TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

This year's Academy Award nominations, which took place yesterday at- NO LEG MOVIE NO LEGO MOVIE NO LEGO MOVIE NO LEGO MOVIE NO LEGO MOVIE NO LEGO MOVIE. I had to get it out, I have to vent, because shouting at my television as it went from How to Train Your Dragon 2 to Song of the Sea . And I'm sure the latter film is very respectable, but at least until Oscar time people will be hating it, because it STOLE the coveted fifth spot from, I think it's safe to say, everyone's favorite animated movie of 2014. Enraged fans swept to Twitter, prompting the directors to make characteristically clever tweets, including co-director Phillip Lord showing a Lego Oscar. I'd rather win that than an actual one, though a regular Academy Award wouldn't hurt that much if I stepped on it. There were other snubs and surprises that occurred the other morning. They are not as important as The Lego Movie 's absence, but I will proceed regardless. A full list can be found HERE. ...

Well, take my predictions with a grain of salt, because I will be the first to admit that I had a hard time with Sunday's Golden Globes. Though it was called a night full of upsets, it was still depressing to read my scorecard of 10 out of 25 right, and I got four wrong alone in the movie category! Grand Budapest Hotel beating Birdman ?!? How to Train Your Dragon 2 defeating The Lego Movie ?!? It was a weird, weird night, but all that matters to me is that Boyhood came out on top, winning three awards for Patricia Arquette, director Richard Linklater and best picture!!! This leads me to believe exactly what I thought back in July... Boyhood will sweep the Oscars! Though I'm predicting Birdman will lead in nominations due to its innovative nature, probably at least 10. Theory and Imitation will do well technically since they're period pieces, then expect to see Boyhood with a respectable six or seven. Below I have my full listing of the nine major nominees, and little note...

This is just a straightforward list of predictions for the eleven major film awards! I will make my should win/could win predictions once it gets closer to the actual Oscar night, but since Oscar tends to stick fairly close to the Foreign Press, I'll save it for later. For now, I'm going to predict who's taking the gold home, and how this will determine the Academy Awards! A full list of the nominees HERE. BEST ANIMATED MOVIE: Nominees: ( Big Hero 6 , How to Train Your Dragon 2 , The Lego Movie , The Boxtrolls , The Book of Life ) Winner: This isn't because it was my second favorite movie of the year, but I honestly believe that if any movie but Lego wins it will be an upset. I love HTTYD2 , but this seems like the frontrunner. BEST SCREENPLAY: Nominees: ( The Imitation Game , Gone Girl , The Grand Budapest Hotel , Birdman , Boyhood ) Winner: This is actually one of the toughest races to call! There's no clear winner here, no Aaron Sorkin or Woody All...

What a wonderful, marvelous year it was for the movies. Emphasis on the Marvel: the studio produced three movies this year, and honestly all three could've been added to this list in a weaker year. I think what bonds this list of five films together is uniqueness: each put a spin on either a tired formula or predictable pattern and exceeded everyone's expectations, and brandished interesting and complex faces into the ever-growing, endlessly fascinating world of the movies. For a couple hours at a time I was able to fly with Michael Keaton, investigate with Ben Affleck and drive with Tom Hardy. Movies have such a way of whisking you away for a while, and I think that's why everyone got so up in arms when The Interview was cancelled because of the Sony hackers. Though it's a low-brow bro-humor movie, everyone should be able to have free artistic license with their film, and we ultimately did not bow down. As usual, here are a list of films I either need to see or reg...

In some ways, the Globes surprised me quite a bit, and in others, they couldn't be more predictable! With four real life biopics heading the drama category, you could only help but see that coming. But in the comedy category there are a lot of surprises: a movie up for best comedy that I'd only barely heard of, and a few nominees that I'd completely forgotten about. Without further ado, let's see how accurate I was in the actual Golden Globe nominations: (in red are those I didn't include on my predictions)   DRAMA: Boyhood  Foxcatcher (totally forgot about how many critics loved this movie, I was surprised to see it knock off other contenders like Whiplash and Gone Girl ) The Imitation Game Selma The Theory of Everything ACTRESS: 
Jennifer Aniston- Cake (I forgot about Aniston too! She just picked up a SAG nom too, imagine Rachel Green and Michael Scott up for an Oscar the same year!) Felicity Jones- The Theory of Everything Julianne Moore- Still Al...

Along with endless Christmas music, the one thing you can always count on in December is awards season being there for you, and the Golden Globe nominations come out tomorrow! Even though it had a summer release, Richard Linklater's coming of age epic Boyhood is starting to become the frontrunner for Best Picture! Others, in the acting categories, include Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore, J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette. I'm throwing a few surprises and hopefuls in there, just for the sake of spicing up the selection, because I can already tell that the biopic will once again be reigning this Oscar season, with everyone from MLK to Stephen Hawking getting a treatment. DRAMA : Boyhood (very happy that this is getting such big traction)   Gone Girl (thought it was released a little earlier than its competition, this is a safe bet) The Imitation Game The Theory of Everything Selma ACTOR : Benedict Cumberbatch- The Imitation Game (Cumberbatch and Redmayne need their o...

Hype for a movie varies a lot nowadays. Social media, and websites like this one, blogs and whatnot, can carry a movie a long ways. Movie stars aren't enough in today's world I don't believe. You don't really need an A-listers presence to tell a good story anymore, and the ushering in of special effects has also helped in this. Websites like Metacritic, IMDb and primarily Rotten Tomatoes tell you if you should invest your $8.50 into a couple of hours of entertainment. Part of Boyhood's strategy, at least some of it anyway, of getting butts into seats was toting its incredibly rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, which has since dropped to a much less impressive 99% after two critics disliked it. And you can listen to those two people, who I'm sure have very valid opinions...or you could listen to the other 176 people, make that 177 now including me, who are citing Boyhood as one of the finest movies this year, and an accomplishment in the world of cinema. It'...

Reading the reviews of Richard Linklater's Boyhood , you just start to get emotional simply getting the feel of what the movie is going to be about. For a while it had a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, a feat movies like The Godfather  have only accomplished on the site. There's no negative backlash yet, nothing that could hurt the chances of everyone on board. Boyhood  has all the elements of a movie that will win Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. Look at the facts: every single Best Picture nominee last year was released from October on, kicking off with the special effects extravaganza Gravity . A movie hasn't won Best Picture since 2009's The Hurt Locker , which got an extremely low-key limited release in the summer. I remember wanting to see it, then seeing it explode into pop culture once the Golden Globe nominations weren't released. The bottom line: you have to have your movie released later for the voters to remember you. But Boyhood  seems...

Meryl Streep in  Into the Woods Once again it's another round of ridiculously early predictions, this time for the year 2014! Last year I only got two right, The Wolf of Wall Street and Captain Phillips , both ending up on my top favorite movies of the year in 2013! I hope the same will be said about these next ten predictions, which have been getting early buzz. I almost included Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel , which has gotten probably the best reviews of any release this year, non-animated. And, since it's way too far a shot to include The Lego Movie as an Up -like Oscar story surprise, here are the films I think that might snag a nod for this year's Oscars! (Take into account I did choose both The Counselor and The Monuments Men  last year, both were critically reviled!) Interstellar (even though The Dark Knight Rises was shut out completely, Nolan's work is regularly recognized by the Academy, and with Matthew McConaughey in the starring role, ...