Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

I can't help feeling everyone's jumped to assuming Freeman is going to be great simply because of subject matter. I just have an uneasy feeling about Invictus in general. I completely agree. The movie looks deathly boring, like a route genre film elevated beyond proportions. It wouldn't surprise me...

I guess I was being too hard on it. I think Clooney, Firth, and Freeman are all likely. Day-Lewis is always in the hunt. Renner should be but his role isn't the kind that usually gets nominated. And I'm convinced that The Road is going to bomb. That's four so I guess I should've phrased it differen...

Moviecitynews.com's Gurus of Gold have weighed in. This is where they rank the contenders. BEST PICTURE 1. Up in the Air (122) 2. Precious (119) 3. The Hurt Locker (92) 4. Invictus (89) 5. An Education (64) 6. Up (59) 7. Nine (54) 8. The Lovely Bones (38) 9. Inglourious Basterds (31) 10. A Serious ...

I'm especially pleased they have Matt Damon in their second group. Too many bloggers seem ready to dismiss him in favor of assorted unproven names . I can't believe a performance so widely praised, in a film that's matched Milk's gross (and outearned The Wrestler) would be tossed aside so easily. Y...

Summer Hours So effortlessly calculated in what some might refer to as "miniature" that you can leave the theater wondering if "that was all." What else is there really? It's about the past being too inconvenient to hang on to. What's sadder than that? It's expert in what to rev...

Let's not forget that the AARP gave Joan Plowright its best actress award for Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont and Reza gave her one his Oscar Shouldabeens for it. She won mine for Tea With Mussolini. Wow. It's been ten years since ANYONE has said anything at all about Tea with Mussolini. I wonder wha...

Running on Empty is a wonderful script that survives Sidney Lumet's perfunctory direction. The film screams out for Robert Mulligan. Both the beginning and the end of the film is emotionally devastating. I'm a little perplexed that it wasn't nominated for more Oscars, but 1988 was a pretty great ye...

I haven't seen 35 Shots of Rum. I wasn't in Los Angeles at the time. It looks rather lovely. I've heard The Intruder is impossible to get through on any level. Right now while I'll concede that Beau Travail is formally astonishing, it's also a little emotionally remote for me. It's a very good movi...

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis) - 6/10 It's Denis so it's full of pleasurable rhythms, but unlike Friday Night and Beau Travail it's quite often very dull. Especially in the middle half-hour before, well, let's just say lunch-time. Denis sets up character development that doesn't entirely matter e...