Well, it happened. This is the first time I predicted for the Oscars and didn't even watch the ceremony! This year, I made the conscious decision to boycott the Oscars due to their unbelievably disrespectful decision to not air eight of the tech categories live. In addition to that, the producers behind this ceremony made other inexcusably stupid decisions, such as the "audience favorite" award and performing "We Don't Talk About Bruno" at the ceremony despite the fact it wasn't nominated for Best Original Song. Their desperate attempts to try and draw in more people to watch the ceremony are consequently worsening the quality of the show, and causing the members of the Academy to turn on each other. Nowhere is that more evident than that viral moment from the show when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for insulting his wife.

I don't know when I'll feel comfortable watching the ceremony again (or if that day will ever even come), but don't be surprised if this is the last year I even post any predictions. It may be time to let the Academy Awards crash and burn as they year after year get a foot deeper into the grave that they dug for themselves. But anyway, here are the winners from last night:

Best Picture: CODA
Best Actor: Will Smith, King Richard
Best Actress: Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur, CODA
Best Supporting Actress: Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Best Animated Feature: Encanto
Best Cinematography: Dune
Best Costume Design: Cruella
Best Director: Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Best Documentary Feature: Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Best Documentary Short: The Queen of Basketball
Best Film Editing: Dune
Best International Film: Japan, Drive My Car
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Music (Original Score): Dune
Best Music (Original Song): No Time to Die, No Time to Die
Best Production Design: Dune
Best Short Film (Animated): The Windshield Wiper
Best Short Film (Live Action): The Long Goodbye
Best Sound: Dune
Best Visual Effects: Dune
Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): CODA
Best Writing (Original Screenplay): Belfast

It's now a week until the ceremony, and at this point, I've lost hope in it. They're just continuing to make one stupid decision after the next in desperate attempts to get more people to watch the show, all of which will hurt the quality of the show even more than it's already been tarnished. I'm 99% sure now that I will not be watching the Oscars this year, which a year ago I never thought I'd hear myself say. I just don't feel comfortable watching such a poorly produced show with winners that mostly don't deserve the recognition, so don't be surprised if next year I don't even post up any predictions the entire awards season.

Regardless, I'll just finish what I started and post what I believe will win at this year's Academy Awards:

Best Picture: The Power of the Dog
Best Actor: Will Smith, King Richard
Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Best Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur, CODA
Best Supporting Actress: Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Best Animated Feature: Encanto
Best Cinematography: Dune
Best Costume Design: Cruella
Best Director: Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Best Documentary Feature: Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Best Documentary Short: Lead Me Home
Best Film Editing: Dune
Best International Film: Japan, Drive My Car
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Music (Original Score): Dune
Best Music (Original Song): No Time to Die, No Time to Die
Best Production Design: Dune
Best Short Film (Animated): Bestia
Best Short Film (Live Action): The Long Goodbye
Best Sound: Dune
Best Visual Effects: Dune
Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Power of the Dog
Best Writing (Original Screenplay): Licorice Pizza

I've lately been caught in a real moral dilemma. Is it really appropriate to still be watching the Academy Awards ceremony? Part of me wants to keep doing it simply because it's the biggest movie night of the year and a grand celebration of film, which also honors the biggest achievements in filmmaking of the year and decides what the future of Hollywood will look like. But at the same time, the Oscars year after year has gotten deeper in its process of digging its own grave. That's not just because a majority of the films they nominate don't deserve the recognition, but it's chiefly because the body is so full of themselves and doesn't care what the general public wants or needs to see. Each year, they've become much more clueless as to what will actually get people to watch the show again, and their efforts to try and bring ratings back up have always backfired. Always. Not to mention all their attempts have only hurt the quality of the ceremony, and this year looks like it will continue that trend. With the insulting decision to not air 8 of the 23 categories live, I'm now seriously considering not watching the Oscars this year. This is just outrageously unacceptable.

But with all that said, here is my own personal version of the Academy Awards, where I award what I think is genuinely the best of the year based on the 50 movies I saw released between January 2021 and December 2021.

Another early morning, another night of hardly any sleep, another set of disappointing nominees. In previous years, my lack of sleep in anticipation for the Academy Award nomination announcement has been out of excitement, but this year, it was out of fear and anxiety. I knew that the Best Picture frontrunners were no good, and the rest of the categories didn't look nearly as promising. Yet the actual result of this morning's big announcement proved to me that the Academy actually cares far less about the quality of filmmaking than I ever thought, as many of the nominees in many of these categories aren't just mediocre or overwhelming- they are flat-out awful without a single redeeming quality about it. But there are still a FEW good things I have to say about these nominees.

It's time again: time to make the best guess as to what the Academy of Motion Pictures believes are the best achievements of filmmaking in the year 2021. Unfortunately, we had to endure yet another pandemic year, but at least this time, movie theaters have been open! Now, the box office still hasn't exactly been revived yet, and who knows when (or if) that'll happen, but that won't stop the Academy from honoring the biggest endeavors that filmmaking artists had to endure in their latest projects. Now, I personally believe that due to the strange last couple of years, this still will be a rather weak lineup of nominees in most categories, with several nominations occurring simply because of the lack of competition. I realize that nowadays very few people respect the Oscars or will even bother to remain up to date on what they do, but I'm in the minority who actually cares what they nominate because that will decide the future of Hollywood, and American society as a whole.

But full disclosure: this is not what I personally believe deserves the nominations, but what I think from the Academy's shoes what they would want to honor, based on their nomination trends in the past few years as well as critical reception on a number of these films. I've spent the entire year keeping track of every movie that comes out and formulating a system that can help best come up with predictions, so without further ado, here's all my hard work, my predictions for the 94th Annual Academy Award nominees!

Years like this prove why storytelling is really so important. Working on a motion picture may not be an "essential" profession, but just what stories offer us are probably the most effective modes of moral and informative guidance for the average human being, far more so than what the government may try to do to control our lives. When Jesus had to give an answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus didn't just say, "Everybody is your neighbor" and call it a day, he did something far more impactful: he gave a parable, a potential scenario that the listener could relate to, so that he could see Jesus' point made in action. It's exactly the same way with the movies and TV shows we watch nowadays. We may watch them primarily for entertainment, but we always consciously pick up on new ways to look at the world and obtain moral guidance on issues we are uncertain about. 

That's why your state governor could tell you all he wants that you are required to wear a mask while in a public space. But that alone won't necessarily convince you to do so. Rather, if you heard about someone who wasn't wearing a mask while out shopping and someone s/he came into contact with got Coronavirus and died a few weeks later, that would motivate you in a heartbeat to add a mask into the essential items you must have on you every time you leave the house, along with your phone, keys, wallet, and ID.

Thus, as my custom every year around awards time, I will give my picks for the best out of the films I saw this calendar year. Except I won't be including the January-February 2021 timeframe that the Academy of Motion Pictures added this year to accommodate to the films that suffered from delayed release dates. But don't worry: Nomadland, The Father, Minari, and Judas and the Black Messiah ​will gladly be in next year's TVOH Awards!

Just a couple of days ago, one of those horrid riots in response to the murder of George Floyd happened right in my own city, in Bellevue, Washington. Protests called for police cars to control massive crowds, and looters took advantage of the protest to break the windows of stores and spray paint graffiti all over public property; such graffiti included, "AmeriKKKa," and "I Can't Breathe." I am in genuine fury that people would stoop this low. Though I can't comprehend the exact feeling of injustice that those who were there felt, as I'm not Black, nor have I ever had a bad experience with a police officer. But the state of our country right now has just gone from worse to much worse only a week. It's completely shameful that so many people across the world allow their skin color to define differences, and even decide who's a good person and who's not. It's an absolute tragedy that a frightening number of innocent Black folks got killed by the same people who are expected to protect them, and my heart goes out to the friends and families of those murdered. So I believe this is the perfect time to share with you ten movies about Blackness that I feel are genuinely worth your time, they can allow Black people to feel proud of themselves, and can help educate other ethnicities about Black culture.

Right now, it may feel like the entire world is falling apart; businesses are shutting down, we're being forced into our houses, the curve is going up, there's no more toilet paper, wearing face masks has become the new normal, our water supply is poisoned, our crops are burned, a plague has been delivered unto our houses.

In all my twenty-seven years of living, I've never seen anything as universally affecting as Covid-19, it's impacted every single little detail about the way people worldwide live, I can't even brush my teeth without being reminded of the pandemic!

I don't know about you, but this time has left me in periods of being sorely depressed, I've very often forgotten where my hope is, because in truth, that never went anywhere. That's why I want to share with you some strong inspiring films relevant to what's going on right now- ones you can put on your "quarantine watch list" and remember the hope we still have in this rotten, dying world.

Wow! Another year... and decade... over! These last two years have been very unpredictable for film, even if my personal life has been rather uneventful in contrast. There's been some surprises and expected flops from this year in film, and this decade as a whole has provided some major turning points in the way movies are approached and analyzed. It's also be a huge decade for me, as 2013 was when I wrote my first movie review on Gravity, and first started this blog in 2014. My, how it's grown! So looking at this year in film in particular, what stood out to me? Well, to get the negatives out of the way first, here's my 10 most miserable movie-going experiences of 2019: