12 Years a Slave

CHICAGO – He may share a name with a notable movie star, but director Steve McQueen has made his own mark in cinema in a very short time. After his debut with “Hunger” (2008), he followed with the shocking “Shame” (2011). As producer, he won the Academy Award for Best Picture for “12 Years a Slave” (2013), a film he also directed.

CHICAGO – Hollywood celebrated its big night at the 86th Academy Awards, and the biggest news was the selfie photo that apparently broke Twitter. The stark film “12 Years a Slave” won Best Picture, and Ellen DeGeneres took the celebrity group selfie that immediately was Tweeted around the world, overloading the popular website.

CHICAGO – Get your scorecards and pencils out, because this is the last stop you’ll need for all your 2014 Academy Award predicting needs…except for the 10 million other media outlets in the age of information. Why is HollywoodChicago.com better? Because our experts have insider information that we completely make up!

After an intense season of outside-industry kudos delivery, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has proclaimed its favorites of a memorable award season. “12 Years a Slave” continues its momentum with nominees for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay and more.

It’s that most wonderful time of the year in which one group of people (journalists) try to figure out what another group of people (Academy members) think are the best films and performances of the year. Sure, we have the Guild nominees, critics awards, and general buzz but there’s only one thing that I can tell you for sure — one of the predictions below will be wrong. And yet we go out on that limb again every year.

The winners of the 71st Annual Golden Globes were handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on Sunday, January 12, 2014 and they were as follows:

The Golden Globes will be presented this Sunday, January 12, 2014, and the experts are busy picking their favorites to grace the stage when the winners are announced. Pitched as a more party-like atmosphere than the Oscars, and hosted by the hilarious Tina Fey & Amy Poehler, the Golden Globes have become more difficult to predict than most awards shows, in no small part because they give away SO many awards, breaking up film into drama & comedy and doing TV as well.

Including films that achieve the correct button-mashing combo to earn fancy kudos and are positively lauded, there are only a select few from the whole bunch that have the significance of “definitive.”

CHICAGO – The year caught up with me. 2013 was characterized by a soft start and a strong finish, but overall there were impressive contenders throughout the year and some fine examples of great storytelling and filmmaking. Risks were taken, some truth emerged and even in more “mainstream” films, there were flashes of promise.

Steve McQueen’s harrowing “12 Years a Slave” was the big winner at an awards dinner held on December 16, 2013 by the Chicago Film Critics Association, of which HollywoodChicago.com writer Brian Tallerico is the Vice President and HC film critics Adam Fendelman & Patrick McDonald are voting members.