Matt vs. the Academy

Happy New Year! Awards season is beginning to ramp up and there are a lot of exciting titles in the running, barely any of which I've seen as yet. I did get the chance to watch Encanto  with my family the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it. No doubt we'll be hearing its name mentioned when the Best Animated Film nominations are announced. And with new films from Oscar-bait directors Anderson, Branagh, Campion, McKay, Scott and Spielberg, among many others, I'm looking forward to potentially adding some new favourites to my all-time list. For now, let's begin the new year with one more of 1935's Best Picture contenders... The Informer Director : John Ford Screenplay : Dudley Nichols (based on the novel by Liam O'Flaherty) Starring : Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford, Una O'Connor Academy Awards : 6 nominations 4 wins, including Best Director and Best Actor (McLaglen) It's 1922 in Dublin during the Iris...

The Emmys, television's equivalent to the Oscars, begins voting today to select its nominees. One of the perks of all the (tiny) parts I played  on American TV shows over the last few years is that I got to join the Television Academy, allowing me to vote in the Emmys. And oof, I thought it was difficult finding time to watch movies. The sheer volume of Emmy-eligible content is entirely overwhelming. It would be literally impossible to watch every episode of every show vying for a nomination, so if you have any recommendations of shows that I absolutely shouldn't miss, please help me whittle down my shortlist. Meanwhile, here's another picture in contention for the 1935 Best Picture Oscar... The Lives of a Bengal Lancer Director : Henry Hathaway Screenplay : Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah, Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt (suggested by the novel by Francis Yeats-Brown) Starring : Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, Guy Standing, C. Aub...

One of the things I miss about living in L.A. (and New York, for that matter) is the prevalence of revival cinemas. Being the home of Hollywood, there was never a shortage of film events to attend and I particularly loved going to see classic movies at the New Beverly and the Egyptian , among many others. The options in Sydney for this type of thing are limited at best, though with new movies relatively scarce in the last 12 months, many mainstream cinemas here have been adding older classics to their rosters, so there's perhaps a larger selection than usual right now. In my younger days, however, I lived near the spectacular  Orpheum , where I managed to see 70mm prints of Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia. I also saw midnight screenings of the original Star Wars trilogy at the Randwick Ritz , which, along with their current prolonged retrospectives of Charlie Chaplin, Pedro Almodovar and Nicole Kidman films, have several Bette Davis vehicles scheduled in the upcoming week...

This year's extended Oscar season finally wrapped up at the end of April and, while my prediction result was fairly average for me (17 correct out of 23 categories), my prediction about my predictions was pretty spot on. I figured I'd struggle with a few up-in-the-air categories and, indeed, I didn't succeed in the crap shoot that was the Best Actress race. I did, however, peg the similarly unpredictable Best Film Editing category, but that was essentially my only success from those unsettled races. On the other hand, I surmised that this might be the first time in six years I correctly identify the Best Picture winner, and that prophecy was indeed fulfilled, thanks to Nomadland. While we wait (a slightly shorter amount of time than usual) for the next Oscar season, let's take a look at another nominee from the Best Picture race of 1935... Les Misérables Director : Richard Boleslawski Screenplay : W.P. Lipscomb (based on the novel by Victor Hugo) Starring : Fredr...

Despite my lack of confidence in my nomination predictions, it was a fairly average showing for me in the end. Not my worst result, but certainly not my best, either. As for predicting the winners, this feels like one of the most up-in-the-air races for a long time. Even some top categories, like Film Editing and Original Song, are completely wide open with no obvious frontrunners. Then there's Best Actress, which could go in almost any direction. In fact, at least four of the nominated leading ladies could realistically win on Oscar night. This is honestly shaping up to be a very unpredictable ceremony. That said, despite all that unpredictability, Best Picture seems like it's Nomadland's to lose. Not since Birdman six years ago have I correctly picked the top prize, so this might be the year I finally make a successful prediction in this category. Mind you, upsets and surprises are Best Picture's specialty, so I probably shouldn't get too cocky. We'll find out...

We're nearing the home stretch of this extended awards season, so it's finally time for the Oscar nominations. Ahead of Monday's announcement, I've cobbled together my predictions of who will hear their name called out. And when I say "cobbled", I mean "cobbled". I haven't had the chance to see many of the contenders so far, so a lot of these predictions feel like stabs in the dark. Not to mention, BAFTA overhauled their voting procedures , which probably means they'll be less of a predictor than they usually are, making the prediction process that much more difficult. I've ended up relying quite heavily on the guilds for my picks, to the point that, in some cases, I've literally just matched the guild's choices precisely. We'll see how that pans out. Despite my lack of confidence this year, for posterity's sake, here are my predictions  for the 93rd Academy Award nominations.

I've managed to squeak in one more review before the end of the year, which is somewhat surprising since we're well and truly in the midst of the school holidays here in Australia. It's also usually about the time of year that awards season would be heating up, but with the delay of the Oscars ceremony by a couple of months, there's a strange feeling of limbo. Still, lots of Oscar bait movies have already been released with more to come, so I'll try to cover some of that in the coming weeks. For now, here's the next Best Picture contender from 1935... Captain Blood Director : Michael Curtiz Screenplay : Casey Robinson (based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini) Starring : Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson Academy Awards : 2 nominations 0 wins 17th-century physician Peter Blood (Flynn) is arrested for treating an enemy of the crown, bundled up with other rebels, and shipped to the...