Category: Oscar Preview

We had three films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Skyfall With the 50th Anniversary of the James Bond Franchise being talked about a great deal, the inevitable discussion of Skyfall earning a series-first Best Picture nomination is everywhere. Will this be another case similar to Gary Oldman whose film was mostly…

We had four films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Flight After twelve years of giving audiences a series of motion capture films that the Academy willfully ignored, Robert Zemeckis is back in the live-action seat with a film that is already earning Oscar buzz for lead Denzel Washington. Flight is the…

We had one film releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Cloud Atlas A film that could have easily been a Best Picture player didn’t receive the required excellent notices needed for such a feat. Genre films always have an added hurdle with the Academy as they need to be beloved by critics…

We had one film releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. The Sessions Before I saw the first trailer for The Sessions, the premise read like a cheesy romantic comedy that would play poorly with the more staid Academy voter. While the trailer didn’t convince me that it could rise above minor contender…

We had one film releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Argo Ben Affleck has gone from young adult, Oscar winning writer to a blockbuster leading man to quite auteur in just over a decade. With his debut film as a director five years ago, Gone Baby Gone, Affleck began to impress critics…

We had one film releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Frankeweenie What can the disappointing opening tell us about Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, a feature-length adaptation of his original short film. Debuting under $12 million has to be a disappointment for Burton whose films have enjoyed wide success in recent years. With the…

We had four films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Hotel Transylvania Sony Pictures Animation is the black sheep of the animation family. Hotel Transylvania marks their seventh major animation release (including the mixed live action-animation The Smurfs) and other than a surprise Oscar nomination for 2007’s Surf’s Up, Sony has had…

We had two films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Trouble with the Curve Remember when Clint Eastwood was in the race for Gran Turino? It was supposed to be his final performance and many thought he would cap a long and fruitful acting career with an Oscar nomination. It did not…

We had two films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. The Master In a career that spans two decades, Paul Thomas Anderson has made only six films. Like the great Stanley Kubrick, Anderson doesn’t seem in a rush to get his movies onto the big screen, but when they arrive, everyone takes…

We had one film releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Toys in the Attic More often than not, surprises appear on the eligible films list for the Academy’s Best Animated Feature award. Every year, the list of little known titles on the shortlist make Oscar prognosticators scramble for details on the latest…

We had one film released this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Lawless John Hillcoat’s bootlegger drama about siblings fighting to protect their operation from the mob during the prohibition era seemed like just the kind of film Oscar voters might once have embraced. Yet, the buzz surrounding Lawless may have been premature, much…

We had zero films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. None It’s a rare occasion that the weekend provides no Oscar possibilities, not even remote ones, but that’s this final pre-Labor Day weekend of the Summer. Starting next week, things really start gearing up. It probably won’t be as excitingly in the…

We had two films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. ParaNorman In the style of Henry Selick’s praised Coraline, that film’s storyboard artist Chris Butler joins Sam Fell, the director of Flushed Away and The Tale of Despereaux. Although those two features weren’t Oscar nominated, Butler’s attachment to Oscar nominee Coraline gives…

We had two films releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. The Bourne Legacy The history of the Jason Bourne franchise with the Academy is a mixed bag, much like its superspy counterpart James Bond. The original entry in 2002 received two nominations from the Motion Picture Sound Editors, a guild that has…

We had one film releasing this weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations. Total Recall In the end, the weekend only saw one film with any real shot at Oscar nominations and that film was such a box office disappointment that unless the tech branches are particularly excitable about it, look for it to be…