Podcast: Which way will Best Picture & Best Director go?

Joe, Nick, Katey and Nathaniel gather themselves for their first post-Oscar nomination discussion of the new year. Today, directors, pictures, and a discussion of Oscar's diversity problem. Please join in the conversation in the comments.

40 minutes 
00:01 Intro & Phoenix (for no apparent reason)
02:25 Bridge of Spies and Oscar tastes
04:30 Straight Outta Compton, Creed and Oscar's Diversification Initiatives
18:00 Cinematography and insular Oscar clubs
25:00 Mad Max vs The Martian vs The Revenant... is that good news for Spotlight?  
30;00 The Big Short, Screenplays, Precursors and Early Signs
33:00 Ridley Scott. Who gets Best Director now?

Related Reading For Context:
Joe's 20 Actors of Color List
Nathaniel's #OscarsSoWhite Article
Ridley Scott on "Little Gold Men"
The Revenant's Production Design & Costume Design 
Best Picture Chart 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes soon. 

Oscar Nomination Reactions - Picture/Director

Best Picture Chart Fun: Rankings, Nomination Formulas, Stats, Etc...

We love who what we love. And one of the things we love is Stats. And Charts! Oh god do we ever  ♥  charts. Why don't you marry them then? Okay. I will. Call city hall. I'll throw a veil over my laptop for the big day.

The new charts are now walking down their virtual aisles to you. First up Best Picture. If you smoosh them all together you have a 131 minute violent R rated drama in which a captive mother tells her son the fantastical story of a grizzly fur trapper and a lovely Irish lass who attempt to survive on a harsh inhospitable planet called Mars where a raving band of warboys pursues them relentlessly... but we never hear how the story ends because suddenly a  lawyer negtotiates the mom & son's release and a crack team of Boston journalists swoops in to investigate just what the hell happened and why no one knew about this story until now. 

But that's just a synopsis.

Click to the chart to see how these movies got nominated, how would we rank or compare them and trivia. It was fun working the angles on this charts so please take a look and consider your own rankings in the comments. 

Housekeeping Note: You'll notice the reader poll is no longer part of the Oscar charts. Since we lost our favorite poll site Twiigs... we have yet to find a suitable easy to access poll site that works well for embedding without interrupting the site in question or being ugly or forcing you to leave the site (you'll notice their fun absence on other former poll loving sites like Fug Girls - why is it so hard to find a good poll site?). But I'll keep an eye out and hope some new service emerges. 

Handwringing: The Ongoing, Important but Not Always Helpful #OscarsSoWhite Conversation

Have you been following the #OscarsSoWhite discussion? Or rather the shouting? Discussion happens after the fact so we waited 48 hours. There was a lot of knee jerk anger on the day of the Oscar Nominations and many bold statements. Some were totally understandable. Others had us wondering if we've been watching a different Oscars for the past quarter century than anyone else.

If you can't read another word about this we'll understand and hope you'll come back for the next article. But if you'd like to discuss and are willing to think about diversity as a wider and more important topic than a list of 20 names published this year and who or who isn't on it, than read on.

First, I need to get something off my chest...

Click to read more ...

A24 Joins the Oscar Crowd

Chris here to celebrate our favorite indie distributor. A24 has been steadily been building their reputation since launching about 3 years ago, and yesterday they finally landed their first Oscar nominations. They've previously housed longshot candidates like Spring Breakers and A Most Violent Year, but this year saw three of their films break through: Room, Ex Machina, and Amy.

A24 started 2015 proving that they could compete with the larger indie outfits by delivering at the box office. Ex Machina was a surprise hit and became their highest grosser, with Amy and Noah Baumbach's While We're Young also breaking out. Room could pass all of them with the help of its four major nominations and The Witch looks primed to be late-winter mini-hit, as well.

The nominations feel richly earned, given that they've fostered worthy candidates like Under the Skin, The Spectacular Now, and A Most Violent Year that eluded the awards race. Their "Consider This Sh*t" campaign for James Franco's bonkers performance in Spring Breakers may not have paid off, but they are now firmly in the Oscar fray.

They've been playing their seven nominations very modestly, true to their understated form showcased in the David Ehrlich profile on them (essential reading if you haven't read already). Hopefully they're enjoying the Oscar news with a well-deserved Ex Machina dance party. Cheers!

First Impressions: Oscar's Best Screenplay Nominees Say "Hello"

Manuel here. Getting a new batch of Oscar nominations is always overwhelming but since right now it’s all about first impressions, I figured we’d check in with the recently minted Oscar nominated scripts and see how they quite literally introduce themselves.

As most of these screenplays are cannily available online as FYCs (links here take you to the script), find below the very first line uttered in each nominated screenplay of 2015.

Think of it as a way of saying "Hello!" to these ten contenders...

Best Adapted Screenplay

Perhaps it's the inclusion of Nagy's beautiful adaptation but I kind of love this category, give or take the McKay script. Also, the doodle on The Martian's script is courtesy of Ridley Scott who sent that page out into space!

MODERN TRADER (V.O.)
In the late seventies banking was not a job you went into to make large sums of money. It was a good stable profession like selling insurance or accounting.

— The Big Short, Adam McKay, Charles Randolph

EILIS (mouthing)
Go back to bed.

— Brooklyn, Nick Hornby

eight more opening quotes after the jump...

Click to read more ...