What to Expect from The Oscar Buzz This Season

Scene from All the President's Men

As they would say, it's been a summer. While it may have not entirely been the most exciting stretch of time, it was definitely a chance to have some fun on The Oscar Buzz, ranking Best Picture winners, and doing everything to make the upcoming season all the more exciting. But here's the thing. I am as confident as you as to what's going to happen on the road ahead, which is not much of anything. It means that any regular plans may need to shift at any time to compensate. But for now, I am here to announce something significant in regards to how this website will run. Yes, things will be kicking into higher gear starting in September, and I'm proud to say that there will be some semblance of regular columns to match. What are they? You'll have to read on to find out.

To my loyal followers, I must apologize for any lag that there may have been here. I personally wasn't entirely sure how to keep this website fresh with regular new content on a weekly basis. With exception to my ranking, I notice that some weeks were unproductive entirely. While this is in part because of my work over at The Memory Tourist, it's also because I am not entirely sure what's going on. Sure, I reviewed Boys State (worthy of a Best Documentary nomination, honestly) and am psyched for the new Charlie Kaufman trailer, but... what else am I doing to make this site as vital as it should be?

In all honesty, I've been mostly planning for the Fall. If I've forgotten any column, it's solely so that I can shift my attention to what I want to do during an unsure season that may be the most uneventful in recent memory. After all, what Best Picture contender announced in January is not now in 2021? I'm going to be playing things largely by ear, though I am proud to announce that a handful of things will be compensating in the meantime.

For starters, regular columns will continue to run. This includes A24 A-to-Z, which publishes every month on the 24. I am also hoping to bring back Legitimate Theater, released on the third Thursday of every month. And, for now anyway, I am planning to bring back Theory Thursday for a monthly installment. I haven't decided when, but I'm hoping this will generate personal opinions and conversations about modern film news. I feel like more than anything there's always something regarding cinema to talk about. 

Also, I am proud to announce my next Composing Greatness series, which will focus on the score nominees for the short-lived Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. The category, which existed between 1995 and 1998 while producing 20 nominees. I'm hoping to get a sense of why this category was invented in the first place and if there was any value in reviving it in the future. 

There will also be the return of my favorite column Failed Oscar Campaigns, which is finalizing a list of topics for this season. While I can't specify what they are yet, the first one will be about the most symbolic failure of 2019, which shot for Oscar glory but ended up in Razzies' good graces. I'm sure you can guess from there. As of now, it will remain an every other week column, though with the extended season I am contemplating a hiatus sometime around December or January to focus on other projects. 

Of course, the annual entry for Nothing But the Best will be on this year's winner Parasite. Expect that to appear sometime in early November. 

And finally, as is customary, I will be publishing my anniversary piece in a few weeks celebrating the 8th anniversary of The Oscar Buzz. I am currently planning to look at why I have an affection for Paul Thomas Anderson through the guise of his directorial debut Hard Eight. Much like last year's piece on The Seven Year Itch, do not expect it to be a retrospective of a movie, but more of a relationship with media that ties loosely with the theme. I'm proud to have this website still going, and I hope that this is far from the end of my Oscar prognosticating career. Though no, unlike most years I will not be doing pre-season predictions, as I don't even know what's coming out anymore.

There's a good chance that some of this will change as the months go on. For now, I feel like it's a good way to revitalize conversation and get this website up and running again. I am hoping that there are ways to celebrate film this Fall without resorting to desperate measures, that whatever this prestige season will look like will produce something wonderful and unique. For now, these are my propositions of what you can look forward to starting in September. I hope that you have enjoyed my summer content, and here's to a fun season ahead. I hope that you'll enjoy going on this journey with me and that it's going to be an eventful and happy time.