The spring usually brings us one or two great family movies every year. Last March, “Rango” premiered; a few days ago, it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Will “The Lorax” or “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” from stop-motion masters Aardman Animation be in for a year-long Oscar campaign? Also, a fairy tale […]

Another year in the books, but what a more unusual journey. I could be sitting here this fine Monday morning with spit and ire for Brett Ratner’s production job and Eddie Murphy’s hosting duties, but thankfully fate (and Ratner’s mouth) had other plans. It would’ve certainly given the ceremony a unique flavor, but I have a […]

The 84th Academy Awards offered minimal surprises, as the silent film “The Artist” took home five awards including three of the biggest prizes: Best Director, Best Actor and Best Picture. “Hugo,” nominated for 11 Oscars, tied “The Artist” with five wins, but all for technical achievements including both sound categories, Best Art Direction and a […]

Happy Oscar Day! Below is my full list of predictions in the event that you care or want to know what the safe picks are for potential use in an Oscar pool. The nominees for each are listed followed by the prediction and a link to my post breaking down the category.  My total award […]

Perhaps the most unexciting category at the Oscars this year is Best Picture. Only two films were even in the conversation to begin with, and the momentum turned toward squarely toward just one of them in January. Now for the diatribe. Maybe it was just the poor selection of Oscar-caliber films, but the new Best […]

The humor of “Wanderlust” and hippie communes share a similar mantra: embrace it or get the heck out. “Role Models” director David Wain and comedian Ken Marino have written a genuinely funny movie, only one that’s kind of pasted together like a spontaneous collage of humorous characters and moments rather than strung together with any […]

Last year, being a veteran filmmaker meant nothing, as Tom Hooper walked away with an Oscar for what was his third major project (and second film) ever. That looks to be the case again this year despite even more veterans.

After a hot start to 2012, the box office appears to have cooled off again in anticipation of what I’m guessing will be a very eventful March. This weekend’s options include a Navy SEAL film touting itself as the most realistic war movie ever, Tyler Perry’s latest drama, a thriller starring Amanda Seyfried and a […]

In the acting categories this year it’s been all about the ladies. The powerhouse performances of 2011 were all of the female persuasion. The Best Actress in a Leading Role category is maybe stronger than it’s ever been this year and I gave my thoughts on Best Supporting Actress and Actor yesterday.

The best supporting actors steal scenes. When a film focuses on its central character and his or her predicament, these are the performers who snatch that attention for that brief moment they enter the frame. Perhaps the moments aren’t brief, sometimes they can be quite long, but there’s always that lightbulb that goes off when […]

The screenwriting categories always feel the most genuine of all the major awards. It’s not about big films for buzzing films—just about good writing. It seems as if these are the “safe” categories in which to nominate popular films or independent films that just flat-out told good stories in compelling ways.

Considering the high bar set these days for animation, Best Animated Feature seems to be the only category with an upward trajectory at the Academy Awards. While the music categories and documentary categories need some serious fixing, the right animated features seem to be in contention each year. Best Foreign Film tends to still be […]

One of the first ever posts on Movie Muse was my Top 10 Superhero films, a celebration of a genre near and dear to my heart, or at least one that I love to dissect more than most considering I’m a product of the superheroes on TV/film era. Yet as many triumphs as we’ve witnessed […]

Unlike in previous years, the Best Documentary Feature award has none of the widely released, popular or well-known documentaries. I’m not sure who make the shortlist, but they’re probably the same people who choose what constitutes an “original score.” In the short subject, it’s all about the topic of discussion, as the Academy has shown […]

We’re now more than a decade into the modern superhero movie era, folks. At this point, we’ve just crossed the threshold of the “reboot phase,” in which studios have either been forced or decided to re-imagine some of the 2000‘s major superhero properties. We saw “X-Men: First Class” successfully relaunch the “X-Men” franchise last summer […]