After describing the plot to Lady Bird to a coworker and declaring it the best film I’ve seen this year, she asked me: “Why?”
Why. The short answer: it’s the type of film that I would want to write for the world.
Tag Archives: Oscars
2016 stand outs: first quarter
The first quarter of 2016 had a lot of standout moments in pop culture. Here are a few of the shows, books, films, music, and moment
Here are the standouts of pop culture from January 1 through March 31, 2016.
Gut reaction picks: 88th Annual Academy Awards
This year’s Oscar nominations were announced, and they featured a few surprises. Here are my gut reactions to the major awards. I doubt any of my personal favorites will win this year. That’s vastly different than last year when my favorites basically all won their category.
87th Oscar votes
A few days ago I ranked all of my favorite nominees without saying much about the choice. Well, a few coworkers and I were discussing who might win this weekend and we all made our cases for our favorite films. I’m going to do the same here. Don’t consider this a “who will win” post, but why I would vote a certain way if I even had a vote.
My favorite 87th Oscar nominees
Of the 17 films nominated for major awards (Best Picture, Director, all four acting, and two screenplays), I have yet to see four. Time just caught up with me, but I’ll see them eventually. Regardless, I have ranked the films in each category by my favorite to least favorite. Nominees I haven’t seen have been marked with an asterisk.
These are by no means my official betting picks. However, they come close. That post will come later.
The statistical best Best Picture
There are a lot of arbitrary lists out there giving a ‘definitive’ ranking of the best, and even worst, Best Picture winners. Some of these boil down strictly to preference. A lot take a look at the dominant field they won against. For instance, there was a big hoopla over Crash winning the Oscar in 2005 over the heavily favorited Brokeback Mountain. Especially considering it wasn’t even nominated for a Golden Globe. Then there was Shakespeare in Love‘s win over Saving Private Ryan. How could that be possible? Then there are lists that just say a year was weak and a subpar film had to walk away with the award.
There are so many ways to give a ranking about the Best Picture winners, but I’m going to look at it by the numbers. Every year whichever film gets the most nominees becomes a focal point of the Oscar season. The most nominations means the best film, right? Well there are plenty of years where the most nominated film doesn’t walk away with Best Picture. Especially if it is a year like this year where two Best Picture frontrunners – Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel – lead the field with nine. So you’ll notice that the most nominations doesn’t necessarily equal Best Picture. Look at last year when American Hustle was shut out of winning despite having the most nominations.
I made a series of charts looking at the past twenty five Best Picture winners. The charts include the total awards they won, including Best Picture, and how many more they were nominated for. You’ll notice the most nominations and most wins both belong to Titanic with fourteen total nominations and eleven wins. In theory Titanic could be considered the best Best Picture winner. Then there are films like The Silence of the Lambs which had seven nominations with only seven wins, but those five wins are the major five awards that only two other films swept as well (both prior to my twenty five year cut off). Maybe that’s the best Best Picture.
Anyway, like I said: these lists are arbitrary, but you can take a look at the stats and decide if any of this is even worth exploring.
Using statistics to predict this year’s Oscars
There’s a lot to be said about the precursors to the Academy Awards. The Golden Globes are fun with a lot of glitz and glamour, but often don’t tip off who would get the Oscar a month later all too well. The Screen Actors Guild and, to a certain extent, the Producers Guild of America Awards tend to be a good indicator of the acting categories and even Best Picture award at the Oscars.
So, let’s take a look at what this weekend’s wins statistically tell us. First, the Oscar nominees for Best Picture and all four acting categories.
87th Academy Awards Nominations Reaction
Tomorrow I’ll be posting my predictions for the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, which is a big indicator for the Oscars. But today I’ll look at who was nominated and give my immediate, brief reactions. There were a few surprises, and a quite a bit of obvious choices.
The Grand Budapest (somewhat surprisingly) and Birdman (not so surprisingly) came away with the most nominations with nine each. Close behind was The Imitation Game with eight. At first I was shocked that Boyhood only came away with six nods, but then I realized that it was nominated for all of the major awards it was predicted to get nods in (film, director, both supporting roles, screenplay) and then got a final one in film editing, which I don’t predict.
‘The Skeleton Twins’ reviewed
The Skeleton Twins wasn’t the best film I’ve seen this year, but it may be tied for the most influencing (Boyhood being the other). I jokingly said that I was about to watch the Adam and Ashley Story, joking that the two leads mirror the lives that my sister and I are currently in the middle of navigating. Take away a few plot points and get right down to the thematic basis for the characters and that’s what I mean.
Personal picks for the Oscars
You’ll learn to understand that critics have to separate their personal favorites with actual “bests.” For instance: Harry Potter is perhaps by favorite book series, but they may not be the best books I have ever read. Usually, when it comes to the Oscars, I try to pick the winners. Who the Academy will vote for. Not this time. I’ve went ahead and ranked every single major category (except a few that I didn’t see any of the nominees, like Documentary) from my personal favorite to my least favorite. This isn’t to say the film/actor in last place wasn’t good. Just not a favorite.
ADAM VITCAVAGE 