Advertisements for anti-depression or anti-anxiety medications are all over television, and when the announcer rattles off the two-dozen or so horrific-sounding side effects, you can’t help but think about taking your chances and sticking with the depression. “Side Effects” explores the dangers of these drugs — and they go beyond the warnings on the label.

If I were to pitch you a movie about two police officers who are partners on patrol in South Central Los Angeles, one of your first inclinations might be “not another buddy copy comedy.” While “End of Watch” is often funny, the newest film from “Training Day” writer David Ayer, is no comedy.

When newly minted Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence tripped on the steps up to the Dolby Theatre stage on Sunday, you could hear the rumble in the tabloid Twitter-verse as Hollywood followers raced to call out the gaffe and smear Lawrence’s embarrassment all over the Internet. To casual Oscar viewers and those whose attention to celebrity […]

Crazy to think that this is my fourth time wrapping up Movie Muse’s Oscar coverage, but here we are, another awards season gone by. This year was highly unusual in that there were so many good films and performances, but there was never really a clear favorite for Best Picture, even with “Argo” sweeping all […]

It was “Argo’s” big night at the 85th Academy Awards, but it was “Life of Pi” that won the most awards on the night with four, including Ang Lee winning his second Best Director statuette (with neither film having won Best Picture, something that hasn’t happend to a two-time Best Director winner since George Stevens […]

The time has come. Here is my full list of Oscar predictions for every category. You can click the links to read a more thorough analysis of each category.

If you’ve been paying even unconscious attention to this year’s Oscars, you know who the frontrunner is for Best Picture. Sometimes it takes a longer time than usual for one to emerge, but there always appears to be consensus, even in a year with so much depth in the Best Picture category.

If the Oscars started and ended with the announcement of nominees, you’d call it a strange year for the Oscars, just by the handling of the Best Director nominations. The final list of five is somewhat mystifying, let alone figuring out who will win the damn thing.

Last year, Meryl Streep took home Oscar number three, emerging victorious on a list of incredible vets. Well, this year the picture looks quite different. It’s mostly time for the fresher faces in Hollywood to get a shot, but you can only half say that, as the category also boasts the oldest and youngest nominees […]

I can’t recall a group of five performances this strong in which the outcome was so obvious. It’s a shame that no one is really talking about the triumphs of the other non-hyphenated actors in this category because in the prediction business, all we care about is who has a shot.

This past Sunday night the Writers Guild of America Awards were held, so I waited a bit longer on this category to give a better prediction. A lot of terrific screenplays are in the hunt this year.

Last year, Christopher Plummer became the older Oscar winner and kept alive the trend of actors with “Chris” in their name winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Christian Bale and Christoph Waltz) before him. Waltz will have to win again to keep that going in this year’s competitive list of nominees.

Time to bust into the acting categories! Best Supporting Actress has been a lock in recent years and things don’t appear to have changed. Last year, Octavia Spencer was the much-deserved winner for balancing comedy and drama, a nice change from the two previous winners who played overbearing mothers (Melissa Leo in “The Fighter” and […]

Occasionally a great, critically adored foreign film will come along and impress so many people that the walls of the Best Foreign Language category cannot contain it. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was one such film. Michael Haneke’s “Amour” is only the ninth foreign language film to do it and as such, it’s the biggest favorite […]

2012 was an incredible year for animation in quality and quantity, and so five films were nominated this year, only the fourth time that’s happened in the category’s 12-year history. Interestingly in terms of U.S. box office, only two of the six highest-grossing animated films were nominated. Popular films including “The Lorax,” “Hotel Transylvania” and […]