Matt vs. the Academy

My time in LA is nearing an end, though I hope to sneak in at least one more review before I travel back to Sydney next week. In fact, maybe I can even watch two films in quick succession to round out this year of review in less than three weeks, something I haven't done in almost 10 years. That sounds like a challenge... Our next 1983 Best Picture Oscar nominee is... Terms of Endearment Director : James L. Brooks Screenplay : James L. Brooks (based on the novel by Larry McMurtry) Starring : Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow, Lisa Hart Carroll Academy Awards : 11 nominations 5 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (MacLaine), Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson) After her father dies, flighty Emma Greenway (Winger) struggles to deal with her stuffy and controlling mother Aurora (MacLaine) as they live together in suburban Houston. However, once she's old enough, Emma moves out to marry Flap (Danie...

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting the recently re-opened Vidiots , originally one of the most iconic video stores in 1980s LA, specialising in obscure and cult titles. Now, in the age of streaming, it's a non-profit organisation that complements its video rental services with regular screenings, many with filmmaker Q&As. I attended one such event in which editor Carol Littleton gave some fascinating insight into the film that is the subject of this post. So, let's continue our review of the Best Picture contenders from 1983 by discussing... The Big Chill Director : Lawrence Kasdan Screenplay : Lawrence Kasdan & Barbara Benedek Starring : Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams Academy Awards : 3 nominations 0 wins Seven close friends from college are reunited for the funeral of the eighth member of their group, Alex, who just committed suicide. Along with Alex's young girlfri...

Well, look at this. Thanks to the downtime I've had during this LA trip, this will be my third post in a week, a feat I haven't achieved in about 6 or 7 years. And there'll be more to come, too, as I prepare to attend a screening of one of the other nominees in this current review year. More on that in the next post. For now, we begin our look at the 1983 Best Picture contest with... Tender Mercies Director : Bruce Beresford Screenplay : Horton Foote Starring : Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley, Ellen Barkin, Allan Hubbard, Lenny von Dohlen, Paul Gleason Academy Awards : 5 nominations 2 wins, including Best Actor (Duvall) Ex-country singer Mac Sledge (Duvall) finds himself in a small town motel in remote Texas after a drunken binge. The widowed owner, Rosa Lee (Harper), takes pity on Mac and accepts his offer to work for her in exchange for room and board. The two soon fall for each other and later marry, but his idyllic new life is disrupte...

Yet another review year that I left to drag on for two years. In the time it took me to watch these five films, the Academy added another 20 to my list. Obviously, at this rate, I'll never finish this crazy assignment I've set myself. And after some quick calculations, I reached the sobering conclusion that even if I watch just one movie a week from now on, it'll still take me another eight years to finish. Well, I don't know if I'll be able to achieve that one-a-week rate consistently, but I'm certainly going to try to cram in as many viewings as I can during this current trip to LA. Anyway, enough moaning. Let's get into this current verdict. The nominees for Best Picture of 1991 are: Beauty and the Beast Bugsy JFK The Prince of Tides The Silence of the Lambs 1991's nominees are definitely an interesting bunch. I'm a proud movie buff, so like always, I enjoyed each of these films, despite recognising that perhaps some of these films m...

The dust has truly settled on another Oscar season, so let me wrap it up by noting the decidedly average result of my predictions. I correctly picked only 16 of the 23 winners this year. Mind you, I did exceedingly well with the major categories, nailing Picture, Director, both Screenplays and three out of the four acting awards. Emma Stone pipped Lily Gladstone at the post, it seems, and that was my lone error in the top eight categories. As I write this, I'm again in Los Angeles. I'm about to finish off this current year of review, which ironically began in this very city two years ago when I saw Bugsy on the big screen. Indeed, no visit to LA is complete without at least one trip to one of the many revival cinemas here, so I have my sights set on a few potential Best Picture nominees that are screening. For now, though, we come to the final movie in the 1991 Best Picture race... The Prince of Tides Director : Barbra Streisand Screenplay : Pat Conroy & Becky Johns...

Well, my Oscar nomination predictions turned out to be my worst showing in about ten years. On the plus side, I correctly picked all 10 Best Picture nominees, which seems like it should be worth something. I also aced Best Costume Design for the third year in a row ... I'm not sure what that says about me. Now, let's turn our attention to the winners. For the last couple of years, I've felt rather unsure about my picks due to a lack of clear frontrunners in most races. This year, however, most of the categories - particularly the big ones - seem unlikely to result in a surprise when the envelope is opened. Oppenheimer is almost certainly going to be mentioned a lot on Oscar night. I've pegged it for eight awards, which I'm fairly confident about, but it could even pick up one or two more. Three of the four acting races are essentially locks - Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey, Jr. and Da'Vine Joy Randolph. Only Best Actress is somewhat up in the air, with Emma Stone...

Time for me to put on my Nostradamus hat and see if I can predict who's going to wake up to an Oscar nomination on Tuesday morning. Only 24 hours to go! This year has been a strange one to predict. There's a small handful of films that have dominated my picks, which always makes me nervous. I've included the same four films in eight different categories and three of those films are together in a further three categories. In total, I've cited Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon and Poor Things 13 times each, followed closely by Barbie with 11 nods. Such domination by such a small selection of movies seems unlikely to come to fruition, but then again, lots of things have been changing over the last few years, so you never know.  In any case, for better or worse, here are my predictions for the nominations of the 96th Academy Awards .