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Oscar Rankings: The Final Rankings (Before The Nominations)

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Jan 20th 2011 2:00PM
Filed under: Movie News, Awards, Cinematical

And it has come down to this. The final week before the Oscar nominations. The major guilds have weighed in. The two most corrupt precursors have handed out their awards in hopes that Oscar will match and therefore increase their relevancy. Those of us at Sundance who care enough will be setting their alarm clocks for 5:30 in the AM to watch the nomination announcement live on Tuesday, Jan. 25. And wouldn't you know it, but the dang Brits have thrown a wrinkle into our final guesstimations.

True it only affects a couple of categories, but who knows what devious devices exist within the heart of a voter looking to defy studio campaigning. And who knows what the final nominations will look like. Perhaps yours truly.
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Oscar Rankings: Directors Name Five, Leave Five Up For Grabs

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Jan 12th 2011 9:00PM
Filed under: Movie News, Awards, Cinematical


The Directors Guild of America completed the big trilogy of Guild nominations this week in an attempt to give us a better idea of what and whom may be in line for a shot at Oscar. Unfortunately with the expansion to ten Best Pictures last year, the DGA now basically confirms five of the six or seven films we already figured to be locks. So congrats again to 'The Social Network', 'Inception', 'Black Swan', 'The King's Speech' and 'The Fighter' on their Best Picture nods.

It seems that the fun in Oscar prognostication now is not guessing what will be the five films up for the top prize, but what the other five films will be. Oh, how we love a challenge. Thankfully we still have the old five-nominee categories to kick around a bit. And that includes the challenge of figuring out which of the DGA's choices will still be competing come January 25th. So with Oscar ballots due on the 12th, let's break down how we arrived at this week's rankings...
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Oscar Rankings: Producers & Writers Shake Things Up ... A Little

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Jan 6th 2011 6:30PM
Filed under: Oscar News, Awards, Cinematical


Two of the top three guilds to keep an eye on announced their nominees this week. Producers and Writers alike listed their favorites of 2010 - or, at least, the ones that were not disqualified from contention. Not a whole lot of surprises from the Producers' side of things. With 'Winter's Bone' being left off their list of ten, the chances for a Best Picture nomination increased for many of the usual suspects including '127 Hours,' 'Black Swan,' 'The Fighter,' 'Inception,' 'The Kids Are All Right,' 'The King's Speech,' 'The Social Network,' 'Toy Story 3' and 'True Grit' and boosting the chances for Ben Affleck's 'The Town.'

Last year in their first opportunity to outdo the Broadcast Film Critics Association's yearly prediction-laden selection of ten nominees, the PGA came up in a draw revealing eight of the eventual ten Best Picture nominees. Their 'District 9' & 'Star Trek' replaced the BFCA's early-bird pick of 'Nine' when people were still speculating it as a contender. (Both missed with Clint Eastwood's 'Invictus'.) This year, the quick look at the PGA selections suggest they may do themselves one better. General consensus says that they probably have at least nine of the ten in the bag. Whether it will be '127 Hours', 'The Kids Are All Right' or 'The Town' to fall off in favor of 'Winter's Bone' or something else (if at all) is anyone's guess. Which brings us to the WGA.
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Oscar Rankings: Let's Get Technical

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Dec 29th 2010 6:30PM
Filed under: Awards, Cinematical


As 2010 comes to a close, we are also past the first phase of awards season. The critics' groups have (mostly) finalized their choices and we are now heading into "guild territory." Victors from the Golden Globes and Broadcast Film Critics Association are not going to tell us anything we don't already know about who might earn an Oscar nomination -- unless, of course, they award one of the underdogs like Michael Douglas or the couple from 'Blue Valentine.' Nope, it's the guilds that will begin thinning the herd next week, producers first. 8 of their 10 nominees last year were up for Oscar, minus 'Invictus' and 'Star Trek' (replaced by 'A Serious Man' and 'The Blind Side'). The consensus on the eight this year appear to be 'Black Swan,' 'The Fighter,' 'Inception,' 'The King's Speech,' 'The Social Network,' 'Toy Story 3,' 'True Grit,' and 'Winter's Bone.' The following five will likely battle it out for the final two slots: '127 Hours,' 'Blue Valentine,' 'How To Train Your Dragon,' 'The Kids Are All Right,' 'Rabbit Hole,' and 'The Town'.

You can find those rankings and the rest of Big Eight categories here, but what about the pesky technical categories and all the rest? Critics groups vary when including them in their annual awards. So before we get into the real nitty-gritty of the guild numbers, let us see where these categories rank and which are likely to bump up the nomination totals we see splashed across newspapers and commercials.
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Chicago & Ten Other Critics Groups Shed Light on Oscar Rankings

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Dec 26th 2010 3:00PM
Filed under: Awards, Cinematical



Since last week's first Oscar rankings on Cinematical, another eleven critics' groups have announced their annual winners. Austin, Dallas, Detroit, Florida, Houston, Las Vegas, London, Oklahoma, St. Louis, and Utah have all come through with their final choices. As did the Chicago Film Critics Association (of which I am a member), whose 22nd Annual Awards came through on Monday. Alone, their victors and nominees post pretty decent numbers in matching up the final nominees. But combined with the nominees from the Screen Actors Guild and the easily influenced (yet somehow still influential) Golden Globes and Broadcast Film Critics Association, it usually begins to help locking in the inevitable and positioning the fringe players. Will it do so this year?

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Movie Ads: The Worst Puns Of 2010

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Dec 21st 2010 6:00PM
Filed under: Features, Cinematical



On the Nov. 29 episode of 'The Daily Show', Jon Stewart dedicated a segment to various newscasters using the most deadly of segues to introduce their stories -- the pun. It was a glorious thrashing of cheap writing -- some of which outlined serious subject matter -- designed to make its mouthpieces appear clever. Except nobody looks clever delivering a pun without the wink-wink of its ridiculousness.

The film criticism side of journalism just waved goodbye to "The King of the Pun", Gene Shalit, who left 'The Today Show' just a few weeks before the above episode aired. Where would the medium be today without films like 'Blood Diamond' being referred to as "a gem of a movie," or that 'Bee Movie' "is an A"? Probably better off. Especially since Shalit's brand of criticism is not dead yet, since we can see in 2010 that it's flourishing all too often.
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Globe Voters Enjoy Vegas Vacation Before 'Burlesque' Gets Nominated

By Erik Childress (Subscribe to Erik Childress's posts), Posted Dec 20th 2010 12:40PM
Filed under: Movie News, Golden Globes News, Awards, Cinematical

When the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their list of nominees last week for their annual Golden Globes cocktail party, they drew almost unanimous shock for their selections in the "comedy / musical" department. Out were options like 'Cyrus,' 'Get Low,' 'Four Lions,' 'Easy A,' and 'The Other Guys.' In were the likes of 'Alice In Wonderland,' 'Burlesque,' and 'The Tourist.' Yes, really.

Now get this: According to Guy Adams at The Independent, Sony Pictures flew members of the HFPA to Las Vegas for a last minute pitch for 'Burlesque' (put out by their Screen Gems division). The package included "luxury hotel accommodations, free meals and a private concert performed by the film's star, Cher." The film then went on to receive three Golden Globe nominations including the aforementioned Best Picture nod and two for Best Original Song, one of them performed in the film by ... Cher.
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