The 85th Academy Awards: Final Predictions

Here we are at least! After months of high profile releases, critic and guild awards, and tons of speculation over nominees and potential winners, the awards season reaches its dramatic finish tonight with the best of the best, the 85th Annual Academy Awards. All season long we’ve been asking question after question – will Argo take Best Picture? Can anyone stop Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway? Who will win Best Director? Will Tommy Lee Jones or Christoph Waltz take Best Supporting Actor? Will Seth MacFarlane be one of the funniest Oscar hosts? – and tonight all questions will be answered and a handful of actors and movies will join Oscar history along side some of the best movies ever made. With the big show just hours away, here are our final Oscar predictions for all of the major categories; Who do you think will be walking with golden statues tonight?

OSCAR TALK: Best Picture (PODCAST)

Well folks, here we are at last! After months of high profile releases, critic and guild awards, and tons of speculation over nominees and potential winners, the awards season reaches its dramatic finish this Sunday with the best of the best, the 85th Annual Academy Awards. All season long we’ve been asking question after question – will Argo take Best Picture? Can anyone stop Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway? Who will win Best Director? Will Tommy Lee Jones or Christoph Waltz take Best Supporting Actor? Will Seth MacFarlane be one of the funniest Oscar hosts? – and Sunday all our questions will be answered and a handful of actors and movies will join Oscar history along side some of the best movies ever made. To celebrate, our critics are breaking down the major categories all week long in a special series of podcasts we like to call, OSCAR TALK. With the big show just hours away, join Zack Sharf, James Hausman, and Mike Murphy as they discuss the most prestigious category of the night, BEST PICTURE, and then join in on the conversation with your Oscar predictions in the comments section. Who do you think will win? Let’s have an OSCAR TALK…

OSCAR TALK: Best Director (PODCAST)

Well folks, here we are at last! After months of high profile releases, critic and guild awards, and tons of speculation over nominees and potential winners, the awards season reaches its dramatic finish this Sunday with the best of the best, the 85th Annual Academy Awards. All season long we’ve been asking question after question – will Argo take Best Picture? Can anyone stop Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway? Who will win Best Director? Will Tommy Lee Jones or Christoph Waltz take Best Supporting Actor? Will Seth MacFarlane be one of the funniest Oscar hosts? – and Sunday all our questions will be answered and a handful of actors and movies will join Oscar history along side some of the best movies ever made. To celebrate, our critics are breaking down the major categories all week long in a special series of podcasts we like to call, OSCAR TALK. With 2 days to go, join Zack Sharf, James Hausman, and Mike Murphy as they discuss the most competitive category of the night, BEST DIRECTOR, and then join in on the conversation with your Oscar predictions in the comments section. Who do you think will win? Let’s have an OSCAR TALK…

OSCAR TALK: Original/Adapted Screenplay (PODCAST)

Well folks, here we are at last! After months of high profile releases, critic and guild awards, and tons of speculation over nominees and potential winners, the awards season reaches its dramatic finish this Sunday with the best of the best, the 85th Annual Academy Awards. All season long we’ve been asking question after question – will Argo take Best Picture? Can anyone stop Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway? Who will win Best Director? Will Tommy Lee Jones or Christoph Waltz take Best Supporting Actor? Will Seth MacFarlane be one of the funniest Oscar hosts? – and Sunday all our questions will be answered and a handful of actors and movies will join Oscar history along side some of the best movies ever made. To celebrate, our critics are breaking down the major categories all week long in a special series of podcasts we like to call, OSCAR TALK. With 5 days to go, join Zack Sharf, James Hausman, and Mike Murphy as they discuss which films should take Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, and then join in on the conversation with your Oscar predictions in the comments section. Who do you think will win? Let’s have an OSCAR TALK….

OSCAR TALK: Best Editing/Cinematography/Score (PODCAST)

Well folks, here we are at last! After months of high profile releases, critic and guild awards, and tons of speculation over nominees and potential winners, the awards season reaches its dramatic finish this Sunday with the best of the best, the 85th Annual Academy Awards. All season long we’ve been asking question after question – will Argo take Best Picture? Can anyone stop Daniel Day-Lewis and Anne Hathaway? Who will win Best Director? Will Tommy Lee Jones or Christoph Waltz take Best Supporting Actor? Will Seth MacFarlane be one of the funniest Oscar hosts? – and Sunday all our questions will be answered and a handful of actors and movies will join Oscar history along side some of the best movies ever made. To celebrate, our critics are breaking down the major categories all week long in a special series of podcasts we like to call, OSCAR TALK. With 6 days to go, join Zack Sharf, James Hausman, and Mike Murphy as they discuss which films should take Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Score, and then join in on the conversation with your Oscar predictions in the comments section. Who do you think will win? Let’s have an OSCAR TALK….

“ARGO”: Frontrunner Frustrations

Another day. Another major victory for Ben Affleck’s Argo. Surprised? Honestly, at this point, no one should be. After premiering to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Argo immediately became the year’s early frontrunner for the Oscar for Best Picture, a position it seemed to solidify when it opened strongly on October 12th and grossed an outstanding $19 million during its first weekend (a remarkable total for an international thriller). In the months that followed, Argo seemed to take a back seat in the awards race as Oscar-ready pictures like Lincoln, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty and Les Miserables stormed the box office with giant grosses and, for the most part, extreme critical praise. And yet, these films were only temporary frontrunners – mere distractions – for once the award season began it was clear that Argo had never really given up its seat to any of the other contenders. Now, after taking the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the BFCA for Best Picture, plus earning top honors from the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild, and the Producers Guild, Argo is destined for glory come Oscar night; seriously, if it doesn’t win Best Picture it will be the biggest Oscar upset since Crash dethroned Brokeback Mountain in 2006. All of this brings me to the main question of this article: Is anyone else as frustrated as I am about Argo winning Best Picture? Anyone??

SAG Awards: Competition Revs Up For Oscar Night

Another night, another prestigious awards show. In the crux of award season, it seems that every other day brings a new batch of winners and losers, and last night, the 19^th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, like the Globes and BFCAs before it, shook up the Oscar race in dramatic fashion. Bestowing their Best Ensemble Cast prize to Argo (how it won over the great Silver Linings Playbook is beyond me!), the Screen Actors Guild further propelled Ben Affleck’s Iranian hostage crisis thriller to the front of the Oscar race for Best Picture. With top honors from the HFPA (Golden Globes), the SAG, and the PGA (the Producers Guild), Argo is sweeping the Best Picture prizes and is now the one to beat come Oscar night. Equally as locked in for awards following last night’s SAG Awards are Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis and Best Supporting Actress Anne Hathaway; start writing your speeches you two, you’ll be newly crowned Oscar winners in about a months time! Most exciting, however, is the fact that the SAG Awards turned 3 categories into the most competitive races they’ve ever been since I’ve been following the awards circuit. By now, every category is almost always a forgone conclusion but not this year; let’s break down the categories the Screen Actors Guild shook up last night:

The Golden Globes: Award Predictions

Let the awards begin! After months of prestigious releases and relentless campaigning, the award season kicks into overdrive tonight with the 70^th Annual Golden Globe Awards. Unlike the critic awards, the guild awards, and the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes are voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), a group of around 90 journalists who cover the film industry in over 55 countries worldwide. Since the HFPA has a knack for honoring sophisticated, star-studded efforts, the winners here don’t always match up with that of the Oscars (for instance, they chose Babel over The Departed and Atonement over No Country For Old Men); nonetheless, the Globes are still a revered honor and this year a number of worthy films will be fighting it out in both the Drama and Comedy/Musical Categories. Below, our critics Zack Sharf and Mike Murphy take their best guesses as to who will walk away with the gold:

The 85th Annual Academy Awards: Nomination Snubs & Surprises

After months of preliminary critic group and guild awards, Oscar host Seth McFarlane and actress Emma Stone finally revealed the nominees for the 85^th Annual Academy Awards this morning. Up until 8:35am (or 5:35am for you West Coasters), the time when the pair announced who would be duking it out for Oscar gold, the Oscar nominees were still a big question mark, with only a few definite films being locks in particular categories. As expected, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln dominated the playing field with 12 nominations, followed by Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, which surprised with a lofty 11 nominations; both films clearly have passionate fans within the Academy and should be considered the heavyweights at this point. Elsewhere, the Oscar nominations celebrated award favorites like Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty, SIlver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables, and Argo, and were their typical blend of deserving (Beasts of the Southern Wild gets major love!) and maddening (did Zero Dark Thirty direct itself?); take a look below for both a full list of nominees for the 85^th Annual Academy Awards as well as Reel Reactions’ Surprise & Snubs list:

2013 BAFTA Nominations: Awards Reaction

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!

2012 has run its course; we made it through the supposed apocalypse and the world is still rotating in full force. Similarly, Hollywood is very hard at work and with 2013 upon us, there’s an expansive list of upcoming films that we will be previewing, reviewing, and discussing to no end over the next twelve months. But until then, we have some unfinished business to take care of.