The Hateful Eight Review
RATING: (4 STARS) There was some blood spilled at a Wyoming haberdashery some time after the Civil War. Well, a fictional Wyoming haberdashery, but still … boy, there was some blood. It’s the time and place of Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, the very appropriately titled The Hateful Eight. The blood is nothing new in a […]
Final 2014 Oscar Predictions
We’re almost there. And thank God, because I can’t anymore. This will likely be the last year I spend time writing and talking about the Oscars regularly. Too much noise. I’ve been defeated. Anyway, it’s a hell of a good year to go out with some pretty brilliant titles leading the charge for gold. I […]
The 5 Best Leading Male Performances of 2013
I have way too many fragments of a Best Performances of 2013 list to not write something up. The idea to break apart the list by, for lack of a better term, Oscar category was born out of the desire to highlight some stellar supporting work, which sometimes gets ignored when talking about the very […]
Predicting the 2014 Golden Globes Winners
This Sunday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will carve for itself a unique place in the 2013/2014 awards season. How do I know? Because it must. There still isn’t much consensus among this year’s major categories. The critics groups like 12 Years a Slave and Her. American Hustle and Gravity have loads of support—some from […]
Nebraska Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Nebraska is Alexander Payne‘s most prickly movie since Election. Thematically, it more closely resembles his later, more humanist films—The Descendants, Sideways. But there’s an edge (a dull edge, but an edge nonetheless) that holds the viewer at arm’s length—until it relents and you give it a warm embrace. It took me a […]
2014 Oscar Predictions: Resetting the Board
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. And check out my 2014 Oscar Predictions: Technical Categories page for projections in Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and more. I’d planned to dive a little deeper into Best Documentary Feature today, but I’ve got quite a […]
Venice and Telluride: What We’ve Learned So Far
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. We’re mere days into the fall movie season, and already the Oscar landscape has changed significantly. I’ve updated my Oscar predictions today, and I will continue to on a weekly basis—every Wednesday—until the season ends. I will […]
10 Things We Learned from Cannes 2013
10.) The Coens can do no wrong. Of course you knew that already, right? Wait, you didn’t?!? Well Inside Llewyn Davis was one of the best received films of the festival, and it took home the Competition’s Grand Prix award. So let me reiterate: The Coens can do no wrong. They are the best filmmakers […]
And the 2013 Palme d’Or Goes To…
Everyone in Cannes will be wearing blue tonight. Abdellatif Kechiche (and in an unprecedented move, his two lead actresses, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux) took home the coveted Palme d’Or at this evening’s Cannes Film Festival closing ceremony for his newest film, Blue Is the Warmest Color. It was arguably the best received film of […]
