NYC Film Critic

Due to a variety of circumstances, NYCFilmCritic’s annual Oscar Talk back-and-forth took a year off, but I’ll still be tuning in to the Academy Awards this Sunday night to see how Hollywood divvies up this year’s bounty of little gold men.  In many ways, it’ll be a relief to have the Oscars over and done with–most of the big races appear to be set in stone and have been that way at least since mid-January.  That said, there’s still the potential for an upset or two.  My own predictions are below.  Check back on Monday* to see how I fared–here’s hoping I top my last year’s personal worst of 14 out of 24.

*Updated: Well, I definitely succeeded in topping last year’s poor showing.  Unfortunately it was with an even poorer showing–I struck out big time, only calling 9 out of 24 races correctly.  What can I say?  I got blindsided by the Alice in Wonderland juggernaut early on (namely because I actually saw the movie and had no idea why anyone would nominate it for anything) and never recovered.  About the only thing I did right was sticking with Inception for most of the technical awards and The Fighter duo of Christian Bale and Melissa Leo in the Supporting Actor categories.  Otherwise…yikes.  Nothing but net across the board.  Well, congrats to all the winners (yes, even you King’s Speech–you weren’t my favorite film of the lot, but you’re certainly no Crash or Gladiator) and here’s hoping I do better next year.  I mean, I couldn’t possibly do worse, right?  (Don’t answer that.)

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Like most people, I assumed the Farrelly Brothers’ best days were behind them.  So imagine my surprise when their latest comedy, Hall Pass, turned out to be a modest pleasure.  It’s no There’s Something About Mary but at least it’s also no Shallow Hal.  Read my review over at Film Journal.