Your Official 2016 Oscar Nominees (And How My Predictions Stacked Up)

January 14, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Awards Tagged Academy Awards, Academy Awards Nominations, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant Leave a comment

I feel like Denzel Washington at the Globes. I have a speech prepared but I forgot my reading glasses. I guess I’ll thank my family for giving me the courage to predict the Academy Award nominees. And, of course, I’d like to thank the Academy. But in all seriousness, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences unveiled their glorious Oscar nominees for 2016 and the results were staggeringly close to our predictions. Seriously, someone should employ me full-time to do this or something. There were some surprises in store, such as Carol being shut out of more than a few major categories, and some nice inclusions, like Tom Hardy getting tapped for his aces performance in The Revenant and Lenny Abrahamson for his truly superb direction in Room. I left the Spotlight team out of the spotlight and paid dearly for it as both Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams eeked their way into nods. Over on the script side, frequent favorites Quentin Tarantino and Aaron Sorkin found themselves shut out for The Hateful Eight and Steve Jobs respectively. In the end though, with The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road leading the nominees in terms of sheer volume, my two favorite films of 2015, I have to applaud the academy. You’ve done us right boys. Now take us home. Read More

‘MAD MAX: FURY ROAD’ Sweeps the 2015 Seattle Film Awards

January 13, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Awards Tagged Alex Garland, Benicio Del Toro, Denis Villenueve, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mad Max: Fury Road, Mya Taylor, Nina Hoss, Phyllis Nagy, Spotlight, The 2015 Seattle Film Awards, The Look of Silence 2 Comments

This morning, the Seattle Film Critics’ Survery unleashed their winners and it was Mad Max: Fury Road who took the proverbial cake and ate it too. Curated by Should I See It‘s Mike Ward, the full press release is included below:

“George Miller’s post-apocalyptic epic Mad Max: Fury Road steamrolled the competition, and was named the Best Picture of 2015 by Seattle’s film community. The film nearly swept the competition, earning 10 out of a potential 11 award wins in the third annual Seattle Film Awards survey. Read More

Silver Screen Riot’s Official 2016 Oscar Nomination Predictions

January 13, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Awards Tagged Academy Awards Nominations, Awards, Mad Max, Oscars, Spotlight, The Martian Leave a comment

Every year, us adamant movie bloggers have a tradition of predicting not only the winners of the Academy Awards but the actual nominees. Does it sound like sheer insanity? Of course it does! It’s tilting at windmills. Nothing more. Nonetheless, we labor to push the proverbial rock up the hill eternal, shooting blindly into the dark. This year there’s so many variables that predicting the nominations has been more difficult than ever. The only sure things at this point seem to be Spotlight and The Big Short for Best Picture, Leonardo DiCaprio for Best Actor, Brie Larson for Best Actress, Sylvester Stallone for Best Supporting Actor and a handful of technical nods for the likes of Mad Max and The Martian. Read More

Chilling New ‘THE WITCH’ Trailer Brings on Dread and Black Phillip

January 12, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged Robert Eggers, The Witch, Trailers Leave a comment

I posed in my 2015 Sundance review of The Witch, “What do 1630, a silver cup, Christian fervor and a goat named Black Phillip have in common?” You’ll soon find out. Directed by Robert Eggers, who won last year’s Sundance prize for Best Director, The Witch tells the story of a New England settling family who’ve up and moved to the thick of the woods. There evil dwells. We absolutely loved the film out of Sundance and have been pining for a chance to revisit Egger’s dark tale of witchcraft and woe. Fortunately, The Witch has moved up a week, so it will see the light of day even earlier than anticipated. It’s now to be released on February 19th. Read More

Out in Theaters: LAMB

January 11, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bonnie Nadzam, Lamb, Oona Lawrence, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ross Partridge, SXSW Leave a comment

Director, screenwriter and star Ross Partridge unearths a ripe splintering of soul in the fragile, complex love story that is Lamb. Adapted from Bonnie Nadzam‘s sage but harrowing novel of redemption and temptation, Patridge repurposes the byzantine dynamic of Nadzam’s words to co-exist in the cinematic crossroads of nail-ruining suspense and earnest, didactic sentiments of humanity, all the while subtly wedging in thematic elements of Vladimir Nabokov’s will-they-or-won’t-they statutory misgivings. Read More

50 Most Anticipated Movies of 2016

January 8, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists, Most Popular Tagged A Monster Calls, Arms and the Dudes, Assassin’s Creed, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Bourne 5, Caesar!, Christine, Comancheria, Demolition, Doctor Strange, Everyone Wants Some, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Finding Dory, Free Fire, Green Room, Hacksaw Ridge, Hail, High-Rise, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Julieta, Keanu, La La Land, Leatherface, Mascots, Midnight Special, Neon Demon, Salt and Fire, Sausage Party, Silence, Star Trek Beyond, Star Wars: Rogue One, Story of Your Life, Suicide Squad, Swiss Army Man, The Bad Batch, The BFG, The Circle, The Discovery, The Girl on The Train, The Handmaid, The Jungle Book, The Light Between Oceans, The Nice Guys, Triple 9, Valencia, War Machine, War on Everyone, X-Men: Apocalypse, Yoga Hosers 2 Comments

Last year, we compiled a list of our 50 Most Films of 2015 and though many proved disappointed, the top-tier resulted in a barrage of wins. This year, we return to do the same. Consider yourself in store for a massive compilation of films, including many were already featured on last year’s list for release change reasons. For those curious, you will not find too many big franchise tent-pole movies like the redone Ghostbusters because I’ve not liked Paul Feig‘s work in the past or superhero fare a la Captain America: Civil War because we pretty much know what’s in store there. Some smashing, some joking, then everything’s a-ok in the end.

We’re looking for something fresh. Something that’ll surprise us. That’s why you’ll find very few sequels here and even less junk that you’ve seen on some other anticipation lists. But let’s get down to business. This is an absolutely massive article so I’ll stop wasting time and let you get right to it. Here it is: the 50 Most Anticipated Movies of 2016. Read More

Out in Theaters: THE FOREST

January 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ben Ketai, Jason Zada, Natalie Dormer, Nick Antosca, Out in Theaters, Sarah Cornwell, Taylor Kinney, The Forest 3 Comments

The Aokigahara forest is a place of living nightmares. The Forest is its own kind of living nightmare. Long known to be unholy grounds for those at the end of their proverbial rope come to see themselves off, the mere existence of Japan’s inland Suicide Forest, a densely populated Sea of Trees at the northwestern base of Mount Fuji, is a haunting reminder of human desperation come home to roost. For decades, Japan’s denizens have chartered a grim pilgrimage to Aokigahara to commit suicide, leaving the forest littered with human remains. The annual amount of pseudo-seppuku that occurs here is so staggering that the park rangers have taken measures to curb the corpses piling up, including affixing the park with suicide prevention information and installing security cameras to monitor for suspected attemptees. Still yet, at least a hundred people will die here every year. Read More

Tom Hiddleston Totally Loses It in Insanely Awesome ‘HIGH-RISE’ Trailer

January 7, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Trailers Tagged Ben Wheatley, Elisabeth Moss, High-Rise, James Purefoy, Jeremy Irons, Keeley Hawes, Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Tom Hiddleston, Trailers Leave a comment

Director Ben Wheatley is perhaps the most underrated name in the horror game and his latest, High-Rise, looks to continue his streak of being a total badass with a camera. High-Rise will be the director’s fifth feature film effort – coming off the heels of the rather eccentric A Field in England – and has the potential to live up to Kill List and Sightseers, easily two of the best post-millennium horror movies bar none. Wheatley has proved a capacity to drastically alter his style, with Kill List being an unrelenting, absolutely terrifying horror show, Sightseers landing with much more darkly-tinted comedic barbs and A Field in England being, well, A Field in England, so it makes sense that High-Rise looks nothing like anything the director has delivered in the past. Read More

Winter 2016 Movie Preview – 16 Movies We’re Willing To Give the Benefit of the Doubt

January 4, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists Tagged 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Deadpool, Hail Caesar!, Hello My Name is Doris, I Saw the Light, Jane Got a Gun, Lamb, Previews, Queen of the Desert, SOMM: Into the Bottle, The Little Prince, The Witch, Where to Invade Next, Zoolander 2 Leave a comment

We’ve written about the best films of 2015. We’ve written about the worst. And then, it was over. And so came “that” time of year. “That” time of year where the hits of 2015 continue to dominate the box office. Where awards contenders pile back into theaters. Where Star Wars makes another billion dollars. And, most importantly, where new releases are synonymous with shite. Hello 2016 movies. The dumping ground is right over here. Read More

2015 Silver Screen Riot Awards

January 3, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Awards, Lists Tagged Silver Screen Riot Awards 1 Comment

2015 has come and gone as has most of our recap coverage for the year. The one remaining elephant in the room is the 2015 Silver Screen Riot Awards where we pick and choose from the elite and populist alike to make our selection for best director, performer, cinematographer, screenplay, documentary, foreign film, action movie, horror movie and comedy. You’ll see a winner and a runner-up as well as a list of honorable mentions that are sorta ranked but without too much scrutiny paid to that ranking. Our awards (thankfully) don’t come with all too much description (read: none) but you’ll find some nice pictures in place of the words that probably would have gone unread. Because it’s been a long week and we know you’ll probably just scan for the winners anyways. So, concluding 2015 once and for all, here it is: the 2015 Silver Screen Riot Awards. Read More