Radius-TWC and Tom Freston hosted a Monday night gathering for Morgan Neville‘s 20 Feet From Stardom, a likely nominee for Best Documentary Feature. I’ve loved it all year — here’s my initial rave out of last January’s Sundance Film Festival. The party happened at the Polo Private Dining Room at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Neville … Read more
I’ve been posting occasional hosannas about Morgan Neville‘s 20 Feet From Stardom for over a year now (i.e., since I first saw it at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival) so why quite now, right? This featurette was just circulated to people like myself so I’mjust passing it along like a good little kiss-ass. Except you’re … Read more
Yesterday I spoke to Morgan Neville, the veteran documentarian who’s been riding the high of a lifetime since 20 Feet From Stardom ignited 11 months ago at the Sundance Film Festival. A bliss-out by any yardstick, 20 Feet is now one of the 15 shortlisted docs that may become a finalist at the 2014 Oscars. … Read more
I’ve contemplated the suggestions for HE’s Best of 2013 At The Six-Month Mark, and I just can’t blow off the top-notch films I saw at the Cannes Film Festival (Inside Llewyn Davis, All Is Lost, The Past, Blue Is The Warmest Color, et. al.). If I were to ignore them because they haven’t been released … Read more
Focus Features will open Morgan Neville‘s Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a doc about the life and legacy of Fred Rogers, in theatres on 6.8.18. My gut tells me this is a total lock for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar nomination for two…no, three reasons: (1) Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister before becoming a children’s … Read more
Morgan Neville‘s Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, a doc about the life and legacy of Fred Rogers, will premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. An ordained Presbyterian minister before becoming a children’s TV star, Rogers was everyone’s idea of a gentle, kindly, compassionate fellow. Rogers passed in ’03, but he was the personification of … Read more
Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon‘s Best of Enemies (Magnolia), one of the year’s finest docs and one of my hands-down faves during last January’s Sundance Film Festival, will open on 7.15. On one level a spry, highly intelligent history of the ABC TV debates between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal during the Democratic … Read more
It’s generally accepted that Pauline Kael‘s biggest triumph as a critic came when The New Yorker published her 7000-word defense-and-praise piece on Warren Beatty and Robert Benton‘s Bonnie and Clyde (10.21.67), which had opened and fizzled in August 1967. Kael’s piece helped to turn the tide (Newsweek‘s Joe Morgenstern initially panned it but went back … Read more
8:56 pm: Will Smith presenting the Best Picture Oscar. This is it. 12 Years A Slave wins! Good God! All the people who wouldn’t watch it, all the people who frowned…there weren’t enough of them in the end. Amazing! I can’t believe it. A lot of people who didn’t see it must have voted for … Read more
In the wake of 12 Years A Slave winning five Spirit Awards yesterday afternoon (Best Feature, Director, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Cinematography) and feeling all the audience love and the relief and joy from the filmmakers about having scored big-time, I began to think about what may happen this evening at the Oscars. About what I … Read more
I’ll be driving over to the Patton Oswalt-hosted Spirit Awards in Santa Monica around 10:15 am. Chilly temps and rainy weather obviously mean suppression as far as the outdoor schmoozy stuff is concerned. (Phase One is a 150-minute party starting at 11 am; Phase Two is the show’s taping from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm.) … Read more
Best Picture: It pains me to predict this but Gravity will probably win, despite the lame-ness and the wrongness of such a choice. Should win: Wolf of Wall Street or 12 Years a Slave. I know I’ve predicted 12 Years to win but…I don’t know what’s going to happen. But a gut feeling is telling … Read more