Final 2015 Oscar Predictions

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Final 2015 Oscar Predictions

The time has come, Oscar geeks! Pencils down, ball gowns on! 2015 was a great year in film (see our top ten lists for the year here), and we're excited to put a bow on it and celebrate with the 88th Annual Academy Awards tonight on ABC. It has been one truly exciting and unpredictable Oscar season with lots of films and performances worthy of attention...and some not (find out who among the nominees we'd vote for if we had a ballot). As usual, there are a few sure things (congrats, Leo!) and some tight battles (Costume Design, the Sound categories), but the most thrilling race of all will be decided with the final envelope, as this just might be the craziest Best Picture race I've seen in my almost 20 years of prognosticating!

Hunker down, pour yourself a beverage (we'll be starting with a glass of Scotchlight), and follow along with our sure-to-be-inaccurate predictions below! For more detailed analysis, have a listen to our final predictions podcast or, for full rankings, click on each category header below.

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Final 2015 Oscar Nominations Predictions

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Final 2015 Oscar Nominations Predictions

The day we've all been waiting for has arrived! Or maybe just me and a handful of other nerds, I guess. The 88th Annual Academy Awards nominations will be announced Thursday morning in two batches beginning at 8:30am ET (you can view both announcements live at the Oscars website or the second announcement on most major news programs at 8:38am ET). The nominees will be announced live in all 24 categories by directors Guillermo del Toro and Ang Lee, actor John Krasinski, and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs.

2015 delivered an abundance of quality films (we here at CineMunch will have our top ten lists and year-end superlatives ready for the public early next month), and I'm hopeful this year's crop of nominees reflect that quality. Knowing the Oscars though, they probably won't (I'm looking in your direction, Helen Mirren). Some of this year's categories are the most fluid and difficult to predict I've ever encountered in my 15+ years of prognosticating (Best Supporting Actor is wildly competitive), so there are bound to be some surprises.

Unlike my impressive performance last year (where I placed first on awards betting site GoldDerby out of more than 3,000 participants and experts), I expect to do considerably less well this year. I'll predict my overall prediction accuracy rate is somewhere around 72%. Look at me predicting my own predictions - someone stop me! Read on for my final nominations predictions.

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2016 Golden Globe Awards Predictions

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2016 Golden Globe Awards Predictions

'Tis the season! It's Golden Globes night! Hollywood's best and brightest stars of the screen, both big and small, will file into the Beverly Hills Hilton and get drunk for our amusement. Some awards will be handed out (as determined by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association), and host Ricky Gervais will likely make many in the audience uncomfortable. Denzel Washington will receive this year's Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. So grab a drink or four, follow along with us on Twitter @CineMunch throughout the telecast (starting at 8pm ET on NBC), and read on for my foolhardy predictions for the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards!

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2015 Fall Movie Preview: Most Anticipated Films

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2015 Fall Movie Preview: Most Anticipated Films

The summer movie season has nestled in for its brief hibernation (we crowned our favorites of the summer that was in our latest podcast), so with the heat and superheroes behind us, we eagerly turn to the promise of fall and all the riches it has to offer us at the cinema. Sticking with a glass half full (of gin) optimism, we've doubled the list of films from the ten titles we most anticipated last fall -- a list that included a few gems like Birdman, and some stinkers (*cough Big Eyes cough*). Below you'll find the twenty movies we're most excited for this year (ten for each of us, in order by US release date), plus one sequel that you might possibly be familiar with. Clicking on a film's title takes you to the movie's trailer.

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CineDrunk: Favorite Actress Showdown - Part One

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CineDrunk: Favorite Actress Showdown - Part One

We here at CineMunch love actresses. Probably more than we love movies themselves. Possibly more than we love the Oscars, cheese, or our cats, Tilda & Scout, but let's not get too carried away here. In CineDrunk's latest podcast, we come out as proud actressexuals (a term popularized by the incredible Nathaniel R. from The Film Experience). 

We could've spent an eternity rhapsodizing on and obsessing over our favorite cinematic ladies, so we needed to set some boundaries and narrow the field. The criteria for our epic (three-part!) showdown was as follows: 
     1. The actress must still be alive (sorry, Bette Davis - we love you!).
     2. They must still be working in cinema (apologies to you, Angela Lansbury!).
     3. They must be Oscar nominated (one day soon, Scarlett Johansson!).

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'

We've been superfans of The Film Experience for years (thank you, Nathaniel, for introducing us to the term "actressexual"). So now that our own blog is up and running, we're thrilled to finally participate in the TFE series Hit Me With Your Best Shot, in which the film blog masses share their favorite shots from selected movies.

Conveniently for us, the first movie this time 'round is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (our defining film of the 2000s). So here and now, in the middle of our week-long celebration of its 10-year anniversary, let's give thanks for the visual richness that helps make Eternal Sunshine the surrealist/realist work of art that it is.

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CineMeal: 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'

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CineMeal: 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'

At CineMunch we're all about exploring the similarities between film and food, and what better way than by creating the ultimate dinner-and-a-movie experience? The best CineMeals (you knew that was coming) tap into the essence of a film, sating your immediate hunger while whetting your appetite for the screen magic to come. Puns are encouraged (a la ParmaSean Penn Roasted Broccoli), and a certain amount of bending the rules is expected (cheese before and after the main course? Done and done.)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which we're celebrating all week, requires special attention, and we've curated a meal below that complements and elevates the viewing experience. Here's hoping this gets your culinary juices flowing. Let us know in the comments what would be on your Eternal Sunshine menu!

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The Defining Film of the 2000s

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1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This Wednesday, March 19, marks the 10-year anniversary of the release of one of the greatest films in the history of humans, and, for me, the film that most defines the first decade of this century. It's almost unfair how perfectly every element of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind comes together to create one of the most profound, stimulating, and moving pieces of art I'm likely ever to experience. From the mind of known genius Charlie Kaufman, the script alone would rank as one of mankind's greatest achievements, but when visionary director Michel Gondry put those words to the screen (with an incomparable cast led by two of my favorite actors of all-time, Jim Carrey & Kate Winslet), it was transcendent. I could never erase this film, these images, those characters, that music from my mind - Eternal Sunshine is a part of me.

So: Happy Eternal Sunshine Week! We'll keep the celebration going all week long with various features and commemorations, so stick around and cancel that appointment at Lacuna, Inc. 

Catch #10-#2 of the decade here.