Closing Out Oscars 2015 and a Big Big Thank You

I don’t spend enough time thanking the many readers who have been coming here since the beginning. I occasionally still get emails from you thanking me for what I do, so I thought it was high time I thanked you in return for coming here every year for our annual Oscar party — what with the stats and the meltdowns and the disappointments and the celebrations. In short, you’ve been here for the good days and the bad days. It’s been a pleasure to engage with you for these many years, a quarter of our lives practically, by now. When people ask me whether I hate my job or love my job — there are obviously parts to hate and parts to love. But by far the best reason to stay in the game is and has always been about the readers — you guys — who come here every year to argue passionately about your picks and predictions. I remember each crazy year, believe it or not. We’ve all kind of grown up together.

I also want to thank our sleek new AwardsDaily staff — with editor Ryan Adams at the top of that list. While engaging in his own life, Ryan is the only reason any piece gets posted at all. He cleans up the typos — and always takes care to correct grammar and tone down truly awful things that would get me far more hate tweets than I get already. So thank you, Ryan. Thank you for always being there and for caring so much not just about me and the site, but caring so much about the readers.

Marshall Flores has been a regular staffer this year, not just running Statsgasm but, believe it or not, always being available for a panicky email to answer questions about the weirdest stats you could ever imagine. I can ask him anything and he will provide both the stats and an opinion on whether those matter at all. Always encouraging, always open-minded — we were lucky to have him around this year.

Our newest intrepid reporter, the lovely and talented Jazz Tangcay who is really helping to drag AwardDaily kicking and screaming into the modern world. As you all know, I’m not the world’s best interviewer or party guest. I am just too shy in the final analysis but Jazz is up for anything — any event, any interview. She’s enthusiastic and always suggesting fresh ways to enhance the site — sincerely a dynamo. Like creating our new AwardsDaily Instagram, or building contender tracker pages, or always retweeting and hashtagging the tweet links when I forget to do that. I’m always hearing from people who’ve met her or interviewed with her about how charming she is and smart and talented. How did we ever get so lucky to have Jazz around?

Dr Rob and Paddy Mulholland provide invaluable support by finding awards news and alerting us to timely tips on awards announcements, above and beyond their ongoing dialogue about the awards race. Both bring a unique dimension to their contributions. Rob with his great great and invaluable annual ballot simulations complete with reams of charts to illuminate the complex preferential tabulation. Paddy with his prolific annual coverage of the London Film Festival and his daily vibrant presence in discussion is an ever-present fixture with his outspoken slant on cinema. Ryan C. Showers is another new contributor who shares much the same sort of mindset as the rest of us here, diving into assignments with sharp focus and — another young and enthusiastic contributor we’re lucky to have on the team.

Jordan Ruimy is our reliable Canadian correspondent, submitting concise reports, themed essays and capsule reviews from Toronto and Sundance.  Daniel Smith-Rowsey offers us periodic in-depth examinations of important topics packed with thought-provoking insight, as does Kevin Klawitter with his entertaining and thorough comparative analyses. They each add another important facet to Awards Daily content that we hope helps broaden the scope of the site in the off-season to keep the conversation here sparking year-round.

When we’re preoccupied by an Oscar cycle this stormy, we can sometimes forget all the rock-solid coverage being done by our hard-working  staff at AwardsDailyTV. Led by the steady hand of Clarence Moye, ADTV’s tireless team of writers — Joey Moser, Megan McLachlan, Robin Write, Jalal Haddad, et al — are indispensable assets in building an important new branch of the site.  Over the past year, they’ve produced a huge wealth of keen, sharp-witted articles about every significant television event — small-screen achievements that often put theatrical films to shame.  Our good friend and OscarPodcast partner Craig Kennedy has had to cut back on his regular involvement, but he’s never far from our minds.

So thanks to everyone who has come here — even if it’s the drive by and lob a nasty trollish comment. You’re here, right?  Always waiting to pounce. Driving up the comments to past 1,000 submissions sometimes. It’s been a hell of a year and it was fun to take this ride together. I just wanted to make sure you all knew that.