Pic of the Day: “I mean, fuck, we’re here to have a good time. I just wanna have a good time, until this shit’s over, man. This life’s gig a fucking rodeo and I’m gonna suck the nectar and fucking rawdog it till the wheels come off.” (5th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand what makes you do these crazy, twisted things.” (80th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “I was wrong to treat you that way. I’m sorry…” “See? Now you respect me, because I’m a threat. That’s the way it works. Turns out there are lots of people, whole countries, that want respect, and will pay through the nose to get it. How do you think I got rich? I invented weapons, and now I have a weapon that only I can defeat, and when I unleash it… Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You got me monologuing! I can’t believe it.” (20th Anniversary)
96th Academy Awards Recap
Okay, another year in the books. We are somehow creeping ever closer to the eventual 100th Oscars, and I’m sure they’re gonna go all out for those. But for these — pretty much everyone saw what was gonna happen ahead of time and there weren’t any real surprises. Most years, a ‘surprise’ is something winning out of nowhere. This year, it’s ‘oh, this alternate beat the other nominee we figured was probably going to win’. The biggest surprise was “oh wow, Zone of Interest won Sound.” Or, for me, “They went with Emma Stone over Lily Gladstone” and “Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Verse.” Both things that seemed very likely, but neither of which seemed like something that was guaranteed to happen. Otherwise, pretty straightforward all the way through and nothing really to mention from a winners standpoint.
But I will say — the production this year of the actual telecast was superb. They finished early. 3 1/2 hours is the norm, and they nailed it. They were moving, they found ways to make things interesting. The bits in between categories worked. They did a fantastic job with the actual show portion this year (and bumping it an hour earlier was also a tremendously smart choice. I hope that continues in the future).
So yeah. That’s that. Let’s recap how it all went. (more…)
The B+ Oscar Ballot: Guide to the 96th Academy Awards
Here we are again. Another year, another Oscars.
One thing I really liked about this year is that there’s a consensus about the nominees. Most people seem to generally feel like the Academy got it right. You can quibble about a few specific categories and nominations and omissions, but overall, the films that got the majority of the nominations are largely ones everyone agrees are very good films. And it’s rare to have that kind of unanimity for an Oscar year.
The downside to that unanimity is that it typically leads to a feast or famine type of year, with films being either wholly embraced or wholly rejected. I don’t know if we’re gonna get that smorgasbord of films winning like we have in recent years. But that’s why we do the analysis, to see what’s actually gonna happen.
I will say the thing I say every year — I’m not doing this anymore to see how well I can guess. I, of course, want to get everything right, but the end goal for me is more to see how accurately I can pick apart each category to predict how well things are going to go. To me, having the film I chose as the secondary choice beating the first choice is almost as good as getting it right. I’m okay if the analysis is correct and I just got beat. I’m just here to try to help everyone else do as well on their ballots as they possibly can.
Now let’s see how well we can do this year. (more…)
Pic of the Day: “Every Midsummer we have this dance competition and the winner gets crowned, in this.” (5th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Just a moment, Mary Poppins. What is the meaning of this outrage?” “I beg your pardon?” “Will you be good enough to explain all this?” “First of all, I would like to make one thing quite clear.” “Yes?” “I never explain anything.” (60th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “And cut! Print. We’re moving on. That was perfect.” “Perfect? Mr. Wood, do you know anything about the art of film production?” “Well, I like to think so.” “That cardboard headstone tipped over. This graveyard is obviously phony.” “Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It’s about the big picture.” “The big picture?” “Yes.” “Then how ’bout when the policemen arrived in daylight, but now it’s suddenly night?” “What do you know? Haven’t you heard of suspension of disbelief?” (30th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “She worked for me, slaved for me. Always thought of me first. Never of herself.” (90th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Miss Lora, you don’t know what it means to be… different…” (65th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “Once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future.” (10th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “You are what I thought America was – what I meant when I prayed with little Janka.” “And, as in my own small way I help here in the shipyards, I hope I may be worthy of her words, just as each night I pray that always I may be worthy of those other thrilling words… the first time and every time since that you’ve said, ‘I love you.'” (80th Anniversary)
Pic of the Day: “How could you do this to me? On national television!” “Well, throw me a freakin’ bone here, Scott!” “Why did you run out on me?” “Because you’re not quite evil enough. Well it’s true! It’s true! You’re semi-evil. You’re quasi-evil. You’re the margarine of evil. You’re the Diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie, not evil enough.” (25th Anniversary)
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