
The nominees for Original Screenplay are:
Flight
Looper
The Master
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty
Which is cool. I expect these plus Django to be the majority of the list. Maybe Arbitrage. (more…)
2012 Oscars Update: Art Directors Guild Nominations
The Art Directors Guild Nominations were announced today.
They’ll be helpful in guessing what gets nominated for BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN (remember, it’s no longer Best Art Direction):
Excellence in Production Design for a Feature Film
Anna Karenina
Argo
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Lincoln
More categories and my thoughts after the jump: (more…)
2012 Oscars Update: PGA (Producers Guild) Nominations
When trying to guess what’s going to be nominated (and especially win) Best Picture, the Producers Guild is typically the most important guild to look at. Since 1990, when they started giving out awards, they’ve been wrong on the Best Picture winner six times (which we’ll talk about when they actually hand out a winner). So that’s a pretty good compass for that.
As for nominations — it’s more helpful now that we have (up to) ten nominees to gauge their effectiveness. Example: In 2009 (the first year of the increased nominees), the PGA nominated what ended up being eight of the ten Best Picture nominees (the two they didn’t get were A Serious Man – which had major guild support — and The Blind Side – which nobody saw coming. They nominated Star Trek and Invictus instead). In 2010, they had nine out of ten the same. The one difference was that they nominated The Town instead of Winter’s Bone (which got major guild support). And last year, they got 7 out of 9, which is a bit more problematic, since they nominated ten films. But, the three they had nominated that weren’t nominated for the Oscar were Bridesmaids, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Ides of March. And most people consider Dragon Tattoo the one that would have been the #10 nominee had they not done the sliding scale thing. They missed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which, like The Blind Side, no one really saw coming) and Tree of Life (which, again… guild support).
So that’s the set up here. After the jump (look at me… all professional-like. I fucking hate how much I love that), we’re gonna list what was nominated and what that probably means for the Oscars. (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: BFCA Nominations
The Critics’ Choice Awards nominations came out the other day, and were pretty much overshadowed by the SAG nominations and the Golden Globes. But actually, I think these are even more accurate in gauging the Oscars than all those other ones are. Since SAG is really only helpful in gauging the acting ones, and BAFTA is helpful in solidifying acting nominations and maybe guessing a surprise nominee here or there, and the Globes are somewhat helpful, but up to a certain point. They tend to miss films all the time. There’s always a big film or two that hit at the Oscars and miss the Globes entirely. These, though — well, we’ll get to them in a second.
The Broadcast Film Critics Association is a group of about 250 TV, radio and online critics. And, as I’m gonna point out in a second — not only are they really helpful in gauging what’s gonna get nominated for Oscars, but the stuff that isn’t nominated for Oscars that’s on their lists of nominees — it’s often stuff that most people think should have been nominated for Oscars. It’s incredible.
Mostly it comes down to them getting all the stuff that’s either in the conversation or universally regarded nominated. They manage to strike a fine line between all the “Oscar” stuff and the stuff most moviegoers would like as well. That’s really the key to their success. They’re not necessarily stuck up on all the “classy” shit. They legitimately go for good stuff. (more…)
Oscars 2012 Update: Golden Globes Nominations
I am fascinated by the Golden Globes. Because on the one hand — they’re meaningless. They’re a group of about 100-something foreign journalists who like to nominate all the people they like/get all the really famous people to come hang out with them. And it has turned into this awards show. It’s wonderful.
What’s fascinating about the Globes is how you can clearly tell where the biases are, and at the same time — they are pretty damn close to what actually gets nominated at the Oscars. Not necessarily in terms of what wins, but definitely in terms of what’s in the conversation. The other thing I like about them is that we all know them really well. We know what they like and what they don’t like, we know what typically wins, and they’re almost always in line with that. And I think that’s why we let them continue to be such a big precursor to the Oscars, even though they really shouldn’t. We understand them. I love this weird dichotomy they have going for them.
Anyway, let’s get down to business, with the second of the three big awards shows that matter (SAG, BAFTA, Golden Globes… with the hidden fourth one that matters being the BFCA). Here are your nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards (which are happening on January 13th, by the way). (more…)
Analysis of the 2011 Oscar Nominees
I felt weird having the only article I had planned for today go up before 8 am. So I decided to balance it out by posting another, more in-depth (though I don’t know how much more it’s going to be, since I’m doing this completely on the fly) analysis of all the Oscar nominations.
No need for more of an intro. Let’s just get right into it. Here are the number of nominations for each film:
Hugo – 11 nominations
The Artist – 10 nominations
Moneyball – 6 nominations
War Horse – 6 nominations
The Descendants – 5 nominations
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – 5 nominations (more…)
And the Nominees Are… (2011)
Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up! Up you wake, up you wake, up you wake, up you wake!
It is Tuesday, January 24th, and the Nominees for the 84th Academy Awards have been announced.
I’m not one to analyze the nominees. Surprises, no surprises. To me, all of that stuff is in the past. Sure, I might comment on some of them in the future, like, “I can’t believe they didn’t nominate (so and so),” but that’s after the fact. That’s the Oscar Quest talking. For now, I don’t care what surprised, what didn’t surprise. These are our nominees, and that’s that. My only goal here is to see how well I did in picking them, and to see what this means for the ceremony next month.
That said, let’s get right into them. Because I’m really excited to talk about them. (more…)
My Oscar Nominations (As Well As What I Think Will Be Nominated)
It’s that time again. Tomorrow, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce their nominations for the 84th Academy Awards. Naturally, I am going to guess what I think those nominations will be.
Something like this is easy to do up to an extent. The big categories — normally you get 4/5 or 5/5. It’s the Techs where you slip up the most. Shorts, Foreign Language — things like that. You easily miss 2, 3, maybe even 4 of the nominees. And those are generally where your misses add up. And of course, there will always be surprises. That’s to be expected. Especially this year, when we don’t even know how many Best Picture nominees there will be. There will be films or performances that get on that will be what most consider alternates going in. There will be films that get on that no one saw coming. It’s the nature of the beast. Plus, me being a person who will, most of the time, vote for what I want to be nominated over what will probably be nominated, I’m used to having a percentage lower than I would have if I picked objectively.
Also, what I’m going to do, before I guess what I think will be nominated, is put what I would nominate for all of these categories. I’ll keep it mostly to “Oscar” films. I won’t put on a film like Hanna on the Best Picture list, even though I had it in my Top Ten. I won’t stray too far from the wheelhouse unless there was nothing else that I liked that much (which is rare, but happens).
That said, here are what I would nominate for the Oscars, and what I think the Academy will nominate. (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: Motion Picture Sound Editors Nominations
They announced the Motion Picture Sound Editors nominations today.
There’s been an update in terms of my understanding of the categories. Apparently my looking it up wasn’t quite as good a job as I’d expected. The actual way it works, according to what I’ve now looked up, is: Sound Editing is the creation of the sound mix — dialogue, sound effects, ADR and music (as evidenced by all these categories). Sound Mixing is the physical process of mixing all of these together onto the soundtrack. Which makes much more sense. So I’ve pretty much been wrong all this time. I prefer to think of it as “misinformed.” No one’s called me out on it and corrected me, so I like to think about it as — we’re all misinformed. Kind of like in high school when none of us were actually properly taught grammar.
Anyway, here are all the nominees — there are a lot of them. Be prepared.
BEST SOUND EDITING: SOUND EFFECTS AND FOLEY IN A FEATURE FILM
Drive
Fast Five
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: Costume Design Guild Nominations
Okay. The Costume Design Guild. Sister guild to the Lollipop Guild.
These categories are notoriously difficult to predict, for nominations, anyway. Simply because the Costume Design Guild separates their nominees into three separate categories, while Oscar only has one. So you need to gauge which films seem the strongest from all the nominees of the three sets and whittle it down to five.
But before we do that, let’s take a look at the nominees. First:
Excellence in Period Film
The Artist
The Help
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E. (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: Cinema Audio Society Nominations
Today is a big day for Oscars. As in, two sets of guild nominees were announced. They’re really not big categories, but there are two updates. So that’s something. I deliberately waited until after lunch to write these up to give me something to do.
That’s what work is — a series of scheduling things to do to occupy your brain power.
So anyway, first we’re going to deal with the Cinema Audio Society nominees. These are for sound mixing. The Sound Editors Guild is gonna announce at some other point (which I think may be tomorrow). Also, remember: Sound Mixing involves all the sounds created from scratch. Like, the clippity cloppity of horse hooves. That’s sound mixing. Sound editing is all the available stuff, like dialogue and music. right.
Okay, so here are your Cinema Audio Society nominees:
- Hanna
- Hugo
- Moneyball
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
- Super 8 (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: BAFTA Nominations
Oh boy, more awards!
I love BAFTA. They not only manage to hit most of the Oscar stuff every year, they also manage to be undeniably British every time. They will, without question or hesitation, vote for a British film or actor over the film or actor that is guaranteed to win Best Picture or Best Actor or whatever. On top of their “Best British Film” category. It’s amazing. In a way, that’s what they should be. Like, if you were the NAACP, I’d expect you to give your Best Film Award to something like Precious. You should. That’s why I love BAFTA.
Anyway, they announced their nominations today, and I haven’t even looked at them yet. I just saw that they were out and immediately came and wrote this introduction. We’re going to find out what the nominees are together: (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: American Cinema Editors Nominations
Best Editing is one of the most important categories at the Oscars. I don’t have the specific numbers in front of me (but I will when I do the category breakdowns), but it’s almost impossible for a film to win Best Picture without getting a Best Editing nomination. It doesn’t need to win, but it needs to be nominated. I’m pretty sure the last film to win Best Picture without a Best Editing nomination was Ordinary People. So this category is important.
Today, the American Society of Editors announced their nominations. Which goes a good bit of the way of predicting what will get nominations at the Oscars. Last year, they got 4 out of 5 films the same as the Oscar list, the only difference being that Inception was left off at the Oscars and 127 Hours went on. Which, to the more Oscar-savvy people, to us, meant that Inception had no chance at Best Picture. (Also, True Grit not receiving an editing nomination also meant the same thing.) 2009, they got 3 of 5 the same, and the differences were that ACE nominated Up in the Air and Star Trek, while the Oscars put on Inglourious Basterds and Precious, two strong Best Picture candidates. (This is how we knew Up in the Air was fading.) So the Editing category is really important. (For those trying to get into the whole Oscar thing, you just got your first major tip on how to sound like you really know what you’re doing.)
With that in mind, let’s look and see what ACE nominated for their film awards: (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: American Society of Cinematographers Nominations
Another semi-big day. The American Society of Cinematographers have announced their awards nominees today.
Cinematography is, to me, one of the top awards. When I think of the Oscar categories, the ones I’m most interested in, outside of Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress, the others are Screenplay (both of them), Cinematography and Editing. Those are really the top 10 categories. And then I’m also interested in Song and Score, but that’s the musical branch, and there’s a lot of compromise there. So, while they are interesting, and I do pay attention to them, they’re not exactly top categories. (Though, really, at this point, I’m interested in just about every category that isn’t Foreign Language Film, Documentary, and all the shorts that aren’t Animated Short.)
So, here are the ASC nominations, and these will help gauge — well, several things — for when nominations are announced in thirteen days:
- The Artist, Guillaume Schiffman
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Jeff Cronenweth
- Hugo, Robert Richardson
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Hoyte van Hoytema
- The Tree of Life, Emmanuel Lubezki (more…)
Oscars 2011 Update: Directors Guild Nominations
Now this – this is interesting.
Big day today. Next biggest thing to predicting the Oscars to the PGA nominations/winners are the DGA nominations/winners. When the DGA nominates directors, you can be damn sure Oscar will nominate at least four of them (unless the fifth director is Christopher Nolan).
So without any ado, here are the Directors Guild nominees for Best Director:
- Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
- David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
- Alexander Payne, The Descendants
- Martin Scorsese, Hugo (more…)
