The State of Oscar. 021620. Oscar’s Climax (Pt 3 – Meaning).
February 16, 2020
February 16, 2020
February 11, 2020
February 10, 2020
Simply… a rundown of the show… with a few bits of commentary. Janelle Monáe opens the show with an homage to a movie that was not nominated that turns into a really cool number paying homage to other movies that were not nominated. (There was a dancing Joker, and other costumes represented Dolemite Is My […]
February 9, 2020
There is so much to dig through that this was intended to be two columns. But it’s the day before Oscar and these pieces have sat on my desktop for two days and F.X. Feeney is dead and Orson Bean was killed while jaywalking at 91 and I don’t feel like tearing anyone specific a […]
February 4, 2020
Final voting closes today and I want to suggest another way to tear the whole thing up. As discussed in the last column, I am putting aside all the reasons why change is agonizing in The Academy. My thought is to look at all the problems with current system and to devise a better way […]
February 4, 2020
The first story that everyone was all over after Lin-Manuel Miranda let the public know that Hamilton was coming to The Big Screen was the price tag. Disney paid $75 million, plus a commitment to a full theatrical release. In every story was also the fact that the “film” of Hamilton was shot live on […]
January 29, 2020
One of the great movie experiences I had in 2019 was Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut. Francis Coppola did a recut of the film, after the original, the Redux, and however many TV and airplane cuts, and you could see in the film that he had opened to the door to changing every single moment […]
January 20, 2020
It struck about halfway through the SAG Awards on Sunday night… which followed the PGAs on Saturday… which followed the ACE Awards on Friday… which followed Oscar nominations last Monday… which followed BFCA/CCAs on Sunday… which followed LAFCA on Saturday… which followed NBR on Wednesday… which followed NYFCC on Tuesday… which followed The Globes on […]
January 17, 2020
It turned out to be a pretty terrific year for film. Movies you can watch repeatedly and keep mining new stuff and reassessing old without getting bored. I stuck to 20 motion pictures, overall. Two sets of 10. And the only hierarchical order within the two groups is for my top choice. Top 10 Motion […]
January 13, 2020
I’ve been explaining this for years. People don’t want to understand. Next year’s Oscars are already down to 60 films being taken seriously. By March, the number will be down to 45. By the end of July, the number will be down to about 30. About 23 of those 30 (or so) will go to […]
January 11, 2020
People adjust. People with multimillion budgets adjust easily. The February 9 date of this year’s Oscars have led to whining beyond all whining. “People don’t have time to see all the movies!” “It’s all happening too quick!” “All the other shows are bunched up!” And here is the issue for The Academy. Who cares? The […]
January 7, 2020
The IrishmanProducers: Jane Rosenthal & Robert De Niro, Emma Tillinger Koskoff & Martin Scorsese Jojo RabbitProducers: Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi JokerProducers: Todd Phillips & Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff Knives OutProducers: Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman Little WomenProducer: Amy Pascal Marriage StoryProducers: Noah Baumbach, David Heyman Once Upon a Time… in HollywoodProducers: David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, […]
January 5, 2020
January 5, 2020
I was at an event for a distributor, celebrating its Golden Globes nominees and a friend in the industry asked me, “So who is going to win?” Without much thinking, I said, “It doesn’t matter. At all. The Globes aren’t actually a thing.” He was taken aback and frankly, I was taken aback by how […]
December 31, 2019
Voting for nominations is now two days away. Voters may watch another movie or two before they enter the six-day window of voting, but with such a short window, my guess is that even more voters than usual will get their votes in early in the process. It’s hard to imagine that even 20% of […]
December 28, 2019
Christmas Day has come and gone and some distributors are happily sleeping, their bellies filled with the comfort of their films’ position. Others are — or should be — getting twitchy. The most comfy of all should be Netflix, for whom absolutely nothing has changed since this holiday window began last Friday the 20th. This […]
December 27, 2019
There is a disease in Hollywood that is also found in many places, more so in 2019 than in the past… though it has certainly been there in the past as well. When it’s about someone else, gossip is fun, even if it might be untrue… but if people are saying it, there must be […]
December 23, 2019
It was Bill Condon who coined the phrase, “The Great Settling.” And I have used it every year since I heard it. Because even in a shortened season —perhaps more so — there is a point at which the power to try to convert voters disappears from the efforts of the often-brilliant salespeople (whatever their […]
December 20, 2019
The Non-Spoiler Review is here. After chewing on this for a bit, I am just going to make a list of things I feel about the film. And I will look forward to added such issues from others. Let me start with the couple of things I loved in the film. I loved the “They […]
December 18, 2019
I never liked the show, “Cats.” Critics never liked the show, “Cats.” More than 73 million people have bought tickets to the show, “Cats.” And even if just half of them liked it and one-quarter loved it, that’s over 36 million people who will enjoy this movie. Tom Hooper and co-writer Lee Hall didn’t transform […]
The State of Oscar. 021620. Oscar’s Climax (Pt 3 – Meaning).
| February 16, 2020
The State of Oscar. 021020. Oscar’s Climax (Pt 2 – The Show Review).
| February 11, 2020
The State of Oscar. 021020. Oscar’s Climax (Pt 1 – The Rundown).
| February 10, 2020
"My friend Alan Stern called my psychiatrist. At one in the morning he comes to my house, and we have this long conversation. My gun, a blue steel six-cylinder revolver, is on the table. He’s just about to call Cedars to have me committed. I’m trying to talk my way out of this. Finally, he sort of agrees with me that I’m not a threat to my own life at the moment. But he says, “I have to take the gun.” Well, time goes by—I get married, have children. It’s 30 years later and I’m in Los Angeles. I’m curious, so I go to his office. He’s now in his mid-80s. I say to him, “I don’t know if you remember, but you came to my house in the middle of the night. I had a gun and you took it from me.” He opens a drawer and puts the gun on the table. He says, “I’ve kept this gun ever since, because it reminds me of what I really do for a living.” I say, “I don’t suppose you would give it back?” He says, “Oh no, I wouldn’t.”
An Oral History Of American Gigolo, Which Is 40
February 20, 2020
| February 10, 2020
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
