March 5, 2021
March 1, 2021
I love an industry rogue. Always have. George Christy died less than a year ago. Loved him. And I knew what an absurd pain-in-the-ass he could be. I understood his arrogance. I saw the man. Lived to 93 and still felt compelled to pretend to be straight. He carried a lot of baggage. He wasn’t […]
February 25, 2021
The greatest lesson of this *Oscar season is… how little imagination is now brought to Oscar season. There are literally hundreds of very smart people focused on the season for distributors, every one trying to figure out the next great thing to do, the key to opening the hearts and minds of The 10,000. Since […]
February 25, 2021
It’s the Globes, right? The Gurus spike the drinks, if not the night in their predictions of what the HFPA minds are on.
February 18, 2021
Subtle waves of sentiment shift in the Gurus’ ears: some pictures drop off the charts, while predictions shift in both Best Picture and Best Director.
February 18, 2021
I am a fan of Kirby Dick’s work; I like the guy personally and have for years. I met Amy Ziering a few docs ago and like and respect her. Allen v. Farrow is, sadly, not so much a documentary as a commercial. Unlike The Invisible War, The Hunting Ground, and On The Record, this […]
February 15, 2021
They are only 2 months away!!!! Well, 2 months and 10 days. That makes today the equivalent of the day after Thanksgiving 2019 before last year’s Oscar show. Happy holiday! That said, it is time for me to stop mocking the *Oscars and to accept that they are not only happening, but that there is […]
February 5, 2021
With nutty nominations from the Globes and hot-hot-heat from the SAG, a real race is shaping up.
February 4, 2021
John and The Hole has lingered with me more than any other film at Sundance this year. I filled out a critics poll a few hours before writing this review and it was a very odd experience. How does one define “the best?” Is it the easiest to consume? Most pleasurable? Most enlightening? Most personally […]
February 3, 2021
Another magically weird morning thanks to the HFPA and their Globes of Gold. It’s like a flower that you have never seen in nature and will never see again, blooming in your hand before wilting and dying as trucks run over it on their way to the real awards. Did they know when they decided […]
January 27, 2021
Even as Sundance is a snowball’s throw from setting alight the fireplace of 2021’s release calendar, the Gurus o’ Gold take their first crack at sensing the shape of the extended, elongated, ever-lovin’ 2020 Oscars procession leading to the 93rd awards on April 25.
January 26, 2021
I’ve been at this a long time. The other day, another long-termer pal was commenting that they had started following Oscar publicly the year Gladiator won Best Picture. I was in a tux on on E! that year, swearing that, “As God as my witness, Gladiator will not win Best Picture.” God let me and […]
January 25, 2021
This will be brief. Episode 3 is “The Brady Bunch” Birth episode. I see a lot of the “Easter egg” conversations online. Fascinating, but not my thing. Twins. The looming threat of Mephisto continues. Agnes is still hanging around, talking about her evil husband, Ralph. The little girl from Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) is all […]
January 23, 2021
I was really, really looking forward to Malcolm & Marie. I have watched every episode of the first season of Euphoria at least twice. The hour “special episode” with Zendaya and Coleman Domingo talking for an hour in a coffee shop is one of my favorite hours of television, period. John David Washington is clearly […]
January 21, 2021
Seven months ago, I offered a list of planned theatrical releases that were “untouchable.” There were eighteen 2020 titles. I didn’t project into 2021. Tenet and Mulan were theatrical release experiments back in September. WarnerMedia released Wonder Woman 1984 day-n-date domestically and internationally in theaters… and after a month, they’ve done $143 million worldwide. Their […]
January 18, 2021
I watched the first three episodes of WandaVision that were provided to the media… with modest interest. The buzz was super-hot. The internet, as it sometimes does, so oversaturated the web with anticipation that the actual show seemed anticlimactic. Still, when the content became available, I jumped on it, not because I wanted to see […]
January 14, 2021
It’s almost over. It hasn’t even begun. That is the story of this *Oscar season. Netflix seems to have blown off the extended Oscar calendar. They are already all-in. They have a couple more movies that will go public this month and next… but media and Academy voters have access to everything now. Nomadland has […]
January 12, 2021
I pondered this for years, especially as YouTube and blogging were first happening. In this business called show, what is the difference between being a pro and being an amateur? My answer: Intention. And by intention, I don’t mean goals for a desired outcome. I mean the intention in doing the work. Amateurs become pros. […]
December 28, 2020
I don’t want to review Wonder Woman 1984. Honestly, it would force me to think about the film too much. Oh… that terrible CGI. Oh… the complete illogic of the mall sequence. Oh… why does the Latino with the preacher wig and the blonde without lines and a fear of carbs have an Asian child? […]
Gurus On A Tighter Race: Picture, Director, Acting, Writing
| March 5, 2021
| March 5, 2021
| March 1, 2021
"Midnight Cowboy shattered many barriers. Men like these—hungry, hollow outcasts—had never been depicted with such honesty and directness in a mainstream American movie. Neither had this vision of New York—cold, bleak, corrupted. The acting is superb—not just Voight and Hoffman, but a small troupe of brilliant supporting actors—the screenplay terse and powerful, the camerawork fluid, the music poignant and engaging. Even the costumes are memorable. Still, no one expected the movie to make a dime. On the way to their first screening before the executives at United Artists, the chronically anxious Schlesinger turned to Hellman, his producing partner, and asked, 'Really, Jerry, do you think anyone in their right mind will pay good money to see this rubbish?'"
Excerpting Glenn Frankel's "Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic"
| March 5, 2021
DP/30: Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, The Trial of the Chicago 7
| February 15, 2021
DP/30 Audio: Bombshell, Jay Roach
| December 13, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors
| December 4, 2019
DP/30 Audio: The Mustang, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre
| December 4, 2019
