What the Academy thought of Avatar…
Basically, it looks like they pretty much thought "Avatar" was a gimmick. The best-performing gimmick of all time but not a "real film." Whether that judgment will stand the test of time or we'll […]
Avatar
The Results of Our 2009 Sci-Fi Poll
With the Oscars done, we close down our Movie Smackdown poll about what was the Best Sci-Fi Film of 2009. It was a good year for sci-fi respect in that two of the ten Academy-nominated […]
And the Smacky Goes To…
This year’s poll of the Oscar favorites attracted hundreds of our most intelligent readers (see how much we’re willing to pander to those activists?) and they have spoken. We asked them not to vote for the film they think will win but for the film they think should win. They’ve given us a statistical tie between…
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Movie Smackdown Comix – Oscar Edition
We call them Comix. You’ve seen them in most of our reviews where we take the studios’ standard garden-variety publicity stills and armed only with an iMac, some Comic Life Magiq software and a serious […]
Avatar Is Now Officially Out of This World!
Today is the day that Avatar becomes the biggest money-making film EVER, passing another film directed by James Cameron, Titanic. Listen, over here at the Smack, we love and respect box-office as much as anyone […]
The Hurt Locker Defuses Top Award from the Producers Guild
If you haven’t seen it, the film is about a bomb-defusing unit in Iraq, a job that comes with a guarantee of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when you go home. Although it won at the Critics’ Choice Awards, it lost ground when the Globes chose “Avatar” as best dramatic film and then SAG gave its film ensemble award to Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”
What’s it all mean? Well, for starters, this PGA award always gets looked at as an indicator for which way the wind’s blowing in the race for the Academy Award for best film. During the past two decades, a baker’s dozen (13) of previous PGA winners have gone on to win the best film Oscar. The last time they didn’t connect was when the producers gave “Little Miss Sunshine” the win while the film academy went with “The Departed.”
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