"It rightly earned him an Oscar, and in any other year …"

You may have helped me find a lost classic some time in the past few years. If so, thanks.

You would have to wade through a LOT of chaff, though. I'll miss some of the thoughtful conversations, but I can't just ask IMDb to reserve message boards for New Wave movies or film-school staples.

I'll second that. I found the message boards helpful when I was looking for copies of old movies, documentaries, etc. that were not readily available. Usually it just involved someone pointing me to a video-hosting site where I could find a silent film that the rest of the world had forgotten about, but I still liked…

The Interview was pulled because Sony genuinely feared that some harm might happen to moviegoers, following "threats" online. Other than that, some very low-budget movies have been pushed into direct-to-DVD status.

I know that the G.I. Joe live-action movies were crap, but it must be said that Quaid was perfectly cast as General Hawk.

If you're talking about the spate of recent "faith-based" films, the problem is how the film-makers (and the people financing the movies, obviously) bludgeon the audience with their messages. As far as I can tell, Farhadi and some of the other Iranian film-makers who get international exposure (Mahidi, the late…

I remember seeing the ads for "Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time" on TV when I was 10 years old and thinking, "Jesus, what the hell is wrong with Hollywood?"

Oscar Micheaux's The Girl From Chicago (1932) is an out-of-nowhere addition. Hope it's a restored version.

Thanks for being positive. I understand that a lot of people find Oscar enthusiasts (like myself) annoying, but I've always found people who reflexively turn their noses up at the Oscars (and immediately point to people who weren't nominated*, however deserving they may have been) much, much more annoying.

My ranking:

Easily.

Nay on Lion. It has a nice story, but the entire second act is bogged down with doe-eyed performances (I got tired very quickly of seeing Rooney Mara and Dev Patel stare longing into each others' eyes) and dialogue that could have been pulled from Hallmark greeting cards.

I'm kinda ticked no one even considered Rebecca Hall for Christine. But it was a poorly promoted movie, so maybe the Academy isn't to blame.

I'm disappointed that Sing Street was totally shut out; I actually thought it was a notch better than La La Land. Other than that, this is a pretty solid list of nominees, probably the best in years.

The Double Life of Veronique also is deserving of attention.

If we're going with Argento, I would lean toward Deep Red

The Conformist, The Last Emperor or anything else shot by Vittorio Storaro.

"Do not go south without a candle." Pretty sound advice for life, I think.

We can only mourn the lack of authenticity (or, at least, the respect for elbow grease), because it's not coming back.