Two days ago Politics Forum’s Todd VanDerWerff posted an interesting two-sided piece about Manchester By The Sea. On one hand he derided “sad white people” dramas with two observations — (1) the notion of white guys contemplating their sadness is a fundamentally privileged thing, and (2) sad white guy movies almost always rely on some … Read more
Some Sundance movies are applauded and whoo-whooed, and others just sink in and melt you down. They get you in such a vulnerable place that your admiration is mixed with a kind of stunned feeling, like you’ve been hit square in the heart. Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester-By-The-Sea, which played this afternoon at the Eccles, is one … Read more
Bradley Cooper‘s Is This Thing On? (Searchlight), a semi-biographical dramedy, will close the 2025 New York Film Festival with a world premiere screening on Friday, 10.10.25. Pic is “inspired” by the early career moves of stand-up comic John Bishop, who broke into the biz in 2000 at age 34. Bishop is called “Alex” in the … Read more
I’ve watched several video essays about Manchester By The Sea, but I hadn’t seen this one until early this morning. It has an extra quality so I thought I’d post it…that’s all.
27 members of the august National Society of Film Critics have given their Best Picture award to Barry Jenkins‘ Moonlight — a nicely woven, entirely admirable small-scale drama about timidity, cowering, sexuality, nurturing and acceptance. Never saw that one coming! The critical dweeb elite has been creaming over this film since Telluride, and there’s nothing … Read more
Why is the highly perceptive Michael Musto predicting Manchester By The Sea to win the Best Picture Oscar, and not the blogaroo-adored La La Land? Because “there’s nothing there” inside La La Land, Musto claims — thematically it’s merely saying “follow your dreams” — while Manchester is made of the same family-rooted, finely-wrought stuff that … Read more
Snickering about the National Board of Review has been a media pastime for decades, but for the most part their annual award choices, to be fair, have been fairly wise and spot-on. Today the NBR guys announced their 2016 awards, and Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea was far and away the big winner — … Read more
With Silence, Collateral Beauty and Passengers yet to be seen, HE’s 25 Best Films of 2016 are as follows & in this order — totally on a personal preference basis, zero consideration given to award-season politicking or Oscar predictions: (tied for #1) Kenneth Lonergan‘s Manchester By The Sea and Damien Chazelle‘s La La Land; (2) … Read more
La La Land, Arrival, Jackie, Moonlight, Nocturnal Animals, Barry, Free Fire, Toni Erdmann, Neruda, Paterson, Amanda Knox, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, Snowden, Lady Macbeth, The Salesman — these, according to most media hotshots, were the absolute cream of the 2016 Toronto Film Festival. I asked a lot … Read more
Posted this morning by Hollywood Reporter award-season columnist Scott Feinberg: “Some movies require multiple viewings in order to be fully appreciated, or even just understood. Arrival, Denis Villeneuve‘s first foray into the sci-fi genre, which stars five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams, may be such a film.” Translation: Feinberg was as confounded and irritated by this … Read more
“Walking away from last night’s Manchester by the Sea screening, I could really only think about Casey Affleck’s face. We all assess the pain of others by studying their faces. How badly are they hurt? How withered have they become? For Affleck’s character, Lee Chandler, what he wants and needs is to be alone in … Read more
Kyle Buchanan‘s Vulture article about the about-to-launch Oscar season (“The Unsettled, Unsettling Oscars“) riffs every which way but basically posts the following ten intuitions or suspicions: (1) “It’s a weird year…not that much I’m looking forward to…no one movie that I feel certain is going to get a Best Picture nomination”; (2) The Birth of … Read more