Ladies and gentlemen, that sainted time of year is once again upon us. Stuffed to the eyeballs with carbohydrate-loaded food, we suck in our guts, put on our finest ensemble of pajama pants and Crocs, and venture out to the nearest mall/shopping center/big box retailer/gas station/roadside flea market to secure gifts for the ones we love. Meanwhile, the ones we tolerate will simply have to suffice with “A Tree Has Been Planted In Your Name” certificates and that fruitcake your grandfather accidentally sat on during Sunday dinner.

As we do every time around this time, Geeks Of Doom has provided for you a comprehensive guide to the finest films and TV series released to DVD and Blu-ray in 2017 (if you’re holding out for laserdisc or Betamax editions of these titles, I both pity and respect you) for you and yours to enjoy for generations to come.

Check out this year’s Holiday Geek Gift Guide: Blu-ray & DVD Edition…

It’s that time of year again when we all gather around the TV for a 3 – 4.5 hour showcasing of everything great… and maybe not so great about Hollywood. That’s right, it’s the 89th Annual Academy Awards. This year we are celebrating a hugely diverse crowd of nominees… which has NOTHING to do with the controversies of the last two years in which no minority actors were nominated. Below you will find my insta-reviews, blurbs I wrote about each Oscar nominated film immediately after finishing them in the order I watched them, my rankings, and predictions. So let’s get to it…

Some spoilers below.

Now that the Oscar nominations have been announced, studios will be making an effort to get audiences to watch some of the films that have earned nominations in some of the top categories.

One move that they generally do is to re-release a film in theaters for a limited time. It’s been done many times before, and Paramount will do it for Arrival. The Denis Villeneuve sci-fi film has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. However, it managed to snub Amy Adams, for whatever reason I cannot figure out why. But find out more about the re-release below.

As 2016 comes to close and we settling into the first few weeks into 2017, it’s time to go through my list of movies I saw in 2016 and pick the ten best titles. This year’s total was 69 new movies, and for those new to my lists, that includes all new movies, no matter when they came out. So the easiest step in the process is weeding out the older movies, but then comes the hard part. It took a few passes, but I finally have my top ten, so sit back and grab some popcorn, because here comes my top ten movies of 2016…

Specific guild nominations are very telling of what films and television shows are up for major awards. Take SAG (Screen Actors Guild). A lot of the times the nominations from those awards are a precursor to which actors will most likely be nominated for Academy Awards. That is really no different from the Writers Guild of America (WGA).

Today, WGA have announced their Writers Guild Awards nominees for the best in original and adaptive screenplay. You may recognize a few like Arrival or La La Land, heard of their critical acclaim like Moonlight, and may be even surprised by a few like Deadpool. That’s right, Deadpool got a nomination. Check out the list of nominated films below.

The 2017 Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning, and as expected there were plenty of surprises and a few snubs. La La Land took home seven nominations, including Best Picture (Motion Picture Musical or Comedy) Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Song. Among the biggest surprises is Ryan Reynolds for his performance in Deadpool, and Sing Street. There were a few snubs as well, which included Natalie Portman in Jackie and Denzel Washington in Fences, as well as Finding Dory not getting a nom for Best Animated feature (although Disney did get two other films in). Check out the full list of nominations here below.

Arrival
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Screenwriter: Eric Heisserer
Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma, Mark O’Brien, Sangita Patel
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 116 Minutes
Release Date: November 11, 2016

“Where do they come from? What do they want?”

First contact, the introductory meeting between humanity and extraterrestrial life, was a common theme in the work of H. G. Wells, most notably in 1898’s The War of the Worlds and 1901’s The First Men in the Moon. The term itself, however, wasn’t coined until 1945, with American author Murray Leinster’s novelette, “First Contact.”

Since then, filmmakers have been fascinated by what that pivotal moment would be like, from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Independence Day (1996), and Contact (1997). Most recently, we’ve seen first contact — combined with the message from space trope — in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

Based on Ted Chiang‘s award-winning short story “Story Of Your Life,” Denis Villeneuve‘s Arrival is the one-of-a-kind sci-fi drama audiences are craving for. In an age where most alien films have a plot that involves the otherworldly visitors conquering or destroying Earth, the aliens in Arrival are visiting our planet for unknown reasons. With 12 alien ships located in random parts of the world, it is up to Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to communicate with these aliens and find out why they are on Earth before other nations decide to take drastic measures.

We sat down with Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer about making the short story into a film, his collaboration with Chiang, the large amount of positive buzz surrounding the film, and how the message can coincide with what’s going on with the world today. Check out the full interview below.

There has been a lot of good hype surrounding Denis Villeneuve‘s Arrival, starring Amy Adams. It’s been making a few stops at film festivals, with audiences raving that it is one of the best sci-fi films to date. Now with its release just a few short weeks away, Paramount Pictures is making one last marketing push to get you to see the film. A new trailer has been released, revealing just how stressful translating an alien language can be and how their arrival can create global tension.

Check out the new trailer here below.

Paramount has released a new trailer for Denis Villeneuve‘s Arrival starring Amy Adams as a world-renowned linguist who is brought in by the military to help them speak to mysterious aliens that have recently touched down on earth.

The film also stars Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg as the earthlings who will help Adams’ character figure out with the extraterrestrials come in peace or are on Earth for war. Check out the full trailer below.