My Top 25 Favorite Films of the Decade

Scene from The Master (2012)

The following is an excerpt from my new e-book "A Decade Now Available for Streaming: Celebrating the Films That Helped Define the 2010's," which is currently available for $2 on Amazon. It's a celebration of the best films of the past decade, including these 25 films that stand out as something special to me personally. If you want to read more, the e-book goes into detail on 75 more films that defined the decade and made going to the cinema an exciting past time. 

Failed Oscar Campaigns: The Weinstein Company

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

Happy 1,000th Entry!: A Look at My Favorite Films Since 2012

Scene from The Master

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that this marks the 1,000th entry from The Oscar Buzz. Over the past 3.5 years, I am proud to have covered all things Academy Awards as well as expanding to its history and my own personal tastes. It has been a fun ride, and I hope to continue to provide insightful content for my readers. For now, I thought that I would do as I do with every odd anniversary and celebrate by sharing a little bit more about me through film. In this case, I am going to share my 10 favorite movies since 2012 when this blog first started up. Admittedly, it's hard to narrow down the list, but these 10 films in some ways represent what I look for in films. Some of them extend beyond Oscar-nominated fare. Some of them were ironically inches from winning Best Picture. Whatever the case, these are the ones I enjoy. If you'd like, feel free to share your favorite film of the past few years and why that is in the comments below.

Birthday Take: Rooney Mara in "Carol" (2015)

Rooney Mara in Carol

Welcome to The Birthday Take, a column dedicated to celebrating Oscar nominees and winners' birthdays by paying tribute to the work that got them noticed. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive retrospective, but more of a highlight of one nominated work that makes them noteworthy. The column will run whenever there is a birthday and will hopefully give a dense exploration of the finest performances and techniques applied to film. So please join me as we blow out the candles and dig into the delicious substance.

My Official Oscar Predictions for 2015

Scene from Spotlight

This is it, everybody. Tomorrow is the big day when The Academy Awards reveal who is going to come away champion. It has been an exciting, unpredictable season that will hopefully produce some out of the box results. From some bizarre Oscar nominees (Mad Max: Fury Road specifically) to a tough three way battle for Best Picture, this is a year that will be hard to call, especially with the results changing every other week. While you have seen my extensive coverage of this year's season, the following is my personal picks for winners. I'm confident that unlike the past few years, I will not be doing nearly as well (I really don't want The Revenant to win big). So take my picks with a grain of salt, and feel free to place your bets in the comments section. Come back on Monday for full post-ceremony coverage.

Rooney Mara Expresses Her Regret Over Whitewashed "Pan" Role

Rooney Mara

Save for Chris Rock's highly anticipated opening monologue, it seems like the Oscars So White debate has finally mellowed out after initial cries from Jada Pinkett Smith boycotting the ceremony to other celebrities saying problematic things. Basically we're at the point where you're either defending the Oscars as not being the problem, or blaming it as the pinnacle of what's wrong with film in 2016. However, there's been one recent viewpoint that's been expressed that seems prescient. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Carol, Rooney Mara had an interesting year last year for a different reason. She was attacked in playing a Native American in director Joe Wright's box office bomb Pan. When asked recently how she feels about the Oscars So White issue, she spoke the familiar cry of equality while also preaching a certain level of regret. 

Check This Out: FIDM's 24th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibit

Scene from Cinderella

If you're anyone who likes film, you are aware of how essential a good outfit is. Every year, the Best Costume Design category features some of the biggest and brightest outfits ranging from period pieces to more contemporary fare. If you're at all interested in seeing the outfits from various films of this past year (as well as all of the Oscar-nominated ones) and you live in the Los Angeles area, then I've got some good news for you. They are currently being shown at The Museum of Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM). If that wasn't enough, it's currently free to the public at this very moment.

What "The Danish Girl," Says About the Oscar's Problematic Relationship with LGBT Movies

Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl

Last night, I decided to catch up on the missing links in my Oscar-nominated movies for this year. I decided to tackle director Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl: a film that I inevitably had high hopes for, if just because of what 2015 was symbolically in the LGBT community. Beyond America legalizing gay marriage, it was the time when we had multiple noteworthy trans celebrities, cinema was hitting new strides with Tangerine, and Transparent was continuing its yearlong (and arguably still going) success. Transgender culture is probably more accepted than it ever had been, and The Danish Girl could be the period to the sentence. Of course, that is problematic to say, but what became abundantly clear is that it was actually doing the opposite. Despite its romanticism, The Danish Girl featured stereotypes akin to the gay best friend with flamboyancy and a lisp. While it took some reading to fully understand why, it's generally one of the problems with The Academy's recent crop of nominees.

A Look at Oscar 2016 Superlatives and Records

With The Oscars now officially on the books, it's easy to look at who is the biggest film of the year (The Revenant with 12 nominations) and what the biggest surprises are. However, what's harder to notice is the various records and superlatives that were achieved with the Class of 2015. The following is a rundown of the various achievements that could be found in this year's nominees, including potential records if certain films and artists win. So check out the line-up and enjoy witnessing Oscar history in the making. 

How Did I Do?: A Look Back at My August Oscar Predictions

Scene from Carol

Back in August, I wrote my premature, pre-Oscar season predictions for the main categories for this year's nominees. To say the least, it's an interesting list that manages to miss the point, ignoring films like Room, Brooklyn, and The Big Short all together. But, did I really do as bad as I have made it out to be? The following is a rundown of the list that will feature my original picks first followed by the actual results. If there's any embarrassing or profound comment to accompany this, I will also share them. So, step into the time capsule and recognize just how surprising 2015's Academy class ended up being and how rapidly things could change between August and January.

My Predictions for This Year's Top 6 Oscar Category Nominations

This is it, everyone Tomorrow is the day when we finally discover who all of this year's Oscar nominees are. What has made 2015 a very interesting season is that while we've had a front runner (Spotlight), we haven't had as clear of a road map for every other category. With that said, this could either become yet another conventional year, mirroring last year's "Oscars So White" backlash; or we can be seeing a random year where Mad Max: Fury Road and other blockbusters manage to compete for Oscar gold. The following is my predictions for the six big categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. It's a difficult year to predict, and I am likely to be wrong in some ways (as I usually am). However, join in the fun and share the picks that you feel are deserving of nominations, and return to The Oscar Buzz tomorrow morning for in depth reporting and commentary on every high and every low.

My Top 10 Picks for Oscar Nomination Long Shots

Chris Rock

Ladies and gentlemen, we are only a few days away from learning who will be on this year's Oscar nominations list. It's an exciting time, notably because the season has been very unpredictable this year. With major upsets shown in the past, Spotlight isn't as safe of a front runner as one would've initially expected. While I do intend to share my overall predictions for the major categories, I present you today with my long shots. The following is 10 nominations that I really want to happen, but will likely not for whatever reason. It's my own hypothetical hope for The Oscars, and more my desire to see the better film make the cut. Check them out, and leave your own long shots below. Then come back in a few days and see just how unlikely these options were.

Review: "Carol" is About as Perfect as Movies Get

Scene from Carol

Love. At its core, almost every fiction narrative film has been in some capacity about the subject of love. It could be the explicit love between two subjects. It could be for the love of power. Whatever it may be, love remains just as vital to cinema after a century despite the emotions being the same thing in a different wardrobe. So how exactly do you improve on love in ways that The Lady Eve or Titanic hasn't covered? While thousands of films have tried, none have come close to the sublime new film from director Todd Haynes called Carol. While there's not much of a gimmick (two women fall in love), it's an example of love at its core; expressed with visual beauty and narrative excellence the likes of which haven't been seen in American films for quite some time. Carol may not have the most exciting story, but it has the purest depiction of what love is all about.

Here's a Look at This Year's BAFTAS Nominations

Scene from The Revenant 

Today marked the announcement of this year's BAFTAS nominations. With The Oscars giving this year's line-up next week, Britain gets in on the game with their own prestigious awards show. While 2015 has proven to one of the most sporadic and unpredictable years on record (there's not a lot of front runners yet), there have been a few nominations lately that have given us some clue as to what to expect. With Carol leading the pack, this year's line-up has its own share of eyebrow raisers, including a few noticeable absences. The following is a rundown of every nomination as well as brief commentary on each category.

A Round-Up of 2015 Films I Forgot to Write About

Scene from Anomalisa

With the holiday festivities eating up a lot of time over the past month, I must apologize for not reviewing movies as frequently as I should. While I did my best to write full length reviews for the heavyweights; including Joy, The Hateful Eight, and The Revenant; I forgot to write about smaller films that I had mentioned in some capacity over the preceding months. While I still have a few that I need to catch up on, the following is a brief review roundup of a few titles that I promised to mention, but lost time to write a legitimate review on (though maybe some will get a lengthier piece if time permits). The titles include: Carol, Anomalisa, Tangerine, and more.

Check Out the 112 Finalists on the Best Original Score Shortlist

Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs

The short lists keep on coming. While yesterday saw me tackle a variety of categories, I am choosing to focus solely on one for the Best Original Score list. More than the other field, this category is probably too subjective and controversial for me on a year-to-year basis. While there's certain ones that give me problems (the definition of "original"), I do think that sometimes The Academy gets it right, as the music used to emphasize emotional or action sequences are important to the film. This year's shortlist features 112 scores, including the absence of one of this year's biggest contenders (The Revenant, by Ryuichi Sakamoto). The following is a list of every contender, followed by the composer in parenthesis. There will also be opinions following the list for the ones that stand out to me.

Check Out the Nominees for This Year's Golden Globe Awards

Rooney Mara in Carol

Today, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) released the nominees for this year's Golden Globe Awards. Honoring the best in film and TV, the award has often been considered a strong indicator as to what The Oscars will look like. While this isn't entirely true, the one advantage that the ceremony has is that it honors films in both comedy and drama departments, thus allowing less prestigious titles to pick up traction. This year shows no exception, especially with the presence of a few surprising picks, including Mad Max: Fury Road, Concussion, and Trumbo. The following is a look at the movie categories, followed by personal thoughts on each of the categories.

Harvey Weinstein is Disappointed With This Oscar Season

Harvey Weinstein

If you're someone who follows Oscars culture annually, there's certain names that you have on your Rolodex. There is, of course, Meryl Streep, David O. Russell, and Steven Spielberg. Among the producers that will usually be good for a news piece or two, there's Harvey Weinstein of The Weinstein Company and former head of Miramax. At The Oscar Buzz, he is someone of constant reference, especially in the Failed Oscar Campaigns column; of which he's been the subject of using bizarre tactics for Oscar nominations. However, the man who helped to give the world films like Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love has come forward in a recent op-ed piece regarding his personal thoughts on Oscar season. Apparently, he's not happy with how things have turned out.

Check Out This Year's Nominees for The Spirit Awards

Scene from Anomalisa

As November has dwindled down, it's time to start looking ahead to the big awards season. While we're in the middle of a barrage of great films coming out, there hasn't been really any focus yet - largely because there hasn't been any major awards show yet. Today marks the announcement of the 31st Annual Independent Spirit Awards nominations, which is set on commemorating the best in independent cinema from the past year. While the Golden Globes are likely to be more of an indicator of The Academy Awards to come, there's no denying that the general impact of The Spirit Awards has grown over the past decade; even almost unanimously tying with the 2013 Oscar winners. What lies in store for this year's line-up? There's a few great surprises, of which likely will tell us of the films that we'll be discussing about for the next few months.

What the Telluride Festival Told Us About Oscar Front Runners

Scene from Suffragette

This past weekend was the Telluride Film Festival. While it doesn't have the immediate ring as that of Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) or Cannes, it has come to be its own predictor of the Oscar season ahead. As we enter the season, it's time to start looking at all of the possibilities out there and guessing just where everything will fall. If the news out of Telluride is any indication, we may be in for a hefty, exciting season full of returning favorites and a few new faces that may just well steal the show. The following is a quick rundown of the various films that have Oscar potential and what we have learned from the general buzz that has come from the festival.