Adam Epstein

In the 1950s and 1960s, the US Air Force secretly investigated more than 12,000 reports of unidentified flying objects. The findings on the vast majority of those sightings were uneventful: people misidentifying common objects like planes, lights, birds, and comets; hoaxers looking to make a name for themselves; small towns succumbing to hysteria (okay, that one is kind of eventful). But 701 sightings still remain unidentified to this day.

The Avengers saved the planet from an alien invasion and an artificial intelligence hellbent on human extinction. (They failed to save us from Thanos, but we don’t need to talk about that.) Their next assignment: saving the Academy Awards.

Peter Farrelly, the director of Golden Globe winner and Oscar frontrunner Green Book, used to enjoy showing people his penis. In restaurants, on film sets, and god knows where else.

Last month, Netflix claimed that 45 million people had watched its horror-thriller Bird Box. Yesterday Nielsen confirmed that the film is indeed a hit: 26 million people in the US alone watched Bird Box in the week after its Dec. 21 release, according to the audience measurement firm. That’s nearly the number of Americans who bought a ticket to see Aquaman, one of the highest-grossing films of 2018.

If you watched the Golden Globe Awards, you saw a very different picture from what the past year in film was really like. The Oscars on Feb. 24 may not be much better.

When it comes to diversity in Hollywood, it’s still one step forward, two steps back. And for women, there have been no steps at all.

Something very strange aired on American network television last night. This thing included what I think was NFL legend Terry Bradshaw wearing a head-to-toe Satanic deer costume straight out of Mad Max while belting the hit song “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons for a studio audience. Jenny McCarthy may have been there? I’m not totally sure. The whole thing doesn’t seem real.

Roma, A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Favourite are all wonderful films that fully deserve the accolades they’re earning as we inch closer to February’s Oscars. But let’s not forget that the coolest movie of the year came out in July and it included Tom Cruise performing helicopter barrel rolls through mountainous terrain like a complete goddamn maniac.

If you’re tired of looking back at the year in entertainment that was and want to look forward at what’s to come, we’ve got you covered. 2019 is going to be a year to remember for movies and TV.

The Oscars aren’t until February, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has already announced the shortlists for several categories, including its two for music: best original score and best original song. From these shortlists, the film academy will choose the nominees and announce those on Jan. 22.

Update (Dec. 27): Although Pixar’s Bao is no longer available to watch online, Weekends is now available, so you can still watch eight of the ten shorts for free.

A tsunami struck coastal towns near the Sunda Strait in Indonesia yesterday, killing at least 222 people and injuring more than 800, Indonesia’s disaster management agency said. The eruption of the Krakatoa volcano triggered underwater landslides which in turn caused the tsunami. Krakatoa stands between the islands of Sumatra and Java.

Vice, the new Dick Cheney biopic from The Big Short director Adam McKay, is not a great film. It’s a confused, often self-indulgent jumble of satirical gimmicks. It can’t decide if it wants to be a parody or a serious drama, settling awkwardly between the two. That it’s not an especially impressive movie is all the more disappointing given the talent involved, from McKay to Christian Bale to Amy Adams.

Yes, A Star Is Born is one of the best films of the year. No, we haven’t forgotten about Black Panther just because it came out way back in February. Of course we’re going to watch Roma on Netflix, just give us a second. (But seriously, watch it—it’s wonderful.)

This is the sixth entry in Quartz’s Weird Oscars series, honoring the moments, characters, and performances of this year’s film and television that the actual Oscars (and Emmys) are not cool enough to award. Check back later for many more categories, including “Best Movie Dog,” “Best Jump Scare,” and “Best Dance Sequence.” (For a full list of upcoming categories, scroll to the bottom of this post.) All the Weird Oscars announced so far can be found here.

One of the biggest songs of 2018 was a turbocharged synthpop falsetto ballad that came out 34 years ago. It bops to a frantic 168 beats per minute. Its music video—a rotoscoped masterwork that blends pencil sketches with live action—is wholly unlike anything you’d see on YouTube today. In fact, the song doesn’t have much in common with modern pop music at all. But, weirdly, it still resonates, and in its many forms it still pervades pop culture. And it still slaps.

This is the fifth entry in Quartz’s Weird Oscars series, honoring the moments, characters, and performances of this year’s film and television that the actual Oscars (and Emmys) are not cool enough to award. Check back later for many more categories, including “Best Movie Dog,” “Best Jump Scare,” and “Best Dance Sequence.” (For a full list of upcoming categories, scroll to the bottom of this post.) All the Weird Oscars announced so far can be found here.

This is the fourth entry in Quartz’s Weird Oscars series, honoring the moments, characters, and performances of this year’s film and television that the actual Oscars (and Emmys) are not cool enough to award. Check back later for many more categories, including “Best Movie Dog,” “Best Jump Scare,” and “Best Dance Sequence.” (For a full list of upcoming categories, scroll to the bottom of this post.) All the Weird Oscars announced so far can be found here.

This is the third entry in Quartz’s Weird Oscars series, honoring the moments, characters, and performances of this year’s film and television that the actual Oscars (and Emmys) are not cool enough to award. Check back later for many more categories, including “Best Movie Dog,” “Best Jump Scare,” and “Best Dance Sequence.” (For a full list of upcoming categories, scroll to the bottom of this post.) All the Weird Oscars announced so far can be found here.

Just weeks after the Detective Pikachu movie trailer haunted our dreams, Hollywood has ruined yet another perfectly innocent cartoon creature: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Kevin Hart, we hardly knew ye. In what was perhaps the most avoidable public relations disaster of the year, the comedian and actor was tapped as host of the Oscars earlier this week only to step down last night (Dec. 7) in the wake of widespread backlash over his history of homophobic comments.

Nominations for the 2019 Golden Globes—the drunken traveling circus of award shows—were announced today. As is tradition, it was a mixed bag of good and bad, snubs and surprises, and general bemusement. But one major nomination stood out.

This is the second entry in Quartz’s Weird Oscars series, honoring the moments, characters, and performances of the year’s film and television that the actual Oscars (and Emmys) are not cool enough to award. Check back later for many more categories, including “Best Movie Dog,” “Best Jump Scare,” and “Best Dance Sequence.” (For a full list of upcoming categories, scroll to the bottom of this post.) All the Weird Oscars announced so far can be found here.

He has climbed the Burj Khalifa, flown a helicopter through mountainous terrain, and jumped out of a plane 25,000 feet in the air. Now Tom Cruise is coming to change the settings on your TV.