Prime in December: Mrs Maisel, Hereditary, and All the President's Men

Time to play Streaming Roulette. Each month, to survey new streaming titles we freeze frame the films at random places. Whatever comes up first, that's what we share -- no cheating.  What does Amazon Prime offer us this month? Let's survey...

[Librarian voice on line] Mr Bernstein, I was wrong. The truth is I don't have a card that says Mr Hunt took any material. I don't remember getting -- I do remember getting material from someone but it wasn't Mr. Hunt. The truth is I didn't have any requests at all from Mr. Hunt. The truth is I don't know any Mr. Hunt. [CLICK]

All the President's Men (1976)
Winner of four Oscars including Best Screenplay for William Goldman (who we were just discussing). The best picture line up of 1976 is so delicious, isn't it? All the Presiden't Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Rocky, Taxi Driver. I mean most Best Picture lineups wish! 

-Moldy mildew mother of mouth-muck, dangle and strangle to death!
-Oh how rude!

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"Shoplifters" wins the APSA. On its way to an Oscar nod?

by Nathaniel R

Hello awards-enthusiasts! Since Glenn Dunks is returning to his Doc Corner series later today after his annual duties at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, we realized we'd forgotten to list the winners and it's quite a good batch. Big prizes went to three currently buzzy foreign film Oscar hopefuls: Shoplifters (Japan), Burning (South Korea) and Capernaum (Lebanon). The first two are in theaters now in the US right now and Capernaum opens on December 14th. They're all terrific films and have to be considered very real threats for Oscar nominations. But it's true that that particular category is super competitive so virtually any high profile title might miss the shortlist. [Before we hear who nabbed the 5 nominations on January 22nd, the Academy will narrow that huge 87 film list down to just 9 contenders on December 17th.]

The list of APSA winners along with a few acceptance speeches after the jump...

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"Incredibles 2" Earns its Title with 11 Annie Nominations

by Nathaniel R

The Annie Award nominations have been released with Disney totally and utterly dominant: Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet lead with 11 and 10 nominations respectively and even when the prizes don't involve animated films (such as with animated effects or animation work in live-action features) the nominations still lean heavily toward a Disney majority.

But all is not lost for non-Disney contenders hoping to win something at the Annies or to score one of those five coveted Animated Feature nomination at the Oscars. Into the Spider-Verse, Isle of Dogs, and Early Man have to be taken seriously as Oscar threats and though foreign animated productions never fare all that well at the very American-centric Annie Awards, Oscar is a different story and both Japan's Mirai and Hungary's Ruben Brandt Collector, scored two nominations with the animation guild. They were already looking like the two most likely foreign players to spoil the Oscar dreams of some big studio CG effort and this confirms it. The complete list of nominees is after the jump along with a few comments...

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It's the most wonderful time of the year... 'Top Ten List' time

by Nathaniel R

I've been gleefully reading top ten lists for as long as I've loved movies. The first I waited for impatiently was in the Detroit Free Press in the 1980s and decades later I still love the impulse to live best movies, no matter how many people occassionally play contrarian to dismiss them as irrelevant and reductive. Top ten lists are definitely the latter but they're hardly the former, since what people value tells us so much about them and the idiosyncracies of individual top ten lists as well as occassional consensus across them are are especially beautiful if you love the magic that happens between any artform and its audience.

That said they'll make you crazy as often as they delight you. After the jump three early top ten lists worth discussing...

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Beauty vs Beast: Saoirse and Her Sisters

Jason from MNPP here with another round of "Beauty vs Beast" for you people. This weekend Mary Queen of Scots hits theaters and I'm sure you'll hear more about it here being, you know, a movie starring two impressive young actresses being impressive once again - one of those actresses, the one called Saoirse, well she's spent 11 straight years now impressing us, and today we're looking back at the place that started, i.e. with Joe Wright's Atonement. Saoirse should face down female relatives more often - her "cousin" Queen Elizabeth, her mother Laurie Metcalf, her sister Keira Knightley... it works out well for her.

web survey

PREVIOUSLY We tackled the parental figures of Moonlight last week (they could both use a good tackling, honestly) and y'all clearly thought the Oscars got it right, giving Mahershala Ali almost 70% of you vote. Said AlexD:

"Performance wise they're hand in hand for me. Both superb, both brilliantly adding depth and emotion to their characters. Ali shines all the dark and less flattering qualities of a character with whom we mostly sympathize on screen, while Harris humanizes a character with whom we don't (on screen)."