March 6th, 2018
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Thor: Ragnarok is by far the biggest Blu-ray release of the week and one of the best blockbusters of 2017. However, it was already named Pick of the Week last week, so we will have to pick a different film this week. There are a few contenders: The Breadwinner, Faces Places, and Lady Bird. All three of them are Oscars nominated films, none of them won. It was a close call, but in the end, Lady Bird won.
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March 4th, 2018
It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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March 4th, 2018
It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. Nominees in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I will be happy no matter who wins Best Supporting Actress. One last note: The contest is still going and the leading for Best Picture Switched from The Shape of Water to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to tied over the time I was writing this story. This is the closest I’ve ever seen it. Guessing the best picture correctly will go a long way to winning.
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February 15th, 2018
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With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try to figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. A lot of people call this Oscar the Pixar Award, and look at that, there’s a Pixar film on this list. Is Coco the overwhelming favorite? Or does another film have what it takes?
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January 23rd, 2018
The Oscar nominations were announced starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year and no one has been able to adequately explain why to me. At least there were some interesting results this year. The Shape of Water led the way with 13 nominations, which is one below the current record and nearly as many as the next two films combined. Overall, there were seventeen films that earned two or more nominations.
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January 5th, 2018
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The Producers Guild of America finally finished announcing their nominations. (They spread out their announcements for reasons I’ve never quite understood.) It is a strange year for the PGAs, as there was a tie resulting in 11 films being nominated for the top prize.
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December 11th, 2017
The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. Sort of. (WGA announced the nominations for TV, radio, etc., but not their theatrical nods.) It is still very early in the year, so it is hard to say if there are any real snubs, or if there are any real favorites. The Shape of Water led the way with seven nominations, while The Post and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were right behind with six a piece.
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November 21st, 2017
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Justice League topped the theater average chart with $23,165 in just over 4,000 theaters. This is in the top ten best theater averages for any wide release that has come out this year, but it is about 25% lower than it needed to be. Last week’s winner, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri was pushed into second place with an average of $20,796 in 53 theaters. Its strong hold plus its early success during Awards Season should help it stick around in theaters for a long time. Roman J. Israel, Esq was next with an average of $15,500 in four theaters. This would be a good start for a limited release, but it is scheduled to expand wide on Wednesday, so I’m not sure it is good enough. Finally, Lady Bird rounded out the $10,000 club with an average of $10,573 in 238 theaters. It has already earned a significant measure of mainstream success and it still has room to grow.
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November 17th, 2017
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I think it will be a bad week at the box office for new limited releases. Mudbound is the best film on this week’s list, but it is playing on Netflix, so it will likely go no where at the box office. Sadly, there’s no other film that can take advantage of the lack of competition.
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