Review: A Hidden Life

by Cláudio Alves

Though I'm an atheist, I've long been fascinated with stories of faith and spirituality. When it comes to cinema, this is especially true. It's difficult to not be drawn to Bergman's reveries about a cruel God, Dreyer's religious ardor or Bresson's catholic severity. They move and engage, they challenge and inspire, even when the viewer doesn't believe in the cosmic orders they take for granted. Terrence Malick is a good name to add to that list. After all, the Philosophy professor turned filmmaker has dedicated much of his career to the transmutation of the soul into film. He creates spiritual odysseys out of light and color, intuitive editing and ephemerous scripts, star-studded casts and beautiful cinematography.

His style is so specific it's become prone to parody and his self-important themes can feel alienating. A Hidden Life exemplifies all of this to the extreme and, in some ways, it seems to announce itself as the ultimate Terrence Malick project…

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Yes, No, Maybe So Top Gun: Maverick

by Murtada Elfadl

It’s been almost 34 years since Top Gun (1986) made Tom Cruise one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history. And now he’s back in Top Gun:Maverick. We don’t know if anyone was asking for this very belated sequel but it’s coming in 2020. Apparently this time he is the trainer, training a new batch of Top Gun fighter pilots and mentoring his friend’s son (Miles Teller). Yep Teller is playing the son of Anthony Edwards and we assume Meg Ryan. Will they make a cameo? 

Let’s give the trailer the Yes, No, Maybe So treatment...

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Academy Shortlists in Nine Categories

We HATE that the Oscars do this all at once. We like time to discuss and parse but here are the lists together which we will have to now wade through piecemeal and by the time we get to some of them they'll be old news *cries*. Now that this preliminary round is over the Academy members don't vote again until January 2nd-through 7th, 2020 when they turn in their nomination ballots.

See all the lists after the jump...

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Five critics groups today. Five different Best Picture winners!

In today’s roundup of five regional critics awards Jennifer Lopez and Willem Dafoe emerge as the big winners with 3 Supporting wins each for their arguably leading roles. But no film is dominant in Best Picture with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite, Marriage Story, 1917, and The Irishman all being cited.  

Check out the latest roundup after the jump...

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Horror Actressing: Lupita Nyong'o in "Us"

by Jason Adams

Most folks first reference the voice, the Batman-needs-a-lozenge croak that Adelaide's underworld doppelganger Red speaks with, when praising Lupita Nyong'o's dual performance in Jordan Peele's Us, and for good reason -- she put a lot of work into it, meeting with people who've suffered from the very real neurological condition called spasmodic dysphonia that's brought about by trauma, and that work memorably shows. I made the Batman joke but only because it's very nearly already as iconic a choice as that one -- go find somebody and talk like Red at them and see how movie-savvy people will get it; the percentage won't be low.

You'd also get a lot of mileage talking about Lupita's physicality in the roles...

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