Awards Season Heats Up

Posted on January 11, 2015 at 8:00 am

This is the week when we start seeing things come together as we get ready for the biggest awards night in the world of movies, the Oscars, coming up on February 22, 2015. Tonight is the Golden Globes. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are hosting, no one takes it too seriously, and the tables are well-supplied with liquor, which means it will be the most fun. They also give out a lot of awards — television and movies, with separate categories for drama and comedy/musical.Presenters include: Jack Black, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Duchovny, Colin Farrell, Katie Holmes, Jared Leto, Julianna Margulies, Melissa McCarthy, Sienna Miller, Clive Owen, Paul Rudd, Naomi Watts, Oprah Winfrey Amy Adams, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Jamie Dornan, Robert Downey Jr., Anna Faris, Colin Firth, Jane Fonda, Harrison Ford, Ricky Gervais, Bill Hader, Kevin Hart, Salma Hayek, Katherine Heigl, Kate Hudson, Dakota Johnson, Adam Levine, Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, Seth Meyers, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Pratt, Jeremy Renner, Meryl Streep, Channing Tatum, Lily Tomlin, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones. I’ll be posting my thoughts on the high and low points and any surprises tomorrow.

Thursday morning, we get the Oscar nominations. There will be a few hours to pore over the nods and snubs, and then Thursday night is my favorite awards show, the Critics Choice Awards, and I’ll be attending in person. Our host is Michael Strahan and all the stars will be there. I like the the Critics Choice Awards because the critics see all the films that come out each year, not just the ones the studios are supporting by sending out screener DVDs, so we have the best sense of the range of candidates and the most objectivity, too, as we are not a part of the industry. Plus it is our 20th anniversary broadcast and the show will be a lot of fun. So be sure to tune in Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 9 Eastern to see us at the Hollywood Palladium, to see us pay tribute to the films and performances that moved, inspired, entertained, and thrilled us in 2014.

Related Tags:

Awards

A Last Look Back at 2014: YouTube

Posted on December 31, 2014 at 3:48 pm

Christopher Orr’s 2014 Movie Round-Up

Posted on December 31, 2014 at 10:11 am

If I were going to make a top ten list of movie top ten lists, Christopher Orr‘s would be number one. I love reading his end-of-year pieces in The Atlantic. The best of the year list is just the beginning. Then he goes into a brilliant examination of the year through a series of hilarious categories. This year’s best include:

Best Use of a 10cc Song: “I’m Not in Love,” Guardians of the Galaxy
Runner-up: “Dreadlock Holiday,” Life of Crime

Best Batman: Will Arnett, The Lego Movie
Best Alfred: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, The Trip to Italy

Trends of the Year: Ironically self-conscious sequels (22 Jump Street, Muppets Most Wanted), drum solos (Birdman, Whiplash), Tilda Swinton in terrifying makeup (Snowpiercer, The Grand Budapest Hotel), Jason Reitman making awful movies (Labor Day; Men, Women & Children), final-act defenestrations (Birdman, Ida), tragic marital outcomes for Sienna Miller (Foxcatcher, American Sniper)

What Did We Search For in 2014?

Posted on December 30, 2014 at 3:45 pm

Related Tags:

Internet, Gaming, Podcasts, and Apps

2014 in Film: Best, Worst, and More

Posted on December 29, 2014 at 4:20 pm

Ten is an arbitrary number, a year is an arbitrary span of time, and it makes no sense at all to try to rank movies that are so different in concept, genre, and aspiration. Nevertheless, as I always say when the topic of ten best lists comes up, they are, to quote Jan Struther, “indefensible but irresistible.” So, here I am, and here is my list. As usual, I have one at the top and then every other title on the list is tied for second place.

The best film of the year is “Selma,” brilliant in every category — as history, as drama, as biography, as advocacy. And it could not be more timely.

Runners-up:

Boyhood
Birdman
Guardians of the Galaxy
Life Itself
Belle
Dear White People
The Boxtrolls
The Book of Life
The Theory of Everything

Honorable Mention: Pride, Top Five, Rosewater, The Imitation Game, A Most Violent Year, Tracks, The LEGO Movie, Beyond the Lights, Begin Again, Snowpiercer, Wild, Whiplash, Only Lovers Left Alive, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Love is Strange, Gone Girl, Coherence, The One I Love, Believe Me, Under the Skin

Deserved a larger audience: Beyond the Lights, Edge of Tomorrow

Outstanding Documentaries: Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, Finding Vivian Maier, Particle Fever, CitizenFour, 1971, The Unknown Known

A good year for grown-up romance: Words and Pictures, Begin Again, Beyond the Lights, Only Lovers Left Alive, Love is Strange

A great year for movies about food: Luscious meals were the real stars of the delicious Chef, Le Chef, 1000 Foot Journey, The Trip to Italy, and The Lunchbox

Breakthrough performers: Chris Pratt, Rosamund Pike, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ben Schnetzer (two films each), also Nelsan Ellis, Jack O’Connell, Jillian Bell

A great year for heroes who were smart: Big Hero 6, Theory of Everything, Interstellar, Imitation Game

A great year for animation: The LEGO Movie, The Boxtrolls, The Book of Life, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Penguins of Madagascar

Great live-action family films: Dolphin Tale 2, Muppets Most Wanted, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

And the Hall of Shame, the year’s most excruciatingly, painfully bad films:

Blended, Left Behind, Irreplaceable, A Million Ways to Die in the West, The Other Woman, Transcendence, Sabotage, Tammy, Labor Day, Dumb and Dumber To, The Identical, Neighbors, The Nut Job, Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, Third Person