Comment Party: What do you think of 1989?

Though it seems like the Oscar are right around the corner they're actually 89 days away!

So let's talk 1989 while your host here works on current Oscar charts. The 62nd Academy Awards has always struck us as an odd Best Picture vintage... maybe because we'd nominate none of them. But all were very popular with audiences at the time. The Oscars went for 2 blockbuster hits with Dead Poet's Society and Born on the 4th of July (yes, kids, audiences used to go for a little of every genre at the movies, not just superhero films. Both were among the top ten grossers of the year alongside things that would be hits nowadays like Batman and Ghostbusters II). The eventual winner was another very big hit in Driving Miss Daisy. To fill out the category a not-so little sleeper success Field of Dreams, and 1 arthouse favourite My Left Foot. With the exception of the Oliver Stone war drama and My Left Foot (inexplicably rated R), all were family friendly, too...

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"No Way Home" and Oscar Dreams. Or, When advocacy goes wrong...

by Nathaniel R

There are some that argue that Oscar pundits shouldn't be critics or vice versa. Prognostication and film criticism both require analytical skills but they're different jobs. The lines get murkier when it comes to advocacy. Each media outlet produces more Oscar coverage than we have ever had in the past. It's subversively hilarious that as Oscar ratings have steadily dwindled in the era of splintering audiences, discussion and analysis of the awards race is noisier and more populated each year! Yet, if the proliferation of film critics organizations has taught us anything it's that if you get enough film types in a room to talk "Best"... they will immediately, whether consciously or not, begin to equate Best with Oscars. That's how successful the Oscars have been as a name brand and institution. You can see it in the prizes given each year in the precursor awards and how eagerly space is handed over to presumed Oscar hopefuls that don't really need the boost. Even while the same journalists and outlets, who vote on the preliminary prizes, regularly bemoan that 'Oscars never get it right'. Advocacy doesn't equal prognostication but it looks too much like it at times.

Into this mess of adjacent but not always compatible agendas, comes the superhero blockbuster. In this case, Spider-Man: No Way Home which is suddenly getting the "nominate it for Best Picture!" discussion...

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FYC: "Flee" for Best Picture

by Matt St Clair

Flee, now playing in limited release, is transcendent. The animated memoir could break records by competing in three Feature categories: Animated Feature, Documentary Feature, and, because it’s the Danish submission, Best International Feature. Both Collective and Honeyland recently made history recently by competing in the latter two categories simultaneously, but no film has found itself in contention for all three. Flee might accomplish this historic feat, but it should go even further by also being nominated for Best Picture.

A nomination would allow the glass ceiling for documentaries to finally break. In the ceremony’s soon-to-be 94-year history, no documentary has ever competed in the top category...

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The AFI Top Tens are here - what does it mean?

by Nathaniel R

One of the hit and miss traditions of year-end hoopla is the American Film Institute's Top Ten List. This list, which has a rotating jury, began as something kind of unpredictable but it's been veering towards straight up Oscar Best Picture frontrunners mirroring for some years now. The ten titles they've cited this year are...

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Quickies to Catch Up: West Side Story, Don't Look Up, Nightmare Alley, House of Gucci

by Nathaniel R

It's that time of year when it is literally impossible to keep up. Most weeks have one maybe two if we're lucky films of interest opening. But in December it's like 10 high profile movies per week or something outrageous. So much can get lost in the shuffle which is always sad.

Here are some quick thoughts on four recent high profile screenings though we'll do full reviews when they open...

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