Since the Actors branch make up the largest part of the Oscar voting members who they pick is usually a good indicator who the Oscar will go to.  Saying that this year is such a crazy year it's hard to know what will happen.  But with DiCaprio's win I think it's a fair bet to say he will win his first Oscar.  After that it's pretty much anyone's guess. Brie Larson won Best Actress which definitely puts her as a front runner.  Idris Elba won Best Supporting Actor but isn't nominated for an Oscar so that is no help, and Alicia Vinkader's win as Best Supporting Actress makes a good case for her but not sure that Oscar is going to go that way.  

Full List of Winners below. 

As usually we get an eclectic selection of films coming to Netflix.  Next month we have Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket along with Michael Bay's Armageddon.  Also a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that Netflix produced.  We are also getting one of the most talked about films from last years Sundance Film Festival Dope.  
So no matter what your tastes you should find something you will like.  

Last night the PGA announced the winners of this years award.  
The big winner of the night was The Big Short picking up Best Feature Film.  The win comes as a big of a surprise as Spotlight and The Revenant were seen as the front runner.  This gives a big boost to The Big Short since the past 8 winners of the PGA Award would go on to win the Oscar.  The last time a movie didn't win both was in 2006 when Brokeback Mountain won the PGA and Crash won Best Picture at the Oscars.  

Continuing to dominate in their respective categories are Inside Out and Amy.  Inside Out won for animated film and Amy won for Documentary film.  Making them the clear frontrunners in their categories.  

Oscars are February 28th.  
Let us know what you think.  Will The Big Short carry the momentum to the Oscars? Or is the race still wide open? 

Now that we have heard from the Oscar's and various other groups what their favorite films of the year it's time to find out what movies excited folks in Milwaukee.  
The Film Blogger's of Milwaukee and Beyond (FBOMB) polled their members and came up with nominees for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Documentary. Voting for the FBOMB Awards will now start with a winner being announced the beginning of January.  

Nominations are listed below. Due to ties in some of the categories there are 6 nominees instead of 5.  

In an exciting day we finally have the Oscar nominations and while things went mostly as expected there were a few surprises.

As expected The Revenant (12 noms), Mad Max: Fury Road (10 noms), Spotlight, and The Big Short dominated.

The four biggest surprises

After dominating early award season Carol missed a Best Picture and Director nomination but got Best Actress, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Costume, and Adapted Screenplay.

After being absent from ever early award nominations Tom Hardy scores a best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Revenant.

No Quentin Tarantino for Best Screenplay. Despite The Hateful Eight fading during award season it was still expected to get a screenplay nomination.
But it did get Best Supporting Actress and Best Score. Surprisingly taking its place was Straight Outta Compton.

And like last year the Best Animated Feature category offered a few surprises. As expected the front runners Anomolisa and Inside Out made the cut along with Shaun the Sheep. Surprisingly The Peanuts and The Good Dinosaur missed a nomination and in their place we got unknown Boy and the World and When Marnie Was There.

As I get more time to take it all in I am sure I will have more thoughts to come.

Full list of nominations below. What are your biggest surprises or snubs.

The day before the Oscar's announce their nominations for Best of the the year, the Razzies announce theirs for worst of the year.  

Not surprisingly they pick the easy targets and none of the movies on this list are too surprising.  Although no Ridiculous 6 makes me think that since it was released strictly on Netflix it wasn't eligible for a nomination.  
50 Shades of Grey, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2, Jupiter Ascending, and Pixels lead the way with 6 nominations each and Fantastic Four got 4 nominations.  

Full list below.  Let us know your thoughts.  

After the false rumor that Ava DuVernay will be directing Black Panther exploded everyone has been cautious to speculate who will be directing the movie.  But the latest rumors that Ryan Coogler will be directing it turned out to be true.  

Today Marvel posted on their page that Ryan Coogler is officially directing the movie.  Coogler made the critically praised Fruitvale Station and then went on to direct the successful Rocky sequel/reboot Creed  has been given the reigns to the Marvel property.  The success of Creed both critically and financially shows Coogler has the chops to make an entertaining popular movie while also making a movie critics like.  Hoping to duplicate the success of Guardians of the Galaxy that also did well with both groups it seems like a good pick.

Chadwick Boseman will be playing the title character and will make his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War.  After lots of release date shuffling Black Panther will arriving  February 16th 2018 (ignore the date in the picture above.  
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Below is the official statement from Kevin Feige about Ryan Coogler

Updated with the Cinematogropher nominees from ASC.
We are one week away from the announcement of the Oscar nominees and since the new year we have had a bunch of the guilds weighing in with their nominations. The biggest one is the Producers Guild Awards which gives a good idea what movies will be nominated for Best Picture. A few surprises from them is Carol and Room being left off and Ex Machina, Straight Outta Compton, and Sicario making the list. The Writers Guild has so many rules to be eligible for nominations that their nominations don't usually give us any insight into the Oscars. The SAG Nominations have already been announced and you can find those here.
Take a look and let us know what you think
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Every year during the Award season movies release their screenplay to the Writers Guild of America voting members. This year the screenplay that has everyone talking is Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  Disney finally released the screenplay to voting members and thanks to Reddit uses a copy is online.  
Check it out below.