Jakes Gyllenhaal said it best this evening, pointing out that it would be the shorts that make or break our Oscar Pools. I am usually able to get half of them right by watching them and picking favorites but this year I got them all wrong. Amongst the big categories there were few surprises though, outside of Tom Hooper ( The King's Speech ) beating out David Fincher ( The Social Network ) for achievement in directing. But hey, Chris Nolan wasn't even nominated for Inception so without further

The Academy Awards telecast, seen by most as Hollywood's biggest night, has been enjoying slight upticks in the ratings over the past couple of years. Whether that is due to the producers' choices of popular hosts (Seth MacFarlane and Ellen DeGeneres) or the nominated films posting very healthy box office numbers is up for debate. What matters to the Academy is that people were tuning in to their s

Also appearing later in the film (although his expletive-laced voice is heard early on) is Ralph Fiennes as the man who is in charge of telling them who they need to kill and when. Fiennes did a great job in the role with an intensity that would unleash itself with great ferocity. I also enjoyed both Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson was just peaceful to watch, if that makes any sense, and Farrell was the polar, manic opposite. His face was a rubber mask of expressions that was very entertaining to

The likeliest culprits most people will point to are the Best Picture nominees themselves. Ever since expanding their top category to include a maximum of 10 films back in 2009, the Academy has done a solid job at ensuring that commercially successful works are recognized. Over the past couple of years, big box office hits like Avatar , Inception , Django Unchained , and Gravity were putting together Oscar campaigns in addition to drawing in large cro

And, honestly, it's difficult to say what exactly can be done to fix this. The obvious answer is "nominate films people have seen," but that is a little disingenuous to the acclaimed movies that did get nominated. Whiplash , Boyhood , Birdman , and The Grand Budapest Hotel may not have become mainstream hits, but they all have their passionate supporters among cinephiles and received a boost in awareness thanks to the Oscar label. Maybe if studios made these awards contenders more readily available , they'd attract a wider audie

The owner of the store has always told Mike that Fats Waller was born in the building and grew up around the neighborhood. Being that "Fats" is a hero of Mike's, they decide to create an original movie about the man's l

There were also many very funny moments in the film festival games patch Notes|https://moviefestivalhub.com/ including one scene where Farrell decks a guy he thinks is an American and right afterwards says: "That's for John Lennon." But then part way through the movie the tone changes abruptly into a much darker and tragic mode. Humor is still sprinkled throughout after this turn, but when you laugh at this point it's almost more like nervous laughter, just to release the tension of what you're watch

Some interesting notes: True Grit didn't get a single award despite ten (10!) nominations; Christopher Nolan didn't receive any awards despite Inception being entirely original and praised for its design, winning 4 other awards no less; Anne Hathaway, poking fun at the Academy's attempt at appealing to a younger demographic is the presentation's youngest host ever at 28 and last but not least, 8-time Oscars host Billy Crystal made a friendly and fun appearance making some wish he was back to host ag

Jerry gets electrocuted while trying to sabotage a power plant, the side effect of which is that he is now magnetized. He comes into the dollar video store where Mike is temporarily in charge and inadvertently erases all the videotapes in the store. Jerry is severely obnoxious and of course, oblivious to the f

When customers start returning videos to the store as defective, Mike discovers that the entire inventory is now useless. Mia Farrow plays an older woman who is keeping an eye on things while the owner (Danny Glover) is staying out of the picture, pretending to be out of town. She has only ever seen "chick flicks" but wants to watch Ghostbusters . Of course it's now erased but finding the store in disarray she threatens to report the situation to the owner if they don't get her a c

The other issue that some will raise is the bloated nature of the telecast. Beginning at 8:30 p.m. EST, Sean Penn didn't announce that Birdman had won Best Picture until 11:48 p.m. In between all the awards being handed out, viewers were expected to slog their way through comedy bits that arguably fell flat, musical performances, and several commercial breaks. In this day and age, fans can find out who wins in real time via social media and see any speeches they're interested in watching online shortly after the original telecast. The need to see the show live has decrea