December 11, 2019
December 11, 2019
And now, ladies and gentlemen, The SAG Nominations. This award season is a corkscrew. Maybe it’s because of the relative brevity. The timetable, except for Oscar, isn’t all that different. Yet, it feels more compact and each group voting for awards seems less influenced by the others. On the other hand, the shape of the […]
December 10, 2019
Around a month after the launches of Disney+ and AppleTV+, the complexity of change continues to rear its ugly head all over Hollywood. Don’t misread me… there have been very few days, weeks or months in my experience of the industry known as Hollywood that are not in a state of endless hysteria about the […]
December 10, 2019
When we finally got to shoot it, the year 2000 was ten years away, but it was still fun to project ourselves into the future of the audiovisual revolution that had just started,” Wenders observes on the Criterion edition. “The word digital was still only known to some technofreaks. Nobody had any idea that everything was going to be digital: images, text, our whole lives.”
December 8, 2019
This is what is so tricky about this business of writing about the status of awards races, all of which lead to Oscar, which is ultimately the only thing that truly matters. I promise, no one whose intro graph includes “Golden Globe Winner” would not prefer it say “Oscar Winner.” Not one. Not even a little.
December 8, 2019
Okay, once and former Hot Bloggers… here is space for you to communicate amongst yourselves. We are working on a permanent space for this. If you have any subjects you want set up, let me or Ray know. Have a good time!
December 2, 2019
in this shortened season (that should always be this short… it is the right place for The Academy to go, even if they find it inconvenient and uncomfortable) and as many as 10 nominees, there is a lot of room for jostling of candidates just based on how the movies settle in over the next month. Movies and work that seem to be just on the edge could become frontrunners. And frontrunners could fall back farther than we would now imagine.
November 28, 2019
2019 has been one of the toughest years in my life. But in the end, the simple facts are, I am pretty healthy, I have a wonderful family, and with the support of a lot of people, I am able to return to the work I have done for most of the last 22 years […]
November 27, 2019
The original Movie City News launched in October 2002. The philosophical core was about curating the best of the news and to add our own take to all of it as well. A lot has changed since then. There were no blogs. The trades were dailies, printed five days a week. The film industry was […]
November 25, 2019
I love Greta Gerwig.
Not romantically. Not sexually. Not in any way outside of knowing her a little, having felt her energy for a few hours over a few years in my life, and seeing her work.
November 24, 2019
Coming out of the likely Best Picture winner this year, 1917, I wondered to myself why I found it so powerful. Not the cinematography, masterful as it was (Deakins likely to win his 2nd). Not the rousing nature of the piece, as it actually isn’t the kind of movie that wants to give you any […]
November 23, 2019
I’m getting back into this habit… but a little uninspired so far. Frozen 2 opened in the same slot as Frozen, although the first time around, it opened on a single screen. This time, it started wide, as has become the norm. The $41 million Friday is great, although it is dwarfed by the The […]
November 23, 2019
I like Mark Harris. I respect Mark Harris. I care what Mark Harris thinks. Unfortunately, Mark Harris has become one of the media’s most aggressive spokeshammers for the “everything is a nail” coalition. I read his most recent Vanity Fair piece, “Conventional Oscar Wisdom Has an Almost All-White Best-Actress Lineup—For No Reason” with real curiosity. […]
November 23, 2019
If you believe the theatrical film business is in serious trouble, the Trump Administration may have created a key opportunity for the paranoid fears of so many to come true. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim announced in a speech to the American Bar Association’s 2019 Antitrust Fall Forum that Trump’s Justice Department was prepared to […]
November 21, 2019
Frozen is a mess. Oh, wait, you are trying to read a Frozen 2 review. But I feel compelled to go back to the massively successful, beloved original. What made Frozen work? Because what was cobbled together was, as noted before, a mess. (spoilers for Frozen, not Frozen 2) The film starts with little Anna […]
November 13, 2019
So, tomorrow is arrival day for AppleTV+. And Apple is doing everything right… except for delivering on content. “The Morning Show” has been the stalking horse, with TV superstar Jennifer Aniston, Oscar-winning movie star Reese Witherspoon, and the well-loved crossover star, Steve Carell. And they should have thrown away the first two episodes and started from […]
November 13, 2019
There are many wonderful things in Marriage Story. The acting is excellent. It is the best photographed film in Noah Baumbach directorial filmography. There are great lines. Baumbach shows a mastery of verbal runs, both in dialogue and monologue. But after seeing it twice and pushing away some of its problems – which may be my […]
November 13, 2019
It’s not a new phenomenon, but the last few years of self-righteous (and simply righteous) indignation over everything have brought a new kind of film criticism to the table. In some ways, it is as old as the hills. Many critics take an approach to film that looks down the nose at the audience and […]
"The debate surrounding these commercials on all sides was distracting from the purpose of our network, which is to provide entertainment value."
"The call to our office gave us the opportunity to also confirm the Hallmark Channel will continue to be a safe and family friendly network. Praise the Lord!"
Hallmark Statement on Pulling Ads With Same-Sex Wedding Kiss
| December 14, 2019
“I am reeling from the brutal loss of Scott, his passion and humor and irascible clarity. I will see aspects of the world through his eyes, always.”
"The moral equivalent of a book-burning."
Writer And Cultural Critic Scott Timberg Was 50
| December 14, 2019
| December 13, 2019
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
