Movie News
Flickchart on Tumblr
Posts Tagged ‘Best Picture’
by Nigel Druitt
For the first time since 1944, in 2009 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced there would be 10 Best Picture nominees. This year, they’re changing the category again, in ways that make the race more interesting and, indeed, probably harder to predict.
When a list of the films eligible for Best Picture are sent out to voters, only those with at least 5% of first-place votes will be included as nominees for the Oscar. It is assumed that there will still be a minimum of five nominees, but now there could be any number of films between 5 and 10 nominated for Best Picture. According to retiring Academy executive director Bruce Davis: “In studying the data, what stood out was that Academy members had regularly shown a strong admiration for more than five movies. A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number.”
While the category was expanded two years ago in an effort to include more popular titles and thus boost the Oscar telecast’s ratings, this new system should help make for a much more interesting race – and prevent questionable titles like The Blind Side from popping up in the Best Picture category.
(via Oscars.org)
- In: Movie News
- Tags: Best Picture, Oscar
by Tom Clift
The Academy Awards are the film equivalent of the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Hollywood’s ultimate honour, the Oscars recognize – in theory – the pinnacle of cinematic achievement in a given year, while the film to take home the coveted award for Best Picture is immortalized in the halls of movie history. In just a few short days, the winners of the 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be announced, and as it so often does, the Best Picture race has come down to two critically acclaimed favourites. In one corner sits a charming and affecting period piece about a monarch learning to overcome a stutter; in the other, a striking, propulsive and meticulously calculated telling of the birth of a 21st century phenomenon. Reel Rumbles is proud to bring you a preview to the biggest and most anticipated showdown of the season… The Social Network vs. The King’s Speech.
In Search of Best Picture
17, Feb 2011by Nigel Druitt
As the Oscar telecast creeps up on us again, it begs the question: How many times has the Academy really gotten this “Best Picture” thing right, anyway?
Think about it. How many controversial decisions are there in the Academy’s history? How many times is a movie other than Best Picture long remembered as the best of the year?
- In: User Showcase
- Tags: (500) Days of Summer, 127 Hours, 1941, 1977, 1994, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 28 Days Later, 3:10 to Yuma, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, A Serious Man, academy awards, adaptation, Alfonso Cuarón, American Beauty, An Education, Ang Lee, annie hall, Atonement, Avatar, Babel, Batman Begins, Best Picture, Big Fish, Black Swan, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Casablanca, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, Children of Men, Chocolat, Christopher Nolan, Citizen Kane, City of God, Clint Eastwood, Crash, Crouching Tiger, District 9, Donnie Darko, Eastern Promises, Erin Brockovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Exit Through The Gift Shop, Fight Club, film, films, Finding Nemo, Flickchart, Forrest Gump, Frost/Nixon, George Lucas, gladiator, Gone Baby Gone, Good Night and Good Luck, Gosford Park, Guillermo Del Toro, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, heath ledger, Hidden Dragon, hot fuzz, How Green Was My Valley, How to Train Your Dragon, Howl's Moving Castle, In Bruges, In the Bedroom, Inception, Inglourious Basterds, Iron Man, Juno, Kick-Ass, Kill Bill, Let The Right One In, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Lost in Translation, Luc Besson, Martin Scorsese, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Memento, Michael Clayton, Mickey Rourke, Milk, Million Dollar Baby, Moon, moulin rouge, movies, Munich, Mystic River, No Country For Old Men, Oldboy, Orson Welles, Oscar, Pan's Labyrinth, Peter Jackson, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Pulp Fiction, Reese Witherspoon, Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, Russell Crowe, Sandra Bullock, Saving Private Ryan, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Seabiscuit, Sean Penn, Serenity, Shakespeare in Love, Shutter Island, Sin City, Slumdog Millionaire, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Star Wars, Steven Soderbergh, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Aviator, The Blind Side, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Departed, The Fighter, The Hours, The Hurt Locker, The Kids are All Right, The King's Speech, The Lives of Others, The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, The Pianist, The Professional, The Queen, The Reader, The Shawshank Redemption, The Social Network, The Town, The Wrestler, There Will Be Blood, Tim Burton, Toy Story 3, Traffic, True Grit, Up, Up in the Air, Walk the Line, WALL-E, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, William Hurt, Winter's Bone, Woody Allen, Zodiac
Directors Who Dominate: Steven Spielberg
27, Jan 2011by Nigel Druitt
Since last fall’s revamping of Flickchart‘s global ranking system (see the official announcement about that here), many films have found themselves moved around on the global charts. But one thing remains consistent: the Directors Who Dominate continue to do so. Previously covered in this series, Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino remain at the top of the charts (with their highest-ranked films at #1 and #4, respectively.) But the biggest change is that their newest efforts (Inception and Inglourious Basterds) have a much stronger presence on the chart, where they now appear at #2 and #13. And this brings us to another director who continually dominates, the man who is widely regarded (for good or ill) as the father of the modern blockbuster: Steven Spielberg.
- In: Directors Who Dominate
- Tags: 1941, 1975, 1981, 1984, 1993, 2001, 2005, 2009, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Amistad, Best Picture, Box Office, Catch Me If You Can, Christopher Nolan, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, film, films, Flickchart, George Lucas, Gremlins, Harrison Ford, Hook, Inception, Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Inglourious Basterds, James Bond, Jaws, jurassic park, Leonardo DiCaprio, Minority Report, movies, Munich, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Shakespeare in Love, Star Trek, Star Wars, Steven Spielberg, Super 8, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, The Color Purple, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Terminal, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, War Horse, War of the Worlds
Scenes I Love… In Movies I Don’t
1, Dec 2010by Nigel Druitt
There are some films on my Flickchart that rank higher than they might have, simply because they contain just one scene that held me captivated. Overall, I may not have cared for the movie, but one particular scene or sequence just caught my attention, and I had to admit: I wish the whole movie could have been like that.
Here are a few films that find themselves pulled from the dregs at the bottom of my Flickchart, buoyed in the middling middle on the strength of one or two effective scenes. One is the first R-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar. One is considered a modern-day masterpiece. One is a mediocre action flick from a director best known for mediocre action flicks. They all have one thing in common: I didn’t love them…but I loved something about them. (Caution to those who might not have seen the films discussed; there may be a few minor spoilers.)
- In: User Showcase
- Tags: 12 Rounds, 1971, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1993, 2004, 2008, Al Pacino, Best Picture, Brian De Palma, Carlito's Way, Cliffhanger, Cutthroat Island, Daniel Day-Lewis, Deep Blue Sea, Fernando Rey, film, films, Flickchart, Gene Hackman, GoodFellas, Inglourious Basterds, Jaws, John Lithgow, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, movies, Paul Thomas Anderson, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Renny Harlin, Samuel L. Jackson, Star Wars, Sylvester Stallone, The Departed, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Lord of the Rings, There Will Be Blood, Uma Thurman