Personal Ballots Galore!

The Oscar correlative part of the Film Bitch Awards are almost done. Racing to the finish line here. In the updates you'll see the nominees for Best Screenplays and Animated Feature as well as Visual categories like Visual Effects and Makeup.

You never know where a great movie will come from. Who knew that a circular short story by Ted Chiang, an possibly unfilmable novel like "Oh...," or a novella like "Lady Susan" could make great movies like Arrival, Elle, and Love & Friendship? (Okay okay, everyone knows that Jane Austen stories can make great movies. But isn't it insane that Love & Friendship isn't locked up for an Oscar nomination? What was everyone thinking this year?) They're all up for the Film Bitch Award for Adapted Screenplay. The nominees are...

As for the Makeup and Hair ballot, I'll state straightaway that I'll never understand what Oscar's makeup branch wants from their movies (besides old age prosthetics. They love those). Everything that makes my list, save Hail Caesar! and Star Trek Beyond did not make the Oscar finals in that category (or perhaps did not even submit reels to the branch for consideration?). It may seem to on-the-nose to include Neon Demon, but when that nose is a work of art...

Previous Announcements
Picture/Director/Top Ten List
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Costume Design and Production Design
Sound and Music Categories

Three more TBA: Actor, Actress, and Cinematography

More Final Predix: Foreign, Cinematography, Makeup, Visual FX, and Editing

Final Predictions Pt 1: Picture, Director, Screenplays, Actor, Supporting Actress  
Final Predictions Pt 2: Animation, Documentary, Score, Song, Sound

Part 3: We have to wrap up final predictions tomorrow! So here's another round of last minute parsing in five categories...

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Oscar's Visual Effects Race, Round Two

The Academy has spoken and they've axed half of the semi-finalist for visual effects so we're down to just 10 films competing for the five nominations. It's the only bad news Deadpool has received all week after great showings at the Globe and Critics Choice and the only good news Passengers has gotten considering its excoriating reviews. The list is now like so...

• Alice Through the Looking Glass
• Arrival
• The BFG
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
• Captain America: Civil War
• Deadpool
• Deepwater Horizon
• Doctor Strange
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Independence Day: Resurgence
• The Jungle Book
• Kubo and the Two Strings
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
• Passengers
• Rogue One 
• Star Trek Beyond
• Suicide Squad
• Sully
• Warcraft
• X-Men Apocalypse

But nothing has changed really since this race is surely a battle to the finish between Doctor Strange and The Jungle Book. One assumes the disturbing CGI humans in Rogue One won't help it win.

Oscar's Visual Effects Race, Round One

This just in... The Academy will narrow down the list of possibilities in Visual Effects on a couple of weeks to ten films but they've cobbled together the initial list of 20 semi-finalists. Along with all six superhero films of the year, the presumed frontrunner The Jungle Book is accounted for as is one animated picture - Kubo and the Two Strings. Kubo isn't the first animated picture to make the bakeoffs but only one has ever been nominated for the Oscar in this category (The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993).

The complete lists of finalists, Oscar trivia, and the films that didn't make the cut are after the jump...

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Doctor Strange and the Comic Book Movie Dilemma

by Deborah Lipp

I have a pet peeve about comic book movies, and Professor Spouse is sick of hearing it, so I’m imposing on you all. When Professor Spouse and I got back from seeing Dr. Strange, I said, “I have one* complaint—it’s an origin story.” She said, “I knew you would say that.” 

*Well, only one complaint that is the subject of this essay.

The fundamental problem in comic book movies is the shift into a different medium, though in many ways the mediums are a natural fit...

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