Continuing on from the past few weeks regarding above the line categories, it’s time to look at what the consensus might be for Best Supporting Actor, and what the Awards Community thinks could be considered a “frontrunner” or “challenger” for ultimately prevailing in the end. From the Award Expert app, this is the consensus at the current moment. Out front, ever since the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, has been Stellan Skarsgård for Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value. Though considered by...

The CBS/Paramount deal to aquire Bari Weiss' The Free Press for about the same cost as the budget for One Battle After Another is now complete. Weiss announced it, along with her mission statement, on their YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqZ7E_Mx-K4 She lays out her plans to stay CEO and Editor in Chief of The Free Press, along with guiding CBS News in a better direction (60 Minutes, Sunday Morning). CBS needs Bari Weiss more than she needs CBS. This is a rescue mission,...

This weekend, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another crossed the $100 million mark at the global box office, picking up $58 million internationally, adding to the $42 million domestic. Had the film cost around $50 million, it would be in a great position to win Best Picture. It cost between $130-$150 million. If it won, it would be the second-highest budget film to win since Titanic. Does that even matter? It didn't entirely bomb, and it looks like it will do...

The eligible podcasts have been announced for the inaugural podcast award from the Golden Globes, and it's a little bit awkward.  It might shock them to see who some of the top 25 most-listened to people are. To get a nomination, they must be Team Blue. We know that, right? There are no exceptions. When Jane Fonda and 500 other VIPs in Hollywood signed a pledge stating they stood up for the right to free speech for anyone, regardless of their political...

The pundits and critics now believe they make the race. But they don't. Any name in the frontrunner's spot is there because pundits put it there. Granted, that can sometimes be hard to displace.  Zoe Saldana and Kieran Culkin were already locked in. But do we have any contenders now that feel locked in? We do not. Maybe Jessie Buckley for Best Actress in Hamnet, as no one has emerged who can top her performance. But that's pretty much it. Best Picture...

You can subscribe to The Buzzmeter by clicking here. Jane Fonda and The Ankler have decided to cosplay oppression and fear of "authoritarianism" and free speech. Neither of them had spoken a single word in the past ten years, as Hollywood brought back the blacklists and silenced speech, forbade dissent, and transformed the industry into a dogma delivery device. Gone was real creative expression, gone was the truth, any kind of truth. Only one message was allowed -- and still is allowed....

Netflix has quite the slate of movies aiming at the Oscar race, as usual. Jay Kelly, House of Dynamite, Ballad of a Small Player. But the one that seems to be gaining traction is Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein. Now, it appears that there is a chance we could have three, count 'em, three horror films in the running for Best Picture. Could it be? There was a time when we couldn't even get in the race. So what has changed? For starters,...

To be honest, I’m having trouble writing this article. I was going to do my "Mount Rushmore of Actors", but decided to postpone it for next week. Sasha encouraged me to write from my heart and express what I’m really dealing with. So, I guess that’s what I’ll do—and somehow, I’ll try to spin this back into talking about cinema. Please, bear with me! After all the political assassinations and school shootings, I made a personal stance not to support One Battle...

Mark Johnson joins us for a two-hour conversation on Frontrunners and Challengers, Episode 2. We discuss whether there will be a split in the Best Picture category and wonder where things stand now. With Sasha Stone, Scott Kernen, and Jeremy Jentzen. Have a listen.

In the old days, box office most definitely mattered. There was no way a movie could lose money and win Best Picture. The question is, does it still matter? Are there factors that might mitigate a loss, like good intentions? Can the new voters, 3,000 of them, who aren't exactly invested in the film industry, ignore practical realities like the costs of making and releasing movies? I don't know. But it's worth asking the question. I've been doing this a long time,...

If there is one acting category that always has traction and attention, from who will get nominated to who ultimately prevails, it has always been that of Best Actress in a Leading Role. From ingenues to veterans, American sensations to International discoveries, it’s undoubtedly one of, if not the most popular, races to watch annually. Although the track record has been spotty in the past, Best Actress has become a stronger predictor of the Best Picture category in recent years, with four...

Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" is climbing the IMDb charts and has now topped Citizen Kane and North by Northwest. The only question now is whether it can do as well at the box office as the other WB titles. Meanwhile, the film opened with $22 million, breaking the WB streak with $40 million openers. Even if it doesn't, the WB can still walk away from this year feeling proud that they almost single-handedly saved Hollywood by releasing big-budget movies...