It really is a rather vicious piece of irony that a movie all about political organizing had one of the most calmitous, disorganized Oscar campaigns in recent memory.

And the flip side: Give Weinstein Selma and screeners in mid-November, and it's positively waltzing to Best Picture.

One problem I'd have with that theory though is that your older Academy voters these days are probably baby boomers who absolutely hated LBJ over Vietnam. Most of the people more supportive of him lately are younger revisionists who reemphasize his Civil Rights and Great Society legacies.

That's actually one of the reasons people are giving for Selma's snub. Plenty of films do the limited to wide release build, but they do it November into December. Most non-Eastwood films (Million Dollar Baby was like that too) released in December end up being missed by the Oscars because there's not enough time for…

Clearly, Martin needed to be singing live.

It's been in commercials for eons though. I feel like every time I turned on ESPN from like mid-December there was an ad for it.

Unfortunately, it aired outside the 25 year window. Yep, you're old.

Or, Veep's superior cousin, The Thick of It

I stumbled into it on cable the other day, and actually enjoyed the rewatch. Firth and Rush were still great, as was Bonham-Carter, even if the historical drama around them is clunky and it's all a bit 'sports movie.'

I did feel bad for those Oscars. You could have put out Citizen Kane that year and they still would have given the Dwarf Lifetime Achievement Award.

As much as anything I think that's a problem with the LBJ changes. It takes a more interesting story for King, that of a man playing both inside and outside the system as a canny strategist, into more of a more generic 'one determined man against the system' kind of movie. It takes him from being Lincoln to more being…

Exactly. It's bad that Selma was snubbed—it's worse that it was diversity's only chance (Director of Birdman aside) to get nominations in major categories.

I'd say it's really a bit much to blame historians for "[launching] a fairly vicious smear campaign" against the film. The controversy started with the admittedly over the top op-ed by Califano, but nearly every other article was basically interviewing historians and civil rights leaders like Andrew Young and Julian…

I haven't seen it, but Cooper has been getting reviews that say "Even though the rest of the movie isn't great, he's still very good in it." so it's not completely nuts for him to get a nod, especially since he did the "body transformation" thing voters like. In a category this packed (and I think Ralph Fiennes did a…

All it takes is watching any holodeck episode to understand why the whole ship isn't one.

Well, by making a purposely flawed book, they're working to empower future nitpickers! It was a conscious artistic choice!

I remain amazed that An American Tail actually features that and Mouse Tammany Hall, and was nevertheless a beloved children's movie.

According to Fox News, they're already ruling Bearmingham and imposing Bearia Law!

Say what you will about the rating system, but Jack Valenti explained it PERFECTLY: https://www.youtube.com/wat…

You're telling me there's trouble? Right here in Gorilla City?