The Power of Reese Compels You in "Home Again"

Home Again is out on DVD and Blu-Ray. Here's Spencer Coile... 

Home Again is not a particularly good movie. The film debut of Nancy Meyers' daughter, Hallie Meyers-Shyer, follows Reese Witherspoon as she deals with motherhood, a recent separation... and the three young filmmakers she agrees to let stay with her for an extended period of time. Standard fare, right? And it is, despite that third curve. The writing is a little too on-the-nose, characters do not feel fully fleshed out, and the editing implies serious cuts were made. Still, though, it is hard not to be won over due heavily to Witherspoon herself... 

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Does Woody Harrelson spell trouble for Willem Dafoe?

by Nathaniel R

A police chief and a hotel manager, both overwhelmed and sympathetic and arguably the moral center of their movies.

It's been a long time since we had a double-nomination situation in Best Supporting Actor. The last time it happened was 26 years ago when Ben Kingsley and Harvey Keitel were nominated together for Bugsy (1991) - a curious event since Keitel was so much stronger in another Oscar nominated classic from that year. Given the rise of Woody Harrelson with that Screen Actor's Guild nomination and the overall assumed strength of Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri in the Best Picture race, it could well happen again. His co-star Sam Rockwell, already felt locked and loaded for the same movie in a (somewhat) larger part. 

But does this spell trouble for Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project? Consensus was beginning to form that Dafoe, who became famous in the mid 80s and has worked ever since, would easily walk away with the Oscar this year...

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Are Three Multiple-Win Actors Competing for the 5th Spot in "Best Actor"?

by Nathaniel R

They were 35, 37, and 32 when they won their first Osars

This Best Actor race has not been shaping up as we suspected two months ago when few imagined that fresher faces like 21 year old Timothée Chalamet, 28 year old first time leading man Daniel Kaluuya and 39 yr old but reads younger fringe dweller James Franco would be looking more secure for Best Actor spots than three of Oscar's all time favorite legendary leading men: Denzel Washington (2 wins), Tom Hanks (2 wins), and Daniel Day Lewis (3 wins). But that's what it feels like today after the SAG nominations have capped off a busy busy couple of weeks worth of pre-Oscar honors. 

But can it really be true that there's only one spot to claim between these three titans of Oscar hearts? Or are we reading the tea leaves wrong? Are voters ready to move on to fresher blood (two twentysomething in one Best Actor category would be quite something since that category far prefers mileage on a man) or will two or even three of the legends make it, tossing out one of the rising stars? What's your take on the situation? Though people have been calling Best Actor "weak" for months (perhaps for the lack of frontrunners... with Gary Oldman less of an inevitable winner than he at first seemed) it seems awfully competitive at the last minute.

UPDATED BEST ACTOR CHART

Rian Johnson: A Star Wars Story

By Salim Garami

What's good?

To many, this weekend is the imminent release of "oh my god, the new Star Wars movie". To me... it's also the imminent release of "the new Star Wars movie", I can't even pretend that's not the way I think of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I just also find it very exciting to look at as the new Rian Johnson movie, a filmmaker I've followed since the start and am incredibly happy to find in his successful and stable position. This especially considering that he's one of the few filmmakers who never established a production company of his own (Endgame Entertainment, who produced The Brothers Bloom and Looper, is the only company to produce more than one of his films). 

So if you'll join me, today I'd like to look back on his journey from the lo-fi shoe-string ingenuity that inhabited the beginnings of his filmmaking career to being handed the keys to one of the biggest film properties in the world.

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Soundtracking: "Magnolia"

With a new Paul Thomas Anderson film waiting in the wings, Chris looks at the music of Magnolia...

Rarely is a film and musician as inextricable from one another as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Aimee Mann. The singularity of her voice repeated throughout helps streamline Anderson’s massively expansive vision, like a tidy bow pulling together the film’s many untidy pieces. With the film’s religious themes and allegories, her omniscient voice makes Mann the film’s watchful angel, perhaps a messenger of God. She's as much as character as everyone else, if a far more enlightened one.

“One is the loneliest number...” and Anderson announces his ensemble as a collection of “ones”. The Harry Nilsson track is a smart choice, establishing that no matter their twisty associations to one another, each is essentially isolated. Having Mann cover the classic song marries the old and the new, sounding like something that’s lingered for an indeterminate time but still aches like a fresh bruise. A curse of the biblical variety destined to perpetuate and repeat itself...

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