(To see the results of last year’s Grouches, go here. To see the first Grouches, which also carries a significantly more complete version of my criteria, go here.) The Grouches are back this year to award last year’s films, although I’ve timed this up to be on a similar timeframe for the Oscars. (I got… Read More 3rd Annual Grouches: 2021 Movie Year Awards
This is not about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. For commentary on that historic moment, I’d be glad to direct you to this little place I know called “the rest of the Internet.” At my apartment, I was ready for the Oscars. I was able for the first time since the pandemic began to have… Read More I Watched the Worst Oscars Ceremony Ever
With the Oscars around the corner, I’m doing blurbs for each of this year’s Best Picture nominees in lieu of full reviews. (I don’t plan anything I do, so I’ve linked to ones with reviews already published…) I’ve ranked the films from best to worst below as a method of organization. Occasionally I’ll reference my… Read More 94th Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees, Ranked
To borrow a melody from Tom Lehrer: All the board members Hate the craft guilds And the craft guilds Hate the board members All the publicists Hate the press corps And we all hate ABC. That’s right, it’s now two weeks away from the Academy Awards, and we’re all tired of thinking about these movies… Read More The Worst Oscar Categories of the Expanded Nominee Era
In the spring of 2017, a friendly nimrod with good intentions and only a tyro’s understanding of, hem hem, cinema, decided he wanted to create a list of the top 100 American movies which would be better than the American Film Institute’s. While recognizing that he did not have the learning to make such a… Read More Which Movies Will Be on the Next AFI Top 100 List?
Before Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President David Rubin passed the baton to Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan to announce the Oscar nominees yesterday morning, he said something that caught my attention more than any nomination did. He said there were nearly 9,500 voting members of the Academy. First of all, 9,500… Read More Return to Five Best Picture Nominees
Another year of Oscar nominations, another year where I can’t do this as it’s happening because no one pays me to do this at my day job. So it goes. Thank you for reading me anyway! 1) The Power of the Dog is the front-runner for Best Picture, full stop. Many of your favorite movie… Read More 94th Academy Awards Nominations: Hastily Scribbled Thoughts
I have not seen Spider-Man: No Way Home. I do not know what happens in the movie outside of anything they show in a trailer. My guess is that I will not see No Way Home until it comes to my streaming or to my local library. All I know is that this movie has… Read More What We Talk About When We Talk About the Spider-Man: No Way Home Oscar Campaign
Here’s a fun game to play: try to find a ranking of directors which doesn’t have Alfred Hitchcock in the top five. I can tell you that out of sources that I find generally credible (even if I largely disagree with them), I haven’t been able to do so. In 2002, Sight and Sound polled… Read More Alfred Hitchcock Meta-Analysis
The first dead guy in this series! I’ll tell you what, it is shockingly difficult to find full lists ranking Stanley Kubrick’s filmography on the Internet, and without being more flippant, I really do think it’s because he’s been dead for years now. Many of my more reliable sites for this kind of business, like… Read More Stanley Kubrick Meta-Analysis
Seeing Things Secondhand 