The Oscars nominations expected to save the Oscars

A few hours ago the Oscars were announced. In addition to all of the little-seen films that cineastes have strong feelings on, there were two films that pundits had their eye on: Top Gun Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water.

Both films were critically well-received and were the biggest box office earners of 2022. As conversation intensifies over the disconnect between what film audiences are watching at the movies (big tentpole special effects extravaganzas) vs what the Oscars have celebrated (smaller, artier films), there was considerable hope by many that the two 2022 blockbusters would see nominations, and in turn, drive viewership back to the Oscars.

Ratings in recent years for the Oscars could politely be referred to as 'embarrassing'. Last year was the second-worst rated Oscars in history.

Both Maverick and Avatar were indeed nominated for Best Picture (the first time two sequels were nominated in the same year), so this will test the theory that what has been holding the Oscar viewership back is that mainstream audiences haven't seen the nominated films.

You can find a full list of which films were nominated at the Variety link below. Know that Everything Everywhere All At Once received the most nominations (and is my pick to win Best Picture). Also, James Cameron was robbed by not getting a Best Director nomination.

Dick giggles

When the Oscars were announced, presenter Riz Ahmed found himself giggling on stage, apparently. The case was the title of a nominated animated short film titled My Year of Dicks.

You can watch the film, which is very much about what the title suggests, at Vimeo:

70sSuperSports Twitter feed adapted into TV series

One of the absolute delights of Twitter is @70sSuperSports - it's a funny feed of tweets that cheers and jeers retro 70s culture. Yes, there's a lot of sports tweets, but there's also fun asides like this:

Guarantee he made that jump at least 50 times that day, stopping only for a lunch that was high in sodium. pic.twitter.com/TmAV2SrlxN
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) January 24, 2023

A new Jimmy Kimmel-produced TV series is coming to Vice TV which takes the spirit of the Twitter feed and is reimagining it as a panel comedy show. It debuts March 7.

Super Maximum Retro Show comes from Ricky Cobb, who is behind the Twitter account, and will feature “the best, worst and most outrageous” videos, photos, ads and games from the 70s, 80s and 90s, In each episode the show’s guest panelists will comment, joke and make fun some of the most absurd things to come out of those decades in the pre-Internet era. Panelists include Hasan Minaj, Roy Wood Jr., Chris Redd, Matteo Lane, Judy Gold, Chris Gethard, Adam Pally and more.

Watch: Three Body

The Three Body Problem was a well-received Chinese sci-fi book written by Liu Cixin. Later this year a Netflix English-language adaptation will debut from Game of Thrones showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff (and Alexander Woo).

But right now in China Tencent Video is streaming its own adaptation of the book. And it is publishing the episodes with English subtitles to its YouTube channel. Here's episode 1, should you be interested:

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