Cinema and Popcorn

Is Ben Affleck 's " Air " the first Oscar contender of the upcoming season?  Early reactions have been quite enthusiastic about Affleck's latest directorial effort - a crowd-pleaser that has actually a higher message to deliver. Amazon has decided to give it a wide theatrical release in the U.S. while Warner Bros. was granted the international distribution rights, which means Air is no lesser picture at the eyes of studios. In fact, Amazon Studios has failed to generate a big awards contender ever since Manchester By the Sea back in 2016 - of course Ladj Ly's Les Misérables (2020), Cold War (2019) and The Salesman (2017) were Best Foreign Language Academy Awards nominees (with The Salesman even winning), but afar from these three and I Am Not Your Negro and The Big Sick (both scored 1 Oscar nom), Amazon Studios hasn't had a big awards hit a long time ago. Is it a bad sign for Ben Affleck's Air ? Or is it a good sign for Amazon? Air closed this year...

Now that one week has passed since Everything Everywhere All At Once 's triumph at the 95th Oscars, it's time to set what awaits us this cinematic year. Personally, I must admit I am particularly excited about Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 or the soon to be released Ben Affleck's Air (but it's kinda of a "too close" release to be considered in this post). Scream VI , Creed III and Knock at the Cabin would also make very deserving picks but they have already been released - in fact it is an exciting year in terms of early releases. So, what makes a movie highly antecipated? Well, I would say the amount of talent involved. Many great movies have a lot of award potential that might (or might not) materialize considering multiple factors: from distribution to campaign priorities, a movie's award recognition can be too much of a "marketing thing". Still, I picked what I consider to be the most interesting and potentially greatest movies of the ...

A24's Everything Everywhere All At Once was the big winner of the 95th Oscars - and the biggest winner in years! It took home a total of 7 golden statuettes - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Yeoh), Best Supporting Actress (Curtis), Best Supporting Actor (Quan), Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing (Rogers) - out of its 11 nominations. I believe it will be remembered as one of the best Oscar triumphs in cinematic history! In fact, A24 also took home Best Actor (Fraser, The Whale ) and Best Makeup & Hairstyling ( The Whale ), while Netflix also had a strong showing with All Quiet On the Quiet Front winning 4 Oscars (Best International Film, Best Cinematography and the "upsets" Best Original Score and Best Production Design), while The Elephant Whisperers took Best Documentary Short and Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio won Best Animated Feature - what an accomplishment! So, it seems the Academy likes to nominate critically raved movies, but voters do...

We are days away from the big Oscars night and it's time to publish my final winner predictions for each category. My picks were based not only in the movies' performance during the precursor awards and, specially, the guild awards and BAFTA, but also based on the general conception around the movie since every voter votes for every category, which means that each winner is the result of a consensus of all branches. So, have a look: So, as you can see I expect a big night for Everything Everywhere All At Once for not only taking home Best Picture but also for being the movie with most wins ( 5 total ), followed by Elvis ( 4 wins ) and then All Quiet On the Western Front and Top Gun: Maverick ( 2 wins each). So, no sweeps here... I believe the Academy voters will continue with the "spread the wealth" thinking they've adopted these recent years - in fact, I believe they will be kind with EEAAO in the above the line categories and then manage to give an Oscar he...

So... it's that time of the year where we have to align expectations, put wishful thinking aside and look at the stats/facts as we should. The end of a precursor awards season means everything's set for the Best Picture race at the Oscars and this year's scenario is quite interesting: BAFTA went for a German-speaking war drama All Quiet On the Western Front (which happens to be also a technical marvel), the Golden Globes went for Spielberg's The Fabelmans (Motion Picture - Drama) and Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin (Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical), which also won Best British Film at the BAFTA. National Board of Review is not a quite reliable indicator, but it named Top Gun: Maverick the Best Film of the year (which only matched the Best Picture winner 2 times in the last 23 years!), a box-office phenomenon that did great in the tech categories and with audiences. But the guilds went all the way for Everything Everywhere All At Once - PGA, DGA,...

The EE BAFTA Film Awards took place last Sunday (February 19) at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and it didn't bring that much clarity in terms of Oscar predictions. In fact, I must say I consider BAFTA went mostly for the "challengers", while it also carried All Quiet On the Western Front to the top seats of many categories. The German-speaking anti-war movie took home 7 trophies, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Film Not in English Language, besides Best Adapted Screenplay - is Netflix Best Picture Oscar closer than we expect? BAFTA Awards are a reliable Oscar indicator, specially in terms of wins. The Brits clearly loved All Quiet On the Western Front - the movie is splendid, indeed - but is this win also a political message? A movie about the horrors of war, about the lives lost, about how pointless it can be! Could the AMPAS go the same way? The 1930's adaptation took home Best Picture and Best Director back in the time when the Nazi regime was trivi...