23 Feb

One of our earliest frontrunners this season was Bradley Cooper's directorial debut A Star Is Born. After its dazzling debut at the Venice Film Festival and a roaring box office result, it leapt to the front of the pack. Since then, its campaign has all but fallen over and, despite eight Academy Award nominations, few are predicting it to fulfil its initial potential of taking Best Picture. But hold your horses. In a crowded year of contenders without a clear and obvious winner, anything could still happen. Let's...

11:55 / Awards Season
8 Likes
23 Feb

A genuine work of art. A magnificent achievement in cinema. A film that leaves its audience in a state a delirium of wonder and delight at what they’ve just experienced. We've arrived at the pinnacle of Best Picture nominees this year. Alfonso Cuarón‘s masterful Roma is in a class of its own and could make history by taking home the Academy's top award. But it's got plenty of hurdles to overcome to get there. And, as much as many would love to see it rightly awarded, it's far from...

07:33 / Awards Season
1 Like
22 Feb

Oh, boy. Here we go. We've reached the Best Picture nominee that's victory will cause a Film Twitter riot unlike any seen before. Yes, it's time to take a closer look at Green Book, the film that's caused all sorts of anger and fury this awards season. With as many supporters as haters, the film has become a genuine force to be reckoned with this year. Like it or not, it's a strong frontrunner, and we all have to accept the very real possibility of it taking home...

07:53 / Awards Season
1 Like
21 Feb

The next film on The Jam Report's closer inspection of this year's Best Picture nominees is The Favourite, the deliciously twisted and naughty period piece from master of the absurd Yorgos Lanthimos. With key nominations across the board and rave reviews from critics, the film has managed to fly under the radar and could be the one Best Picture option many are foolishly ignoring. After years of American films taking out the Academy's top prize, could Best Picture be heading back over the pond once again? Let's take a look. Why...

12:18 / Awards Season
1 Like
21 Feb

It's time for The Jam Report to take a look at Bohemian Rhapsody, one of this year's most controversial nominees for Best Picture. When its (fired) director was hit with a damning article alleging decades of sexual misconduct, many thought that was the end of the line for this film's Oscar campaign. But thanks to roaring box office results and the elevation of its lead actor to frontrunner status, it's somehow dodged that bullet and remains in the hunt. Could one of this season's most maligned films actually take...

07:30 / Awards Season
2 Likes
20 Feb

Next up in The Jam Report's closer look at this year's Best Picture nominees is the history-making Black Panther. Much to the chagrin of DC fanboys everywhere, Ryan Coogler's impressive and dazzling comic book adaptation became the first superhero film to be nominated in the big category. Standing as one of Marvel's boldest (and most successful) offerings yet, could this gamechanger really steal Best Picture away and further cement the stature of the superhero genre? Why it could win Best Picture: The box office factor. After the Academy's bungled Best Popular Film...

13:27 / Awards Season
4 Likes
19 Feb

We're just days away (thank god) from the Academy Awards, and, after a topsy turvy precursor season, we still genuinely have no idea what's winning Best Picture. Every so-called "frontrunner" has both strong positives and damning negatives against their Oscar campaign, leaving us prognosticators scratching our heads for what to declare our final prediction this year. So, like in previous years, The Jam Report is here to analyse the films nominated for Best Picture and present the case for and against each nominee being our eventual winner. As we...

11:20 / Awards Season
2 Likes
13 Feb

When a big-budget blockbuster is pulled from its coveted Christmas release spot and dumped in mid-February, you tend to assume the worst. Even more so when that film cost $200 million and is written and produced by the man responsible for the two highest-grossing films of all time. Something didn't quite add up and disaster loomed for Alita: Battle Angel. While not quite the catastrophe many have feared, the film is far from the triumph it may have been, resulting in a muddled piece of cinema that's equal parts...

21:42 / Reviews
4 Likes
03 Feb

Male politicians have been succumbing to their libidos for decades now, so the portrait of a political sex scandal is hardly groundbreaking fodder for a piece of cinema. But the intriguing story of 1988 U.S. presidential candidate Gary Hart and the affair that destroyed his campaign stands apart by way of being one of the earliest examples of the press finally breaking the unspoken rule of turning a blind eye to such indiscretions under the guise of such stories being in the "public's interest." It's just a shame...

23:08 / Reviews
1 Like
02 Feb

Anyone in need of an antidote of reality after the fluffy fantasy of Green Book need look no further than director George Tillman, Jr.'s compelling and powerful drama The Hate U Give that demands to be heard. Perfectly capturing the current dire state of race relations in the U.S. and the neverending wave of deaths of innocent young black men at the hands of trigger-happy policemen, a wave of furious anger rightly burns throughout this film, and it's highly likely you'll leave with that fire pulsing through your...

21:53 / Reviews
3 Likes