Oscars 2018: My Nominations Ballot
If there’s one thing I’m very good at doing, it’s separating my subjectivity from my objectivity. Something I notice most people who talk or write about film are very poor at doing.
On Tuesday they’ll announce this year’s Oscar nominations. Tomorrow, I will write up what I think will be nominated. While that list is, to an extent, subjective in the sense that it’s what I think will be nominated, I’m not letting my personal preference dictate what I guess. But, since I am human and do have opinions, I allow today to be the day where I can voice them. So today’s all about what I would nominate, and tomorrow is about what I think will actually be nominated. You’d be surprised how many people allow their personal feelings dictate how they pick the Oscars. I get all that out now so I can just be honest about what I think is gonna happen, knowing it’s already clear where I stand on each of the films.
This article is basically — if I were somehow given a full ballot and told that I could put in nominations for every single category, what would I choose? Most of the time, it ends up being pretty close to what ends up being nominated, but I also will go off and select stuff I think was great that got no praise throughout the year. This year, I’m wondering how much my hands will be tied because of all the new shortlists they introduced. I guess we’ll see.
Here’s what my Oscar nominations ballot would look like: (more…)
Pic of the Day: “Jem.” “Yes, ma’am?” “I don’t know if it will help saying this to you… some men in this world are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us… your father is one of them.”
Oscars 2018: PGA Awards
The PGA Awards were last night. Green Book won Best Picture.
Roma had won BFCA. The Globe was split between Bohemian Rhapsody (Drama) and Green Book (Musical/Comedy).
I felt from the start that A Star Is Born wasn’t gonna have the legs to take everything down, so now here we are, with the two other seemingly “top” contenders starting to split all the awards.
Now we have to wait to see what BAFTA does, though I’m suspecting Roma takes that down. If Green Book wins there, then that might be a wrap. But I’m thinking the PGA didn’t go to Roma because they’re still not totally sold about that whole Netflix thing. I’m wondering if and how the Oscars will be different, but right now, you have to consider Green Book and Roma your two frontrunners.
I would automatically say it’s just Green Book, but you have to realize, two of the past three years the PGA was wrong (they had Big Short in 2015 and La La Land in 2016). So really it’s just gonna come down to what all your precursors are and the prevailing winds.
Plus, we still need nominations first on Tuesday. So let’s let those drop before we start proclaiming anything to be over.
Also of note, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? won in Documentary and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won for Animated, cementing those two’s statuses as frontrunners in their respective categories.
My Favorite Directorial Efforts of 2018
I post these lists every year. They’re coming late this year, mostly owing to the scheduling of the rest of the season. Shit happens. This will be the first one you get, because the next couple days are all Oscar nominations. And then I’ll do all the performances once those are done, and then after that it’s basically category preview time.
The point of these lists is the same as when I post the Underrated and Underseen films of the year — I just want people to discover cool stuff. I mean, sure, a lot of the time we’re all in agreement on what the best stuff is, but you might look at my list and see something you wouldn’t anywhere else. And then you seek that out and think, “That was really great. I gotta tell people about that.” That’s the goal. It’s all about seeing cool things and sharing cool things.
Today I’m going over the directorial efforts I loved. As I say, they’re in order, but they’re not really in order. The numbers don’t matter. I liked these efforts the most. And it’s just about what I liked, not about awards or anything else.
Here are my favorite directorial efforts of 2018: (more…)
The 2019 Film Release Calendar: Films Without Release Dates (M-Z)
New year, new movies.
I begin every new year by taking a look at what movies there are to come out. It helps me to be aware of stuff so I can actively track it throughout the year, and I think it’s helpful for most people who care about movies to at least be informed of what’s going on. Far too often do I talk to my friends who are casually into movies, and they have no idea what’s coming out or when the stuff they want to see is supposed to come out.
Of course, when I do something, I really do it, so instead of just a casual preview of the big 35 movies of the year, I go all out. You’re gonna get everything as it’s currently scheduled to come out, plus another 200 or so movies that are not dated but are finished and ready to come out, plus another 100 or so that I’ve been tracking from previous years. I dare to say that no one on the internet goes as deep into their coverage as I do.
Today we finish going over the films that do not, as of yet, have release dates. This year, I’ve folded all the 2018 holdovers into this list to make it easier. Just to get it all done at once. (more…)
Oscars 2018: MPSE Nominations
The Motion Picture Sound Editors announced their nominees today. Which is odd, because they previously said they would announce on Monday. Wonder if the fact that Oscar nominations are Tuesday had something to do with it. They did that shit last year too, where they announced day before Oscar nominations, which did nobody any good.
But anyway, here they are, three days early. Now I’ll be able to go into the weekend with every guild at my disposal. Which is good, since the Sound categories are always their own deep, dark woods.
Here are your MPSE nominees for 2018: (more…)
