CANNES FILM FEST ARTICLE IN REVERE MAGAZINE!

Check out my latest Revere Magazine article! Also, get the app for iTunes, Andriod, and Amazon!

http://reveremagazine.com/cannes-film-festival-2013/

CHECK OUT MY JJ ABRAMS ARTICLE IN REVERE MAGAZINE!

 

http://reveremagazine.com/jj-abrams/

Everyone check out my latest feature in Revere on JJ Abrams! Also, make sure to download the iTunes and/or Amazon Revere Magazine app. The articles look much better on the app!

JASON CLARKE ARTICLE IN REVERE MAGAZINE!

 
Everyone check out my latest article to get published in Revere Magazine! Also make sure to download the app (in the itunes and amazon app store), the app version looks much better than the website.

http://reveremagazine.com/one-to-watch-jason-clarke/

 

2013 OSCAR SEASON WRAP UP

Another Oscar season in the books and although this was one of the tougher years to call, with races in many categories coming down to the wire, I managed to predict 21 out of 24 awards.  My best year ever and one that will likely not be topped soon, especially considering I predicted all of the short categories correctly; I missed Best Supporting Actor (Waltz), Best Production Design (‘Lincoln’), and Best Director (Lee).

‘Life of Pi’ was the big winner as far as award haul is concerned, really dominating the technical categories and a nice win for Ang Lee for directing.  ‘Argo’ took home the awards with more weight: Picture, Editing, Adapted Screenplay.  ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ was nearly shut out but took home a shared award for Sound Editing in a rare tie with ‘Skyfall’.

The telecast has come and gone thus concluding this Oscar season.  Thanks to everyone for reading this year and look out for more posts to start rolling out during the summer festivals!

BAFTA AND DGA WINNERS

Below are links to the BAFTA and DGA award winners, Affleck took home another prize for ‘Argo’ making it all the more confusing why he wasn’t nominated for a directing Oscar.  The BAFTAs had few surprises, ‘Argo’ followed suit by winning Best Film and many of the other favorites (Day-Lewis, Hathaway, ect) won as well…

http://www.dga.org/Awards/Annual.aspx

http://awards.bafta.org/award/2013/film

 

OSCAR PREVIEW IN REVERE MAGAZINE

Hey everyone, check out my Oscar Preview article published in Revere Magazine.  Also check out their Itunes app, Android app, and Kindle app to read Revere on the go!

http://reveremagazine.com/2013-oscar-preview/

ZERO DARK THIRTY

 
“The Greatest Manhunt in History” is an apt tagline for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ which for months was referred to as “the untitled hunt for Osama Bin Laden movie”.  Kathryn Bigelow’s first film since 2009’s Best Picture winner ‘The Hurt Locker’ is a detailed account of the decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the intelligence and strategy that led to his killing.  Bigelow again teams up with writer Mark Boal (Academy Award winning writer ‘The Hurt Locker’) who displays a vivid picture of the rigorous process to locate Bin Laden.

Unfortunately due to the relatively late release date of the film (wide January 11^th) and the extremely early release date of Oscar nominations this year (January 10^th) I wasn’t able to see ‘ZD30’ until after seeing what it had been nominated for.  Had I seen it previous to nominations however I would have thought it would garner more attention.  Yes it was nominated for Best Picture, yes Boal is again nominated for his screenplay, and yes Jessica Chastain, who plays the CIA operative behind the investigation into Bin Laden’s whereabouts, has a great chance at winning Best Actress but the film was snubbed in some key categories.  The most glaring omission was no Best Director nomination for Bigelow.  Bigelow is coming off a Best Director win for her previous film and does a great job walking a fine line between painstaking honesty and torture propaganda in ‘ZD30’.  Also the film was only nominated for two tech categories: Film Editing and Sound Editing.  The film could have and quite frankly should have gotten nominations in both Cinematography (in place ‘Anna Karenina’, a total joke nom) and Sound Mixing.

So why the lack of love for ‘ZD30’?  Primarily it has to do with timing; the nominations came out on January 10^th and the film wasn’t release wide until January 11^th.  Of course most Oscar voters have the ability to catch early screenings or go to the limited releases in NY or LA but many Oscar voters won’t go to extra trouble to see films unless there is buzz.  ‘ZD30’ just didn’t have the buzz going and even after its wide release it’s still not talked about heavily in Oscar circles.  The other aspect that hurts the film in my opinion is its lack of emotional pull.  Although Jeremy Renner’s protagonist in ‘The Hurt Locker’ is emotionally detached the audience still has a reason to root for him, maybe it’s the hope he can overcome, change, become “normal”.  ‘ZD30’ doesn’t have that, sure you want Maya (Chastain) to succeed and find Bin Laden but the film plays more as a documentary than a drama.

We’ll see what happens on Oscar night but short of Chastain being a serious player in the Best Actress category, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ might fail the mission to bring home any statues.