What Are the Best Movies of the Decade So Far?
It’s hard to imagine we’re five years removed from the myriad “Best Movies of the Decade” posts of 2009. That was fun, and each intervening year since has produced more than enough titles worthy of appearing on such lists. Of course, most of those titles won’t eventually make it when we get to the end […]
Top 10 Movies of the “Filmspotting Era”
Webster’s Dictionary defines Filmspotting as “a force of good in the universe.” Or maybe that was Rian Johnson. Whatever the case, my favorite film podcast turned 500 this past week, and to celebrate the occasion it held a live event where hosts Adam and Josh counted down their top five favorite films of the “Filmspotting […]
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 […]
Final 2014 Oscar Nominations Predictions
No intro; this rundown is long enough. I’m really excited to see how things shake out tomorrow. Here are my best guesses. Best Picture American Hustle Captain Phillips Dallas Buyers Club Gravity Her Nebraska Saving Mr. Banks 12 Years a Slave The Wolf of Wall Street Hustle, Phillips, Gravity, Nebraska, 12 Years are your locks. […]
2014 Oscar Nominations Wish List
I say this every year, but it deserves repeating: quality has got nothing to do with the Oscars. Sure, the Academy is a large voting body, but each member has his or her own biases—just like film critics do—and for every member who thinks The Wolf of Wall Street is the best movie of 2013 […]
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 […]
Inside Llewyn Davis Review
RATING: (4 STARS) I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say Inside Llewyn Davis is the Coen Brothers‘s most emotional movie. After a half-decade turning out great film after great film every 12 months or so, Joel and Ethan take a couple years and come back with something that’s as enigmatic as Barton Fink, as […]
The Best Movies of 2013
Outstanding. That’s the simplest but most appropriate way to sum up the year in movies that was 2013. Outstanding. A more interesting way would be to discuss the year in movie themes. The American dream, in one way or another, was a noticeable theme in seven of my top ten movies movies this year. It […]
The 2013 OFCS Nominations
The Online Film Critics Society announced the nominees for its 17th annual year-end awards. I had the privilege of voting as a member of the group for the first time, and I’m quite pleased with our eclectic list of nominees. You’ll see Johnnie To’s Drug War and Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises—two films I’ll have […]
2014 Oscar Predictions: Screenplays Original and Adapted
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. I’ve focused my 2014 Oscar predictions, until now, on Best Picture, Best Director, and the four acting categories. Today, I begin to unravel some of the secondary categories, starting with 2014 Best Adapted Screenplay and 2014 Best […]
2013 Fall Movie Preview
Want to know how good a movie season I think fall 2013 will be? Check out my list of honorable mentions: Blue Is the Warmest Color, Dallas Buyers Club, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Oldboy, Parkland, The Past, Prisoners, Rush. That’s a strong-ass crop of films if I ever saw one, yet none could even […]
2014 Oscar Predictions: What’s Changed?
Click on over to my 2014 Oscar Predictions page to see everything I’m forecasting in the major categories. In the mean time, I’m running down what’s changed over the past few months, since I last updated by 2014 Oscar Predictions just days after the most recent Oscar ceremony. I’ve also listed the few films from […]
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 […]
2013 Cannes Awards Predictions
Now that every Competition film has screened, we have but 24 hours to wait for the Palme d’Or and Cannes’ other big awards to be handed out. Here’s where I’m thinking the Spielberg jury might land: Palme d’Or (Best Film): The Past This is arguably the most wide-open Palme race in a number of years. […]
The 2013 Cannes Lineup
Looking over the 2013 Cannes lineup, which was announced this morning, it’s hard to identify the “big story.” The Competition lineup contains a good mix of the expected and some pleasant surprises (Roman Polanski’s Venus in Furs being the most high-profile of those surprises). No stunning omissions or head-scratching inclusions. Just a rock-solid-sounding group of […]
