Comments by Ken Burke
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.
3/11/2026: Please note postings from Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark will be taking a short break starting next week, but we’ll be back soon.
I’m finally offering a 2025 Top 10 list, which is still in a bit of a tentative mode because there are a few possibilities that could change the list's contents I haven’t seen yet. Time constraints prevent me from including links to my previous reviews of these 10, but if you’re interested just consult the Summary of Two Guys Reviews where #1’s in the 5 stars group, #s 2 and 3 are 4½ stars, the rest are all 4 stars. There are a few notable options that didn’t make my list (such as The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners); however, I just couldn’t consider anything to which I’d given only 3½ stars out of 5, despite how they were lauded by others (again, see my Rating Rationale link above).
2025 TOP 10 FILMS
1, One Battle After Another 2. Nuremberg
3. The Life of Chuck 4. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
5. Hamnet 6. Blue Moon
7. Bugonia 8. Frankenstein
9. Marty Supreme 10. Eephus (truly from out in left field)
2026 OSCARS PREDICTIONS/PREFERENCES
Since this blog began in mid-December 2011 we’ve presented an annual posting of the nominees for each year’s Oscar awards along with predictions for winners and personal preferences if different from the predictions. However, doing the layout (such as the one for the 2025 Oscars for example) has proven to be more time-consuming than I can now manage (in my surprisingly-hectic life lately), so for brevity/sanity’s sake I’ll refer you to this site (their category order a bit different from mine) for the nominees and the listings below for the predictions (in red)—even when I’m taking chances with categories where I haven’t seen some/all of the contenders—and my preferences (in green [or a redgreen combo for anything that captures both options]) where I veer away from the prediction (in some categories I just have no favorites). Generally, I’m satisfied with the Academy’s chosen nominees although for Best Picture I’d drop F1 (mainly because I haven’t seen it), The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and (gasp!) Sinners (despite it’s record 16 nominations) in favor of Blue Moon, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, The Life of Chuck, and Nuremberg, while in the Lead Actor group I’d replace Wagner Moura with Russell Crowe in Nuremberg, although none of these substitutions would merit a prediction nor a preference in their categories as I made my final (?) decisions. After the statuettes are awarded (3/15/26) I’ll add a Winner! notation to this posting for all 24 categories.
PICTURE DIRECTOR
One Battle After Another WINNER! Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle …)
(choice of the Producers Guild) (choice of the Directors Guild)
WINNER!
ACTOR ACTRESS
Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) WINNER! Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) WINNER!
(choice of the Screen Actors Guild) (choice of the Screen Actors Guild)
Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle …) Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You)
SUPPORTING ACTOR SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sean Penn WINNER! Teyana Taylor
(choice of the Screen Actors Guild) (SAG choice Amy Madigan, Weapons)
(Madigan is Oscar WINNER!)
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Sinners WINNER! One Battle After Another WINNER!
(choice of the Writers Guild) (choice of the Writers Guild)
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE CINEMATOGRAPHY
Sentimental Value (Norway) WINNER! Sinners WINNER!
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Perfect Neighbor All the Empty Rooms WINNER!
(Oscar WINNER! is Mr. Nobody Against Putin)
ANIMATED FEATURE ANIMATED SHORT
K Pop Demon Hunters WINNER! The Girl Who Cried Pearls WINNER!
FILM EDITING LIVE ACTION SHORT
One Battle After Another WINNER! Two People Exchanging Saliva WINNER!
(Tie! The Singers also WINNER!)
VISUAL EFFECTS PRODUCTION DESIGN
Avatar: Fire and Ash WINNER! Frankenstein WINNER!
ORIGINAL SCORE ORIGINAL SONG
Sinners WINNER! “Golden” (K Pop Demon Hunters) WINNER!
SOUND COSTUME DESIGN
F1 WINNER! Frankenstein WINNER!
One Battle After Another
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING CASTING
Frankenstein WINNER! Sinners WINNER!
(I’m still not sure how to judge these)
I wouldn’t bet too much in an office/friends-watch-party pool based on my attempt at clairvoyance, although over the years I often end up with about 65-70% accuracy (even when some of my successes were based on wild guesses). I won’t be surprised if Sinners wins more than I’ve predicted, given its many fine qualities, but I just couldn’t flow with the shift from commentary on 1930s racism to a bloody vampire flick. Awards will air on ABC TV, Sunday 3/15/2026, at 4pm PDT.
3/16/2026: Well, I'm more accurate this year than I thought I'd be, getting 22 proper predictions out of 24 awards, 92% (maybe that should be 21½ of 24 given the unexpected tie in Live Action Short), better than I’ve ever done before—I had a lot of useful help by scanning predictions of various trustworthy sites where there were almost no surprises among the eventual winners. One Battle After Another was the top statuette-gatherer (6), followed by Sinners with 4, Frankenstein (3).
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
I’ll close out with what, for me, is extraordinarily short commentary about a film nominated for Oscar’s Best International Feature, one that’s had great CCAL support since it opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on October 15, 2025 (making $10.5 million globally since then) after winning the prestigious Palme d’Or top prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, then garnering many other awards and nominations along with 98% Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews, a 91% Metacritic average score, yet when I finally saw it my less-than-enthused reaction was the same as I had for The Secret Agent (also RT 98%, MC 91%) and Sentimental Value (RT 97%, MC 86%), all of which get 3½ stars from me as I just couldn’t get that excited about the contents of any of them (maybe my expectations were too high after all of that praise), although you can find plenty of reviews/videos that extol the virtues of them all, so the problem must be with me (a familiar result). ... Accident’s plot concerns an Iranian man driving home one night, hits a dog, has car trouble, but when he encounters a mechanic that guy’s convinced the driver was his brutal prison guard some years ago, so he captures the man with intent to kill but first rounds up other former prisoners for verification he’s got the right fiend, a tedious process as most of them aren't sure (for full plot details, with Spoilers, go here). If interested in seeing it, here’s the trailer; it’s available in streaming, free at Hulu, $5.99 rental at Amazon Prime Video. For me, Oscar’s International category is not truly great.
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You did a great job with your predictions. One has to assume the Academy was making a statement of sorts with "One Battle" this year.
ReplyDeleteI thought the segments on Redford, Reiner and Keaton were very well done and appropriate.
Conan was decent as well but some of his sketches assumed the tv audience had seen the films, which may not be a good assumption these days. Even many of those who knew the outro reference probably missed the film's point on the subject.
Having just gone to Hollywood and the Dolby theater for the first time this year, I could appreciate the joke about the shopping mall the theater is part of.
The sets and production numbers were first class this year. Overall I give the show two thumbs up.
Hi rj, Thanks for all of the commentary, all I which I agree with (especially me doing "a great job" [laughing emoji if I knew how to add one here]). I hope all is well with you; I envy you being able to get to the Dolby Theater, I'll bet it was as grand as it looks on TV.
ReplyDelete