TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Who says musicals are dead? Well, probably anyone who's seen this year's  Annie  that's over the age of 10. But I'd like to make a case for the art that is, at least, attempting to come back to life! Rob Marshall, the director of Into the Woods , essentially revitalized the genre with 2002's Chicago , an adaptation of the stage play. It took home the Oscar for Best Picture, beating much better films like The Pianist and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers . It also won the ancient Golden Globe category of Best Comedy/Musical, which has nominated such hilarious classics like Pride & Prejudice , My Week with Marilyn and The Tourist . It turned out to be a fluke for the genre, until Marshall again tried to wow us with Nine , a box-office failure. It wasn't until 2012's Les Mis , (which I saw twice!) that really excited people and brought theater geeks and casual film fans alike in drove to the box office to watch Hugh Jackman steal bread and hear Russel ...

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...

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, ...