Gravity

CHICAGO – Combining the invasion elements of “Alien” with the life-raft-in-space morbidity of “Gravity,” the new film “Life” maintains a grip from the enlightened beginning to the twisted end. Mars is the origin, so the film joins “The Martian” and “The Space Between Us” in sourcing the red planet.

CHICAGO – Far more marvelous than imperfect, “Interstellar” is the answer for moviegoers who have lost the zeal for massive films, citing a lack of ideas, heart, or general passion for filmmaking. Director Christopher Nolan’s 2014 space odyssey is an event of beauty, with the rare experience of showing viewers something they haven’t seen before.

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!

CHICAGO – Some films fundamentally change what you expect from cinema. “Star Wars” (1977), “Jurassic Park” (1996), “Avatar” (2007) all pushed those boundaries. In my first of a whopping eight theatrical viewings of “Jurassic Park” for instance I never once felt the illusion of watching real dinosaurs was interrupted by suddenly realizing how ‘they did it’ I was simply watching real dinosaurs.

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:

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.”

It was too good a year for ten. The best year in cinema since 2007 saw such a diverse, fascinating array of art that included amazing works from some of our most well-known directors (Joel & Ethan Coen, Martin Scorsese, Alexander Payne, Hayao Miyazaki) alongside its newer voices (Shane Carruth, Destin Cretton, Joshua Oppenheimer, James Ponsoldt).