The Great Oscar Baiter

Once again, I find myself asking you to forgive me for my extended absence. I’ve been rather busy with schoolwork, and- if I’m being perfectly honest- I just haven’t really had a whole lot of thoughts which were worth writing down. I can’t really imagine a worse time for an Oscar blogger to have writer’s block than during Oscar season, but there you are. Still, if there’s one thing I’ve had a lot of thoughts about, it’s the Academy’s bone-headed decision to present eight categories before the ceremony, off the air- including all three short categories.  (via Wikipedia) Every category more than deserves its proper due on Oscar night, but few films benefit from that air time more than the shorts. Excepting the animated shorts that might get played before a family film, the Oscars are easily the biggest audience these shorts get. It’s a chance for people to get a look at them and check out a film they might not otherwise be interested in. It’s for this same reason I was against the O...

The 94th Academy Awards are rapidly approaching, and the one question absolutely no one is asking is, “Who will win Best Original Song?” Because, I mean… it’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. Sure, Disney didn’t submit the surprise smash hit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno'' for nomination, but I don’t think that’s going to hold him back much, do you? But it might come as a surprise that there are four other songs nominated in that category this year. And in the spirit of the Oscars- namely taking works of art and arbitrarily declaring one to be better than the others- we’re going to rank them all from worst to best. Won’t that be fun? Well too bad, we’re doing it anyway! #5) "Somehow You Do"- Four Good Days You're probably familiar with the phrase, "Always a bridesmaid, and never a bride", and boy howdy does that phrase some up Diane Warren. This song marks her thirteenth Oscar nomination in over three decades, and it seems very unlikely that her unlucky streak's go...

All things considered, 2021 was a pretty damn good year for movies. I saw a lot of fantastic films over the past year, and I've still got plenty more to catch up on. Of course, just because a year is good for movies doesn't mean that the Oscars are going to reflect that. Far too often the Academy will overlook the truly great stuff released within a year in favor of a bunch of generic crap that no one will remember ten years on. But luckily, that largely doesn't seem to be the case with the 94th Academy Awards, at least from my perspective. (via Wikipedia) As always I'd like to start with a disclaimer about the movies from 2021 I haven't seen yet, and there are a lot of them! These include overlooked films like Titane and Passing, as well as contenders like CODA, Drive My Car, The Worst Person in the World, The Lost Daughter, Flee or Licorice Pizza. Hopefully I get the chance to catch up with some of these soon (or, in the case of movies already available on str...

If you’re anything like me- and if you’re on this blog, you and I probably have at least a little bit in common- you’re awaiting the upcoming Oscar nominations with bated breath. What’s going to happen? Who’s going to fill out those wild card Best Picture slots? Will the Academy be cooler than the Screen Actors Guild and nominate Kristen Stewart for fuck’s sake? And oh, what five songs will be nominated for Best Original Song? (Spoiler alert, it’ll probably be mostly end credits songs.) Still, as we look forward to the future, now is the time to gaze into the past. And what better way to do that than to take a look at the very first winner in the category’s history- The Gay Divorcee’s “The Continental.” (via Wikipedia) For those of you who haven't seen Mark Sandrich's The Gay Divorcee... well, you might want to get on that. The first official Astaire/Rogers musical (the two had appeared together in Flying Down to Rio, but they weren't the stars), this 1934 film pretty m...