I don't really know if it's at all wise to predict nominations so hastily ahead of the game. I usually refrain from doing it even when we get far enough into the game, but I want to be hands on the coverage of this year's awards season. For once, I don't want to miss a beat, like I felt no issue in doing last year. It was a very dull season, and this year promises to change up the formula to some degree. I'll admit that I'm quite pleased with that, since Oscar has been kinder in the past to some of the more challenging directors debuting flicks this year. Take Paul Thomas Anderson for example, who made a film called
"There Will Be Blood" a few years back that seemed utterly too dark for the Academy, but it made the cut anyway on sheer ingenuity.
Anderson is back this year with "The Master", a project five years in the making that reaches us this fall. I must admit a high degree of excitement, mostly surrounding the project's mystery. For so long we didn't even really believe it was called "The Master". It was just Paul Thomas Anderson's 1940s religion project, but even that arouses all kinds of fun debate. It's one of plenty major films the Weinstein Company is opening towards the close of the year, also including Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained". Tarantino has been off for quite some time, not in terms of making films, but making great films. Since "Kill Bill Vol. 1", the guy's skewed a little over-indulgently.
