TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

The Oscar nominations are coming right around the corner! After a surprising Golden Globes, where The Revenant had a near sweep of three of the night's biggest awards, really anything could happen! Interestingly enough, Revenant isn't even up for a Best Cast nomination at the SAGs. No movie since the SAG's inception in 1995 ( Braveheart ) has won without a  Best Cast ensemble. Then again, eccentric choices like The Birdcage and The Full Monty have won, so it's anyone's guess. My choices for Best Picture are equally eccentric: you have fantastical blockbusters like Fury Road and Martian  here, along with solid indies ( Carol and Brooklyn ) and movies with big stars and small-ish budgets ( Spotlight and The Big Short ). I lost my bananas last year when The Lego Movie  only got a sole nomination for "Everything is Awesome!!!" I won't be that surprised if Inside Out doesn't make it with the big dogs, but I will lose what is left of my faith in the Osca...

You won't understand The Big Short . "Stop calling me Michael Scott!" That is, unless you're an insider in the banking business. That's probably not even how you use that phrase. Banking industry? How about super villain headquarters? Yeah, I like that a little better. As we learned from The Wolf of Wall S treet (and uh, common sense: how many articles talk about the nice guys of Wall Street?) there are plenty of bankers and investors willing and ready to make a profit at the risk of the 99%. Ryan Gosling's Jared Vennett certainly knows this. He's one of the insiders who saw the 2008 bubble pop, the housing and banking collapse that led to one of the largest recessions in U.S. history. Everyone in this movie is based on real people, based on Michael Lewis' nonfiction book of the same name. But this movie will tell you when it's fibbing on the truth a little: and that's the biggest thing it has going for it. As I said, laymen to this bus...

No one can ever say the Golden Globes are predictable. Phew. I'm so glad we have getting stranded in the middle of space and the 2008 financial crisis to laugh at because APPARENTLY these are two of the best comedies 2015 had to offer. Remarkable. Also I learned valuable lessons, like you can't always bank on Meryl Streep (and if you do, then bank on Maggie Smith, who over the years has just become one hilariously cranky awards statue from all of her wins), not to underestimate the power of Alicia Vikander, and to always remember the movies that came before the November-December Oscar season (sorry for leaving you out Danny Collins !) Without further ado, here are the major film category nominations for the Globes, and ones I missed/left out are in red. The list is notable for having completely gotten one field wrong, and another entirely correct! What can I say, it's the week before exams. DRAMA FILM:  Spotlight Carol The Revenant Mad Max: Fury Road (I could ex...