Ari Aster‘s Disappointment Blvd. — a very cool, take-it-or-leave-it smarthouse title, one that sticks to your ribs — is no longer being called Disappointment Blvd. The new title, according to A24, is Beau Is Afraid — presumably an allusion to the first name of Joaquin Phoenix‘s main protagonist, “one of the most successful entrepreneurs of … Read more
Kris Tapley‘s latest award-season analysis piece (“Are You Ready for the Most Exciting Oscar Race in Years?“) appeared this morning. It’s mostly an accurate read. Especially if your definition of “accurate” is taking the pulse of your Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby go-alongers (i.e., the people who hold their moist fingers to the wind … Read more
Two days ago MCN’s David Poland assessed the current Best Picture contenders — lockdowns, a likely lockdown, several maybes, some lukewarmies, mezzo-mezzos, struggling-against-the-tiders and three or four popsicles. This is an assessment of Poland’s assessment. Poland claims that “only two movies came out of North American premieres at TIFF with legit Best Picture hopes” — … Read more
Here’s a copy of an email I’ve just sent to Melissa Silverstein, editor of Women and Hollywood: “Melissa — As you may recall, on 7.17 Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone posted a passionate, thoughtful, first-rate piece about the hurdles that women directors face and go through in getting due or fair recognition for their work. It’s … Read more
Different Enough? There’s a slightly longer “Director’s Cut” DVD of Paul Haggis’s Oscar-winning Crash hitting stores on April 4th. It’s just about three minutes longer than the 112-minute version that played in theatres. Extra dabs, clips and brushstrokes “integrated,” as a Lionsgate spokesperson put it this morning. The two-disc package will have several deleted scenes … Read more
Docs Own It So far the most affecting highs of Sundance 2006 are not coming from the features but the documentaries. No narrative except Little Miss Sunshine has generated any kind of noticable wattage, but everywhere you turn people are talking up the docs. Yesterday afternoon I saw Freida Mock’s conventional but nonetheless moving and … Read more
The Goonies It’s time once again to respond to the salutations of those New York secular know-nothings, the National Board of Review…even though they make calls every so often that I agree with. Like this morning’s decision to give their Best Director award to Collateral‘s Michael Mann…yes! The NBR announced their 2004 movie awards around … Read more
From David Poland‘s Substack review of Jurassic World: Dominion: “Michael Giacchino, a truly great composer, told me many years ago that when a movie is scored wall-to-wall, it is almost always because the movie is not good.” I’m not sure that Giacchino’s blanket rule…well, he’s mostly right but I’ve loved many film scores that are … Read more
Five and a half months ago MCN’s David Poland assessed what appeared to be the Best Picture contenders of the moment. And then I assessed Poland’s assessment (“Poland’s Rightos & Wrongos”). We both saw Three Billboards as a likely nominee (although I mainly saw it as an acting vehicle) but we were both wrong on … Read more
After four days of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, I’m tempted to call it weak tea. So far there’s been no Call Me By Your Name, no Mudbound, no Big Sick. By my sights the only moderately pleasing narrative films have been Tamara Jenkins‘ lightly comedic Private Life and Jessie Peretz‘s Juliet, Naked. And that’s … Read more
If you want to know what was happening in the award race two or three weeks ago, check with the Gurus of Gold. They’ve always been safe betters, like retirees having fun at Santa Anita with their social security checks. They’re slow in catching up with trends and bends in the road. Cautious, stodgy. They’re … Read more
Yesterday morning Toronto Star critic Peter Howell posted his annual Toronto Film Festival “Chasing the Buzz” piece. 25 critics, pundits and know-it-alls naming a special TIFF film that they really like or are especially looking forward to. I chose Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name, as you might expect. If I’d been allowed to … Read more