the groundhog day project

Call this PART II of my Oscar predictions . Groundhog Day playing again, but I probably won't mention it again today. First up: Adapted Screenplay-- Call Me By Your Name The Disaster Artist Logan Molly's Game Mudbound --should go to Call Me By Your Name . It's the only Best Picture nominee here. Plus, James Ivory has been winning this one like it's a lifetime achievement award. Long shot goes to cowriter (and director) Dee Rees for Mudbound because the Academy might want to give that film something and this might be the only place it can. Original Screenplay-- The Big Sick Get Out Lady Bird The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri --is an interesting contest because any of these could win. Really, it's between The Big Sick , Get Out , and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri , but that doesn't narrow it down much. The Writers Guild gave this to Get Out , as did Critics Choice, but the Golden Globes' single screenplay cate...

Groundhog Day is playing, and I saw Foxtrot this morning, but I will probably say next to nothing about the former, and only comment on the latter briefly. See, I also just watched the Spirit Awards a few hours ago (had to put some scores in my gradebook for this semester, and help my daughter sort some songs for a theater playlist in the intervening hours), and tomorrow is Oscar day. Groundhog Day is the welcome background noise, basically, as I elaborate on my official predictions (and my personal preferences) for this year's Oscars. Call this PART I . And, I might try to enlighten you a little on what some of these "lesser" awards are actually for. First up for me is Film Editing. The nominees: Baby Driver Dunkirk I, Tonya The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri I, Tonya won today and should win tomorrow. But, for it should be noted that the ACE Eddies (the guild award for film editors) had separate categories for drama (where Dunkirk wo...

A new angle for the next week (then I mean to get back to Charlie Kaufman to end out the month): the Oscars. I talk about them off and on anyway. And as I have seen most of the films nominated, I am inclined to express opinions about them. Plus, this past week I set up my own Oscars-specific page on Facebook. I intend to get into, and probably rant for many hundreds or thousands of words about, the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, but may not get that far today. So... the plan: One best picture nominee a day, starting with Mad Max Fury Road today. I've already seen each of the eight films and wrote in detail about a few of them in this blog already, but I might get so sidetracked by Oscars business and bigger Hollywood politics--and societal standards on race and gender for that matter--that I might say very little about the films themselves this week. Not one per entry anyway. Mad Max was headed toward the storm before I even started typing today. That might be the only specific ...

At the Oscars tonight, Bill Murray presented the Cinematography award with Amy Adams. After listing the nominees, Murray added: "Oh, we forgot one, Harold Ramis for Caddyshack , Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day ." Got a nice round of applause, and some cool tweets. Dennis Perkins tweeted: "Bill Murray hijacks a billion viewers to say goodbye to a pal. #weeping" Patton Oswalt tweeted: "Oh FUCK YES Bill Murray. I burst-wept when he invoked Ramis." (And, it occurs to me I don't think I use profanity much this blog, so I suppose I might apologize for that one... or, well, no, not really. Harold Ramis and Bill Murray deserve that sort of all-caps energy.) Esquire magazine tweeted, a little disapprovingly: "Bill Murray is also an eventual gentleman." Some--including the tweeter PFT from Esquire apparently, think Murray's brief statement in response to Ramis' death-- Harold Ramis and I together did the National Lampoon Show off Broa...