Goorah for “Mank”, LaKeith Stanfield, Zhao and Fennell and (Surprise!) Vinterberg + Best Actor Nominees Hopkins, Ahmed, Yeun

Congrats all around but especially to the Best Director-nominated Chloe Zhao and Emerald Fennell and the ten-nominations-fortified Mank, not to mention surprise Best Director nominee Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round) and the Best Supporting Actor nom handed to Judas and the Black Messiah‘s LaKeith Stanfield (yes!)…and to HE fave Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) for Best … Read more

Stanfield, Not Kaluuya

Congrats to Daniel Kaluuya for winning a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture. Kaluuya’s win for his performance in Judas and the Black Messiah was the kickoff announcement at this evening’s Golden Globe telecast. Kaluuya is totally fine as the late Fred Hampton, but HE respectfully believes that … Read more

Wikipedia Is Still Calling Him Keith

(l.) Crown Heights producer-costar Nnamdi Asomugha, (r.) star Lakeith Stanfield following Monday night’s screening at the London West Hollywood. Amazon/IFC will open the winner of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award on 8.25. Hollywood Elsewhere is a bigger fan of this ’80s and ’90s drama about police cruelty and systemic racism than Detroit, I … Read more

What Happened During Rodman’s Wild-Ass Las Vegas Adventure in 1998?

A 8.30.21 piece by Rolling Stone‘s Angie Martoccio reported that Dennis Rodman‘s wacky, wild-ass 48-hour vacation in Las Vegas in the middle of the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-1998 season would be chronicled in a narrative feature titled 48 Hours in Vegas. That was four and 1/3 years ago. The Lionsgate project obviously languished and then petered … Read more

HE Has A Problem with Sandy Man Peds

I really and truly respect one actor in this photo….Lakeith Stanfield, whom I really liked in Roofman and Die My Love. Who’s the tall, dorky-looking guy with the jug ears? Callum Turner? Where are Jacob Elordi and Timothee Chalamet?

Too Many Absences: A Semi-Morose Cannes Analysis

10:30 am update: Lynne Ramsay‘s Die My Love, a post-partum depression “comedy” that costars Jennifer “JLaw” Lawrence and Robert “RPatz” Pattinson, will be announced as an additional Cannes title. World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy is hearing “as many as SEVEN late additions, including two in competition, will be announced.” Die My Love costars LaKeith Stanfield, … Read more

Strenuous, Undisciplined, All-Over-The-Place 2025 Rundown

I don’t know where to begin a loose-shoe study of the likeliest 2025 hotties (critically approved, Oscar-nominated), but you have to start somewhere…anywhere. Right now this is a very half-assed rundown, but I’ll build it as the comments come in and things move along. Call this HE’s first half-assed stab. I’ll begin to fix it … Read more

Don’t Forget What The NYFCC Has Turned Into

…and the damp-finger-to-the-wind submission to woke terror that many NYFCC members live by or adhere to. For roughly five years now, they’ve been leading the DEI insanity charge up San Juan Hill…”charrrrrrge!” Posted on 1.9.23, or not quite 11 months ago: In addition to their sometimes well-grounded, highly perceptive praising of stellar filmmaking and performances, … Read more

Kohn’s Last IndieWire Podcast

I forgot to mention a few days ago that IndieWire‘s influential film critic and editor Eric Kohn has flown the coop. He’s now working as a film strategy and development exec for Harmony Korine‘s EDGLRD, and HE wishes him all the best. A job with serious creative potential, a better salary, slicker threads, more security … Read more

Finally Broke My Heart

This evening I tried again with John Ford‘s The Informer> (’35), and in so doing experienced something like an epiphany. It surprised the hell out of me, but there was no mistaking what I was feeling. For the first time I accepted the foolishness and rank idiocy of Victor McLaglen‘s Gypo Nolan — surely one … Read more

Not Necessarily “The Bad Guys”

But in addition to their sometimes well-grounded, highly perceptive praising of stellar filmmaking and performances, the New York Film Critics Circle has (be honest) been in the grip of woke theology over the last four or five years. Most of us understand this, and the NYFCC honchos and spokespersons will deny it to their dying … Read more

Western Shoot-Em-Up Therapy

Jeymes Samuel‘s The Harder They Fall (Netflix, later this year) seems to be a harmless, ultra-violent, all-black fantasy-revenge western — a gang of African-American desperadoes (Jonathan Majors, LaKeith Stanfield, Regina King, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, R.J. Cyler, Damon Wayans Jr., Deon Cole) holdin’ up trains, settlin’ scores, blowin’ holes … Read more