Guessing games are more fun than sure things, and last night the awards handed out by the Screen Actors Guild added some fun uncertainty to the Oscar race.

When Meryl Streep won best actress for “Doubt,” she said she was so…

The nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award were announced today, and the religious-themed drama “Doubt” led all films with five nominatons, including lead actress for Meryl Streep (as an accusatory nun), three noms for supporting performances and one for best…

On Sunday, the 20-odd members of the St. Louis Film Critics group, whose year-end award nominees I listed here a few days ago, picked a diverse group of winners. No film won more than one of the major categories, suggesting…

After I posted the award nominees from the St. Louis Film Critics, a reader noted they were virtually the same as other critics’ groups. Well, yes. Through the awards season, consensus builds, and when Oscar nominations are announced in mid-January, there…

St. Louis Film Critics, a group of which I am a member, convened Sunday and chose the nominees for the groups year-end awards, which will be announced before the end of the year. Here are the nominees:

BEST PICTURE

The Curious Case…

The National Board of Review, the first major critics’ group to give year-end awards, has named “Slumdog Millionaire” the best film of 2008. Best actress went to Anne Hathaway as a recovering addict in “Rachel Getting Married.” Best actor went to…

The same weekend as the Oscars, there is a maverick event in Santa Monica called the Independent Spirit Awards that honors the top art-house films of the year.  The leading contenders this year, with six nominations apiece (including best picture, director…

This week the American Film Institute issued its lists of the top ten films in ten genre categories, based on a poll of filmmakers, critics and academics.

I’m generally allergic to such lists, because consensus opinions are so safe and predictable. (How…

We critics tend to pounce on patterns, so maybe it means something that somber films divvied up the major nominations for this year’s Academy Awards.

Two grim 20th century Westerns, the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Own Men” and P.T. Anderson’s…

On a day when I thought I’d be blogging about the Oscar nominations, what I really want to say is this: Heath Ledger was a hell of an actor, and it pisses me off that he’s dead. The cops report…