Visuals are, obviously, what we pay attention to when we watch movies. This category is more about the technological advancements that a group has managed to achieve in order to make a movie into a visual masterpiece. So we will be going over the nominations for the Best Visuals categories.
First on the list of nominations for this category is ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and more specifically the designers of which were Dan DeLeeuw, Russell Earl, Matt Aitken and Dan Sudick. ‘Endgame’ is extremely reliant on visual effects and did an unbelievable job at immersing its audience into a world to feels almost real. Marvel films have always tried to push visuals to their extremes, and ‘Endgame’ carries on that tradition by creating some of, possibly, the best visuals seen yet.
Next up, we have a movie that has a numerous amount of other nominations, and that is ‘The Irishman.’ The visual effect designers for which were Pablo Helman, Leandro Estebecorena, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser and Stephane Grabli. It should be no surprise that this movie ended up in this category either as many visual aspects have been nominated for this movie already so the nomination for Best Visual Effect makes sense.
Following that, we have ‘The Lion King’ as the next nomination. As a live action version of an animated film, Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Elliot Newman, the visual effects designers, did an excellent job of making the characters seem real. It isn’t easy making animated anthropomorphic animals seem like they are living and speaking in real life. As such, they earned their place on the list of nominees to receive this award.
Another film to have multiple awards attached to it nomination wise is ‘1917.’ It managed to also make its way into the category for Best Visual Effects because of the hard work of Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler and Dominic Tuohy. War films, often times, must be visceral to some degree in order to illicit some kind of emotional response from the audience. This movie did well enough in that respect to make an impact that put it on this list.
Finally, we have Roger Guyett, Neal Scanlan, Patrick Tubach and Dominic Tuohy for their work on ‘Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker.’ As this movie is supposed to be the last in the mainline series of films, it should be no surprise that a lot of extra work went into the movie to make it incredibly visually appealing. A fantastic space opera should have fantastic visuals, and that is what was accomplished for this film. No matter what you may have thought about the film, there is no question that the visuals were incredible.
There are countless categories for the Oscars. There are so many in fact that we may not end up covering all of the categories and their nominations. We have managed to cover a fair number of them already, however, such as Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Animated Feature Film, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Directing Nominees, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Film Editing, Best International Feature, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Music (Original Score), and Best Original Screenplay.
The 92nd Academy Awards are fast approaching, in fact at the time of this being written they will be taking taking place in just a few days. There are plenty of people out there that don’t understand exactly how the voting process works. First of all, the biggest thing that people should know is that it is called The Academy Awards for a reason. The Academy is the group that votes on movies, directors, musicians, etc. This doesn’t mean, however, that one group of people determines all of the winners.
Winners of the awards are decided upon by their peers in the same fields. For example, Best Directing is decided by directors and film editors are nominated by film editors, etc. However, the award for Best Picture is voted on by all members of The Academy. Other certain categories such as International Feature Film and Animated Feature Film have special voting rules. Voting for these films is done when the Academy president chooses a head for the voting committee and that head sends invitations to other members of the Academy to vote for the best films.
Nominations voting is conducted using both paper and online ballots, with online voting being the preferred choice for the overwhelming majority of Academy members. Voting begins for all Academy members at the end of December and all votes are tallied by PricewaterhouseCoopers. For the final balloting process, all voting is conducted online, and all categories become available on the ballot for voting members. In the end, only two members of PricewaterhouseCoopers know the results of the ballots until the envelopes are opened on stage. The results of which we will get to see on Sunday Febraury 9 @ 8pm EST.
Among the numerous things that go into the making of a movie, one of, and perhaps the most important thing of all, is the screenplay. A movie simply would not exist if it didn’t have a screenplay. Screenplays are the movies before the movies actually start being filmed. We will now be going through the nominees for the Best Original Screenplay, and the movies that they did the screenplays for.
First up on the list of nominees, we have Rian Johnson for his work on the movie ‘Knives Out.’ Johnson is known for his work on the movies Brick, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and now, Knives Out. This movie sees a popular mystery writer turning up dead in his mansion, forcing renowned private detective Benoit Blanc to investigate, thus revealing that every member of the eccentric author’s family, as well as his nurse, is a murder suspect.
Next on the list of nominees for Best Original Screenplay is Noah Baumbach for his work on the movie ‘Marriage Story.’ Baumbach wrote for movies such as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Madagascar 3. ‘Marriage Story’ sees a young creative couple and their son navigate the tricky waters of bicoastal separation and impending divorce.
Coming in next on the list is Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns for their work on the movie ‘1917.’ Mendes worked as director, not only on this movie, but also on films such as Skyfall and Spectre. This, meanwhile, is Wilson-Cairns first feature film she has written for. ‘1917’ sees two British soldiers during WWI sent on a dangerous mission to stop an attack by the British 7th Division that will result in a massacre by the Germans. Their assignment takes on extra urgency as one of the young soldiers’ brothers is fighting in that Division.
Following that nomination, we have Quentin Tarantino who is up for a couple of different nominations for his film ‘Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.’ Tarantino has a number of original screenplays under his belt already such as Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Inglorious Basterds. It isn’t much of a surprise that he is on this list of nominees either. ‘Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood’ sees Los Angeles in 1969, with aging TV star Rick Dalton and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth struggling to make their way around an industry and a city they hardly recognize anymore.
Finally, the last nominees for Best Original Screenplay are Bong Joon-Ho and Han Jin-Won for their work on ‘Parasite.’ This movie ended up being a surprise hit in the United States, so much so that it had been nominated for a number of different awards already. ‘Parasite’ sees greed, class discrimination and a mysterious interloper threatening the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.
The Oscars are fast approaching, and with numerous awards to be given in a variety of categories, we have already covered some of those categories. The nominees we have covered already were for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Animated Feature Film, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Directing Nominees, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Film Editing, Best International Feature, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Music (Original Score).
The Despicable Me franchise has been wildly successful since its inception since 2011. That tradition seems as though it will continue even now moving into the next decade. With three main titles under its belt and a prequel, the franchise continues with another prequel. This time it is an obvious continuation of the first prequel, Minions. At the end of the first prequel, we see just how the main character of the main films, Gru, met the titular minions. Now, we will get to see just how the minions and Gru managed to become known as an incredible super-villain.
‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ is being steered by the franchise’s original creators. The film is produced by Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri and his longtime collaborators Janet Healy and Chris Renaud. Directing the film, we have returning franchise filmmaker Kyle Balda (Despicable Me 3, Minions) and co-directors Brad Ableson (The Simpsons) and Jonathan del Val (The Secret Life of Pets films). The film stars the voices of Pierre Coffin, Steve Carell, Taraji P. Henson, Michelle Yeoh, RZA, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, and Alan Arkin. ‘The Rise of Gru’ releases to theaters on July 3rd, 2020.
SAW is a franchise that has been around now for over fifteen years and we are about to get the ninth entry to the franchise. This entry draws back upon the gruesome history of the rest of the franchise. The movie follows a detective and his rookie partner working in the shadow of a veteran police officer. What results from this is a grisly investigation into murders that very closely resemble some from the city’s terrifyingly gruesome past. This ends up forcing the detective into the killer’s morbid and dangerous game.
‘Spiral’ stars Chris Rock as Detective Ezekial “Zeke” Banks, Max Minghella as his rookie partner, Marisol Nichols, and Samuel L. Jackson as esteemed police veteran. Director Darren Lynn Bousman returns for yet another film in the franchise. ‘Spiral’ is being produced by Mark Burg and Oren Koules through Lionsgate. Executively producing the movie is star Chris Rock and as of now, the official date for the theatrical release is May 15, 2020.
Agatha Christie is known as one of, if not, the best-selling author of all time. She wrote well over sixty different stories that told many diverse tales. Most of Agatha Christie’s stories are detective stories, which gives rise to a large number of stories that can be adapted to the big screen or television. In this case, it is the computer screen and the television that the story comes to us through. This story is known as ‘The Pale Horse’, a story about the death of a young woman and a mysterious list of names that is discovered in her shoe.
Christies’ works have been adapted to numerous forms of media over the years and it was only a matter of time before this work made its way to this medium. The story sees a man named Mark Easterbrook (Rufus Sewell) embarking on an investigation into how and why his name came to appear on the list. This investigation leads him to the home of a trio of rumored witches in the beautiful village of Much Deeping called The Pale Horse. Mark begins to find connections between the witches and his deceased first wife Delphine (Georgina Campbell) and starts to wonder, despite his skepticism, if the paranormal is involved. When more people on the list start dying, Mark must find some kind of explanation as to what is happening, or he might just be next to die.
This show stars Rufus Sewell, Kaya Scodalerio, Sheila Atim, Madeleine Bowyer, Georgina Campbell, Bertie Carvel, Kathy Kiera Clarke, Poppy Gilbert, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, and Sean Pertwee. The series is directed by Leonora Lonsdale with a screenplay written by Sarah Phelps. Based off of the Agatha Christie novel of the same name, it is a true mystery story that will keep the audience entertained throughout. This mini-series will release to the public on Amazon Prime Video on March 13, 2020.
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