"Rob Roy" at 25

by Eric Blume

It’s been a quarter century since the release of Rob Roy, a film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and featuring the pairing of Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange. The period drama is about the eponymous 18th Century Scotland clan chief Robert Roy MacGregor.

Evidently there was a box-office hunger for this type of film around 1995, since one month later Mel Gibson’s Braveheart opened. The latter tragically went on to win Best Picture some nine months later.  Both films feature tales of broad-stroke heroism, where the main figure is portrayed as a rebel fighting the system, full of masculine bravado and BDE (the un-fun kind)...  

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Almost There: Ben Affleck in "Hollywoodland"

by Cláudio Alves

Ben Affleck may be one of Hollywood's A-listers, but he's not quite respected as an artist. More precisely, he's not often celebrated for being a performer, having otherwise received plenty of acclaim for his work as a director and producer. Just look at his awards history. He's gotten very little love for his acting skills but won two Academy Awards, for writing Good Will Hunting and for producing Argo. Had he been nominated for directing the latter, as it was widely expected, he'd probably have added another little golden man to his collection. It's difficult to feel bad for the fellow, but, at the same time, Affleck's reputation as a subpar actor isn't completely warranted. 

While it's true his range is narrow, when cast in the right role, Ben Affleck can be quite impressive. You'll find no better example of that than 2006's Hollywoodland…

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Oscar Category Fraud, By the Numbers

by Eric Blume

A few days ago, my fellow TFE writer Claudio flagged a website www.screentimecentral.com, which tracks the screen time and percentage of all Oscar nominees and winners.  Because Oscar category fraud has long been a heated debate here at the site, I thought it might be fun to play with the numbers on the site from the last 20 Oscars, to see what we might discover if, say, AMPAS instituted a time/percentage rule on who could be eligible for lead and supporting performances.

Now for those about to go crazy in the comments, settle down.  This is just a fun game.  We’re not suggesting there should be an implemented rule, but for the sake of stirring up a healthy, positive conversation, I’ve broken down some of the numbers, and it reveals a lot of interesting things...

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Third Annual 'Ranking the Acting Clips' Post

by Ben Miller

For the third year, Nathaniel has been nice enough to let me rank the Oscar clips.  I was so excited to write this heading into Oscar night, until I saw the first clip package.  The Academy decided to shake things up and present a montage of clips for the group of nominees, so we have to work with what they gave us.  Presenting, the 2019 Oscar clips (sort of), ranked by quality.

That’s…a choice

Don't you EVER talk to your mother like that!

If something were to happen to my boss's car, well then I'd get in trouble."

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Film Bitch Awards - Traditional Categories Complete!

By now you've seen the long delayed top ten list and now the "traditional" (aka Oscar parallel) part of the Film Bitch Awards is complete with the addition of all four acting categories. If you'd like to see my 'alternate ballot' so to speak, that's there though are more "fun" categories to come since we'll try to wrap up the whole film year by NEXT weekend.

But first, THE OSCARS. TONIGHT. Here are the predictions and the nomination index if you're following along.