We can now report that Linklater’s appeal was a successful one. His “Apollo 10 ½”, a rotoscope wonder released in the April, and better than almost any animated movie released in 2022, will finally be eligible for the Animation Oscar. Let’s call a spade a spade, It was originally a ridiculous move by the branch, and probably due to potential lobbying from big studios like Disney. This ineligibility sounds even more preposterous when you take into consideration that Linklater’s “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly” had no such problems getting into the animation Oscar race back in the aughts....

The film barely made $10 million at the U.S. box office and ended its run with $27 million globally. All of this on a budget of $100 million. Why was the film such a bomb? Scott shared his resentment towards millennials and cellphones during a recent interview on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast: “I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones,” Scott said....

The 85-year-old Scott is (or will be) in the Moroccan city of Ouarzazate, known as the “Moroccan Hollywood.” Moroccan news outlet le360 reported that Gladiator 2’s executive production team is currently in negotiations with Ouarzazate’s Atlas Studios. When this project was announced in 2018 it read like one of those kooky satirical writeups from The Onion, but it wasn’t fake news. The Oscar-winning director is indeed moving forward on a followup to his 2001 Best Picture winner....

Many classics were made under the patronage of Robert Evans over at Paramount. The list of great movies is endless: The Godfather, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, Harold and Maude, The Conversation, Serpico, etc. Evans didn’t just take part in the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s, he helped invent it According to Evans, and this has been disputed by some, including Coppola, it was he who persuaded Coppola to make The Godfather 30 minutes longer after a poor first cut was test-screened....

Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” was almost completely snubbed by the Screen Actors Guild today. The film didn’t receive a Best Ensemble nomination and Rachel Zegler didn’t make Best Actress. The only nomination was for Ariana DeBose in Best Supporting Actress. Spielberg’s movie might be in trouble. Kristin Stewart as Princess Diana in “Spencer” was also snubbed, replaced by Jennifer Hudson for “Respect.” We can now safely state that K-Stew is not the Oscar frontrunner....

I’m still not quite sure if AMPAS voters will be won over by Polley’s “Women Talking.” Of all the major contenders that pundits keep mentioning this awards season, it’s this film, I suspect, that might miss the cut as far as Best Picture goes. I refuse to believe “Women Talking” is a “lock” for BP. As far as I can tell the actual near-locks are “The Fabelmans,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” and “TÁR....

Not many filmmakers can lay the claim of changing the medium, he was one of the few exceptions. A film like “Breathless” changed the way stories could be told, expanding narratives and influencing many generations to come. The Guardian has a lovely piece today where they interview directors on what Jean-Luc Godard meant to them. Here’s an excerpt from Martin Scorsese’s eloquent thoughts: Yes, Scorsese loved Godard’s films, but did Godard love Scorsese’s films?...

The kitschy dreaminess of the film, not to mention the uber-bizarre CGI, has had many viewers of the film stating that they decided to see “Cats” under the influence of drugs, such as marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD, and loved every second of it. This according to a Washington Post report which has a handful of “reviews” from those interviewed after watching “Cats” while on drugs. Indeed, “Cats” as a sober experience seems to be a movie that is very hard to follow because, well, there really is no plot....

I wrote on 06.15.22: Every 10 years, starting in 1952, Sight & Sound has reached out to filmmakers, academics, and critics all over the world to try to determine the current consensus on the greatest films ever made. Their 2012 poll is most definitely a blueprint that every cinephile should start with. A popular question of late has been: “When are the 2022 results going to get published?” It turns out that the poll’s results will be unveiled in print and online this coming November....

I always go back to this quote from Alan Moore about comic book movies: “To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children’s characters at their mid-20th-century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence,” he wrote to Ó Méalóid. “It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in, have instead reasoned that they might at least be able to comprehend the sprawling, meaningless, but at-least-still-finite ‘universes’ presented by DC or Marvel Comics....

In-person screenings will be held in Park City. As always, films will premiere in the opening half of the Festival, which next year will be held from Thursday, January 20, through Tuesday, January 25, 2022, with additional screenings to follow through the end of the Festival. Online premieres will follow the in-person premieres, using the custom-built online platform that was home to last year’s festival. Basically, six days of world premieres....

The 2022 edition of SXSW, which will happen March 11-20, includes 99 features including 76 World Premieres, 4 International Premieres, 4 North American Premieres, and 2 U.S. Premieres. Highlights of this latest edition of SXSW: A24 has three films: “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies” directed by Halina Reijn, “X” directed by Ti West and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” directed by Daniels “The Lost City” directed by Adam and Aaron Nee starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and a cameo by Brad Pitt “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” directed by Tom Gormican starring Nicolas Cage “Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood” directed by Richard Linklater “Spin Me Round” directed by Jeff Baena starring Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie “More Than Robots” directed by Gillian Jacob “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West Contribute Hire me...

Compared to last year’s telecast, the ratings were down by 20% (6 million viewers). The previous record-low for the awards telecast was 2018, when “Moonlight” took home the Best Picture award, that ceremony earned 26.5 million viewers. It is not surprising that Awards shows, in general, have been seeing rating declines for years now. The general disinterest towards the elite self-congratulating each other seems to run contrary to the current political climate, which doesn’t hold celebrities and, more specifically, the rich in much high-esteem, especially if they decide to delve into the political during their acceptance speeches, which is something we saw a lot of last night....

A record low of 9.85 million viewers watched the 2021 Oscars. That’s a steep 58% decline from last year’s record-low ratings. Disney-ABC have a contractual agreement with the Academy to broadcast the Oscars until 2028. Ratings must stay above sea-level. At the moment, they are entering near-catastrophic below sea-levels. Back in 2018, Variety had reported that just a few days after the 90th Academy Awards telecast had aired, “Disney-ABC Television Group executives met with leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to convey a message” and face the inevitable and dire elephant in the room: The increasing irrelevance of the Academy....

This normalcy includes movie theaters, which are, supposedly, set to reopen in July with Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” the big kahuna blockbuster for Warner Bros. this summer, figuring very much part of the conversation. We all know that the WB would love to release the film in July, but the studio has remained silent on whether it will be delayed or not. There have been rumors that it will be pushed back a month, but no announcement has been made as of yet....

“The Irishman,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “Marriage Story,” “Parasite,” “1917,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Little Women,” “Joker,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “Bombshell.” Are we in the midst of living through OscarSoWhite 2.0? The only one of those movies to star non-white characters is Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” and acting nominations do not favor any non-white actors/actresses either. It’s definitely not impossible for a non-white actor to get a nomination this year — longshots include Jamie Foxx in “Just Mercy,” Awkwafina in “The Farewell” and Lupita Nyong’o in “Us,” other than that it looks as though it’ll be another rough year for African-American creatives at the Oscars....

Pietro Marcello’s “Martin Eden” will be in competition at Venice and was also selected to be part of the New York Film Festival, so if there is any movie that could break out of this lineup this year it’s that one. Ditto Frederico Veiroj’s “The Moneychangers” which has come out of nowhere to now become an NYFF and TIFF selection. Anne at 13,000 ft Kazik Radwanski | Canada/USAMartin Eden Pietro Marcello | Italy/FranceThe Moneychanger (Así Habló El Cambista) Federico Veiroj | Uruguay/Argentina/GermanyMy Zoe Julie Delpy | Germany/FranceProxima Alice Winocour | France/GermanyRocks Sarah Gavron | United KingdomThe Sleepwalkers (Los Sonámbulos) Paula Hernández | Argentina/UruguaySound of Metal Darius Marder | USAWet Season Anthony Chen | Singapore/Taiwan|Workforce (Mano De Obra) David Zonana | Mexico Contribute Hire me...

You don’t even have to be a cinema geek to name one or two casino robbery movies, but how about naming seven? That’s exactly what we want to do here, so buckle up as we are about to present you with the top seven movies about casino robberies. Casino Royale Is there a better way to open the list? The film even contains the word ‘casino’ and it features one of the greatest movie characters in history, James Bond....

Maybe we should just toss the rulebook out the window and count everything. That’s what I’m doing. Pandemic be damned. Cannes boss Thierry Fremaux said recently of this last miserable year in cinema, “2019 was a great year for films, but 2020 was the most disastrous year in the history of the cinema.” Agreed. But it’s not like 2021 has been any better … Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman)2) Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)aa3) First Cow (Kelly Reinhardt)3) Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Bill Ross IV;Turner Ross)4) Sound of Metal (Darius Marder) 5) The Truffle Hunters (Michael Dweck; Gregory Kershaw)6) The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)7) Bad Education (Cory Finley)8) Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)9) The Assistant (Kitty Green) 10) Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho) Contribute Hire me Advertise Donate Team Contact Privacy Policy

Venice boss Alberta Barbera is someone that doesn’t seem to be adhering to this program. After all, the Venice Film Festival decided to include the latest films from accused rapists Roman Polanski and Nate Parker into their lineups this year. Outrage, of course, ensued from journalists, mostly American, calling for Barbera’s head. An excellent example of this outrage towards Barbera can be found in a new piece titled “Completely Tone Deaf”: How Venice Became the F-You Film Festival” which was written by THR’s Scott Roxborough , Tatiana Siegel As you can imagine, writers Roxborough and Siegel are not very happy with Venice at the moment, mostly due to how “unwoke” the festival has become....