"The King's Speech" sits on the throne this morning, earning 12 Oscar nominations and looking like the film to beat at the 83rd Academy Awards, while "True Grit" follows with 10 nods and "The Social Network" with 8. Not much in the way of shockers this year, but some pleasant surprises in the mix as...
Read More »Yes, we know, it's another guild with more nominations for what seems to be an endless array of industry circle jerking but there is a reason to pay attention to the ACE Eddies awards put together by The American Cinema Editors. It's a very strong augur for the Oscar race with a win here usually ind...
Read More »2010 was a year which initially seemed quite bleak and like all things over-emphasized for dramatic effect, picked up drastically before everything was said and done. Thematically, the most arresting films investigated the line between imagination and reality, from Leonardo DiCaprio battling his very literal demons in a pair of dreamworld thrillers ("Inception," which charted here, and Martin Scorsese's gorgeous trifle "Shutter Island," which did not) to Natalie Portman's Grand Guignol psychological breakdown in "Black Swan," to Woody's self-delusion in "Toy Story 3" and Scott Pilgrim's videogame-enhanced brawling in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the Wo...
Read More »Yawn, another random awards ceremony from yet another industry group, right? Guess again. Last year, when the Academy opened up the Best Picture field to ten nominees, so did the The Producers Guild of America, and nine out of their ten nominees ended up getting Oscar nods as well. So if you're look...
Read More »Yes, we're now in 2011, but best-of-2010 lists are still trickling out and none other than Quentin Tarantino has dropped his selections for his favorite films of the past year. And there are some interesting surprises.
Read More »Contrary to popular belief, we're optimists here at The Playlist. Just as almost every filmmaker goes into a project genuinely wanting it to be the best it can be (“Grown Ups" being a major exception, it would seem), we genuinely hope that every movie released will be worthwhile. Unfortunately, movies are difficult things to make, with any number of things that are liable to go wrong, and more often than not, we come away disappointed. So, if we come across as being cynical when compared to other, more cheerleader-type sites, it's really more a kind of self-preservational realism at work. After all, you can only be disappointed so many times ...
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