Brand new Picture / Director / Screenplay charts!

by Nathaniel R

If you smooshed all the Best Picture nominees together this year you'd get an interspecies queer romance set during World War II with a provocative sense of humor and some very uncomfortable racial politics. Somehow there would also be a subplot about a mother and a daughter who are constantly bickering over maybe how to handle their newspaper or fashion empire. The movie is 115 minutes long and is rated R for graphic violence, constant profanity, masturbation scenes, and implicit interspecies sexuality. 

We have never seen a movie like this but what a movie it would be!

Over at the Oscar charts you can now read trivia on Best Picture and Best Director and Best Screenplay and see serious and silly rankings of the whole set like "ranked by horniness" and "ranked by running time" and more. We also theorize on how the directors in particular secured their coveted nominations. Plus you can now vote (DAILY!) on who should win each of these four prizes. So have a look, share with your friends, return often, and comment to make this season more communal and festive!

Blueprints: "The Shape of Water"

On the last week before the Oscar nominations are announced, Jorge takes a look at another of the potential screenplay contenders. This week, he explores a fight, in which one person has to speak both sides of dialogue.

Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a fairytale about the forbidden love between a mute woman and a captive fishman. But as much as the film is about their romance, it is also about the unique friendships and relationships made by those that society has pushed to its margins for being “different”. 

Let’s take a look at one of the most memorable scenes in the film, between Sally Hawkins’ hopeful and infatuated Elisa, and her closeted gay neighbor and best friend, Giles, played by Richard Jenkins. It’s a fight where Elisa not only begs him to help her save the creature, but also to be seen and understood...

Click to read more ...

Box Office: The Post Widens, Proud Mary Aims, Paddington Returns

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Jan 12th-14th)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. Jumanji $27 on 3849 screens (cum. $283.1)	1.🔺 I Tonya $3.3 on 517 screens (cum. $10)  REVIEW
2. 🔺  The Post $18.6 on 2819 screens (cum. $23) REVIEW | OSCAR KICK-OFF	2.🔺 Phantom Thread $1.1 on 62 screens (cum. $2.2) HARRIET'S CAMEO
3. 🔺  The Commuter $13.4 on 2892 screens	3. 🔺  Call Me By... $715k on 174 screens (cum. $7.2) REVIEWISH | SCREENPLAY | SEX
4. Insidious: The Last Key $12.1 on 3150 screens (cum. $48.3)	4. Hostiles $276k on 42 screens (cum. $821k)
5. The Greatest Showman $11.8 on 2938 screens (cum. $94.5) REVIEW | ZAC	5.🔺 Condorita: La Pelicula $236k on 153 screens

Support for Steven Spielberg's inspirational newspaper drama The Post within awards season has been a hysterical rollercoaster. Pundits were all "it's winning everything" as the rollercoaster climbed to its peak. On the descent they're screaming "lost everything!" (GLOBES, CRITICS CHOICE) or "wasn't even nominated!" (SAG, BAFTA). But now that the public is on the ride with the press perhaps we begin to climb again towards another adrenaline rush. Whether the descent is thrilling or terrifying this time will depend on your feelings about The Post  and how many Oscar nominations it gets. Streep and Hanks and Spielberg all remain bankable so the film will do fine in theaters but will Academy voters bite after the whiplash we saw during the precursors? [More charts and thoughts are after the jump...]

Click to read more ...

Directors Guild Nominations - Greta & Jordan, Yay!

by Nathaniel R

This year's 70th annual DGA Awards will be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 3rd a month before the Oscars. The winner for Directing in Theatrical Features usually goes on to win the Oscar though historically there's about one exception a decade (Ben Affleck for Argo, Rob Marshall for Chicago, Ron Howard for Apollo 13,  etcetera-- basically don't have the "oh" sound in your movie title!-- did not repeat their wins at the Oscars and some of them weren't even nominated for the Academy Award). 

This year's lucky five nominees -- statistically you can expect four of them to pop up again with Oscar -- are:

THEATRICAL FEATURE

• Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
• Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
• Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards...
• Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
• Jordan Peele, Get Out

Click to read more ...

The Oscar Week: Mothers and the Mystery of Sally

In this weekly feature from Murtada we follow Oscar contender appearances and interviews and examine how they impact their chances.

Much has been made in the media that the three leading contenders in Supporting Actress, Laurie Metcalf, Holly Hunter and Allison Janney, are playing mothers. So it seemed natural for them to sit down together for an interview and photoshoot...

Click to read more ...