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

In terms of the awards themselves, the biggest change came with the number of nominees for the most important category, Best Picture. Instead of the usual 5 nominees which always ended in negative feedback due to the non-inclusion of major hits such as The Dark Knight at last year's presentation, the academy saw fit to bump the number of nominees up to 10 rather than improve the selection process. So now, we're left with a few legitimate contenders and a bunch of filler movies that would never have been nominated in previous ye

We can go on about The Americans all day. The show is deserving of more recognition, as is its cast – particularly Matthew Rhys, whose depiction of a man gradually becoming overwhelmed by his conscience is one of television's best. Elsewhere, you have Mads Mikkelsen's role as the cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter , which redefined the character and made him frightening and frighteningly romantic all at the same t

Mad Men had one of the deepest benches in terms of talent that television has ever seen. But it never relied on anyone more so than Elisabeth Moss, who was both generous in her scenes with other actors and dominating when she needed to be. By the end, Peggy Olsen was as synonymous with the series as Don Draper. With this being the last time Moss can be nominated for her consistently amazing work on Matthew Weiner's series, this feels like a real missed opportun

For much of the evening, Michael Hazanavicius’ black-and-white silent film homage, The Artist , swept the Golden Globes in the comedy category, coming out on top overall with three wins for Best Original Score, Best Actor and Best Picture. Over on the drama side, Alexander Payne's The Descendants t ook home the most awards in the drama category with a Best Actor win for George Clooney and Best Pict

In television, it was Showtime that came out on top, with three awards all stemming from brand new series. Matt Leblanc took home Best Actor (comedy or musical) for playing a fictionalized version of himself on the UK import Episodes , while Homeland not only brought home a Golden Globe for Claire Danes as Best Actress (drama), but it also gave Showtime its first ever award for Best Ser

In 2014, however, the Academy seemed to slip back to their more obscure choices. Clint Eastwood's American Sniper was the only Best Picture nominee to gross over $100 million by the night of the ceremony and had made more than its seven competitors combined. The average domestic total for a nominee this year was just $77.6 million: an average which is respectable, but a far cry from the averages of the past two years, where multiple blockbusters contended for Best Pict

Downloading Nancy premiered here at Sundance 2008 and is the story of Nancy (played by Maria Bello), a severely emotionally damaged woman married to and emotionally cold man (Rufus Sewell as Albert) who turns to the internet for companions

About 3/4 of the way through the Film Festival Games Rankings|Https://Moviefestivalhub.Com/ I was hoping for "release" almost as much as Nancy. I honestly don't understand how an actor can look at a script like this and not just say: "Damn, that is f'ed up!" and just move on to the next

So, all in all, just another year at the Oscars - complete with plenty of obvious choices, surprising snubs, and a handful of unexpected nominations. Whether or not the actual winners list will be quite so predictable - or, perhaps, mix things up a bit - that remains to be s

It remains to be seen if this is something that will plague the Oscars for the next handful of years or is merely a blip on the radar. Looking ahead to 2015's award season (I know, bear with me...), there are offerings from filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and David O. Russell among others that could prove to be more lucrative endeavors than the crop we just got. The Academy will spend the next 12 months figuring out how to retool their telecast, but the odds of a ratings boost are in their fa

The film opens with Nancy discussing her thoughts on what happens after you die with another woman. At this point it sounds like she is optimistic about the afterlife while her friend is very negative and keeps bringing up counterpoints to make it sound like she could be somehow trapped in some way after death. As it turns out, the friend turns out to be a therapist who is trying to convince Nancy that death is not an escape or free

A relatively subdued Ricky Gervais took the stage as host of the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards . In his second year as host, it appears that all of last year’s controversy surrounding Gervais' hosting must have impacted the funnyman, as all of his jabs appeared a little too nice compared to what was said last ye