I always find this an interesting exercise. If the cinematic year ended 30 June instead of 31 December, what would the best films of the year be? Even more interesting is seeing how many of these films hold up at the end of the year once all the big awards contenders come out.
I have not been reviewing as many films here because I just haven’t felt the desire to. Now that I’m not trying to get into the Online Film Critics Society anymore, I can focus on quality instead of quantity. I still see just as many films as years past; I just don’t review them all.
The best films of 2014 so far, in no particular order, follow after the jump.
Haven’t done one of these in a while. My old live blog plugin has not been updated and no longer functions on WordPress. The new one should automatically (ooh, fancy) update with the new news and photos (screengrabs with a cellphone camera) throughout the night. Fingers crossed.
Why Kerry Washington in the header? Because she should have been presenting Supporting Actor after her should-have-won performance in Django Unchained. Just saying.
Can you believe the Academy Awards are finally happening on Sunday? We’re almost a quarter of the way into the new year and we get to find out what Hollywood thinks the best films of the 2013 are.
We’re keeping it simple at Sketchy Details this year. Who will win? Who should win? And who did they miss? I will, for fairness sake, remove films from consideration that did not qualify for the Academy Awards. Just assume American Mary would be on more “Missed” lists than nots had it been eligible.
I had enough of a voice to film a traditional episode of Slipstream and took advantage of it. The topic for the first episode of the new season is the relationship between science fiction and the Oscars. We take a quick look at the five sci-fi hopefuls for Oscar glory followed by the four strangest nominations for sci-fi films in the history of the Academy Awards.
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We covered a lot of ground in January and I wanted to take the time to put in a bit of context.
I do these awards like this because my opinions are easily dismissed without explanation. If I just post my Best Actor list, for example, I’m dismissed as a loon who doesn’t watch films. My tastes are outside the norm, sure, but I know my stuff. I saw well over 100 new releases in 2013. I didn’t review all of them because I had given up on attempting to attain membership in the online critics groups that required certain formatting, scoring, and frequency of posting to even qualify for consideration. I’m no longer going to review everything I see because I can do better work writing about films and media I’m passionate about than writing about everything.
With the Sketchys, I get to define the context of the awards. I get to explain why I think films that didn’t even get enough of a theatrical release to be considered for the Academy Awards are better than films nominated all over the place. I get to include anime in TV coverage and books that would never be reviewed by the New York Times in print awards. Best of all, I get to go with my instincts, removed from critical consensus, to remind you (or even introduce you) of great media that got eclipsed by splashier campaigns right alongside the big budget productions that are really worth the hype.
After 31ish days of recognizing the best entertainment media of 2013, it’s time to abandon medium specific honors and cross the streams. Artists of the Year is the top prize at The Sketchys. This is a recognition for the best media creators of the year. It is not a ranked list, but a celebration of artists to remind us all of the bar the new year has to climb.
A new year in media is not an excuse to accept inferior work. These artists prove that passionate creators can produce extraordinary work at any budget. Let’s look back one more time to propel us into a brand new year of media.
This is the final medium-specific category of The Sketchys. Tomorrow, I have something very special planned to commemorate the year in media.
For today, we’re looking at the best new web shows started in 2013. You might be able to predict a few of the entries based on shows I’ve written about this year. There are a couple surprises in this unranked list. I also include my favorite episode with each honoree. Let’s get to it.
