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 [...]

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 [...]

My first year of predictions, I could find all these shorts on YouTube, but that hasn’t been the case the last two years. As if I wasn’t taking enough of a shot in the dark already. Much of this was done through reading reviews and watching trailers.

Although both categories have to do with music, audience favor in these two Oscar categories are going in opposite directions. With more and more noteworthy musicians, artists and composers trying their hand at film scores, Best Score is becoming a category of intrigue, whereas Academy rules have completely butchered the Best Original Song category over [...]

My final technical predictions come in the Best Cinematography and Best Editing categories. The people whose names are recognized alongside these categories are pivotal in the filmmaking process. Most filmmakers work exclusively with one cinematographer or “director of photography” their entire careers. When a film turns out visually just as the director sees it, it’s [...]

Stop number two on my 2012 Oscar breakdown involves the more old-school technical categories, the stuff that can’t be done entirely by computer. As you might imagine, these categories tend to be a parade of period pieces with some musicals thrown in. In fact, the final “Harry Potter” film looks to be the only exception [...]

So it begins—my third go-around dissecting every category at the Academy Awards in a three-week span. This year, the 84th Academy Awards take place on Feb. 26, three days before we leap. Fittingly, I am experiencing dejá vù all over again, because I began this quest for the 2011 Oscars exactly one year ago today—Groundhog Day. [...]

My predictions were a bit rough this year, but I did correctly guess that “Hugo” and “The Artist” would lead the nominees. Both Best Picture nominees received more than 10 nominations, with “Hugo” earning 11.

Tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. Central Standard Time comes the big announcement cinephiles have been waiting for all year: the 84th Academy Award nominations. Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence will present along with Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences president Tom Sherak. This year the predictions will be harder than ever with the lack of [...]

George Clooney turned out to be both the biggest winner and the biggest loser at this year’s Golden Globes Sunday. Despite a win for Best Actor in a Drama for “The Descendants” — the film that also took home Best Drama — Clooney’s own film, “The Ides of March,” was shut out completely in all [...]

After the all the critics awards are doled out, we Oscar watchers look in great part to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for clarity, and while much is delivered, all the more is always blurred. Here are the film nominees for the 2012 Golden Globes and my thoughts on them. Silent film “The Artist” tops [...]

Ah, it’s that time of year again. We’re just days away from some of the big pre-Oscar award nominations (the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes), but some of the smaller awards bodies, including the press awards from film criticism bodies across the country. So the 2012 Academy Awards picture should be shaping up [...]