[Drum Roll] It's the Film Bitch Awards Medals Ceremony

It's the most painfully drawn-out nomination process followed by the swiftest awards ceremony of all. It involves your host Nathaniel slapping gold, silver, and bronze medals on the winners in the Film Bitch Awards chart! A Star is Born (10), The Favourite (9), and BlacKkKlansman (8) which all made the top ten list here, led the total medals count. It may surprise you to hear that Lady Gaga (5 for A Star is Born) and Rachel Weisz (4 between The Favourite / Disobedience) won the most medals for an individual performer,  since we didn't actually nominate either of them in the traditional 4 acting categories! But we have lots of "special" categories to reflect how we really experience the movies.  

Awards Pg 1: Picture, Director, Screenplay, Animated Feature
Awards Pg 2: The Four Traditional Acting Categories
Awards Pg 3: Visuals 
Awards Pg 4: Sound and Music
Awards Pg 5: Additional Acting Categories
Awards Pg 6: 'Characters of the Year' Prizes
Awards Pg 7: Best Individual Scenes (AND TRIVIA ABOUT THE AWARDS) 

AND WITH THAT, MY FRIENDS, FOLLOWING THE OSCAR WRAP-UP, THE FILM YEAR IS COMPLETE. ON TO 2019, ALREADY IN PROGRESS! We're currently at two festivals (SXSW and San Luis Obispo) and of course we've been discussing Avengers and Captain Marvel  and gems currently in theaters like Ash is Purest White, Transit, and more.

Aidy Bryant in "Shrill"

By Spencer Coile 

Aidy Bryant has been stealing scenes left and right for years now. From a brief stint on Girls, to a supporting role in The Big Sick, to her notable (and Emmy nominated) work on Saturday Night Live, Bryant has been diligently carving out a space for her voice to be heard. Fortunately for long-time fans, 2019 is the year where she has fully paid her dues and doesn't have to steal the scenes anymore since they're centered on her.  

Shrill, on Hulu today, is the adaptation of Lindy West’s memoir of the same name. Following timid journalist Annie (Bryant), the series explores what it means to be a plus-size woman living in a world that has excluded them from the cultural conversation...

Click to read more ...

SLO Film Fest: Franchot & Fascism

by Nathaniel R

Walter Huston a fascist American president in "Gabriel Over the White House"

Those of us who live in big cities with dozens of theaters and access to films from around the world sometimes forget the need for communities of dedicated cinephiles elsewhere. Likeminded cinephiles are easy to find online and share obscure movie-watching with but IRL outside the biggest cities you often need a regional film festival to find them. Community, and not just of cinephiles, is what film festivals thrive on. The best regional festivals find ways to incorporate local groups and artists of multiple kinds. SLO Fest does that with local filmmakers of course and also local musicians like the Malibu Coast Silent Film Orchestra. But sometimes local groups sponsor specific festival selections.

For instance we were completely puzzled at the inclusion of a 1933 movie we'd never heard of in a festival that mostly centers around new films, docs, and discoveries, so of course we scheduled it. We arrived to Gabriel Over the White House completely curious. We knew only that Franchot Tone was in it (you know about our Franchot Tone problem. Ahem) and that is usually enough. And here's where the regional community feeling comes in...

Click to read more ...

Interview: Jia Zhang-Ke on 'Ash Is Purest White' and his collaboration with Zhao Tao

by Murtada Elfadl

Fan Liao, Zhao and Jia at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival

Ash Is Purest White, opening tomorrow in select theaters, is Jia Zhang-Ke’s latest film. It has his trademark immersive, decades spanning storytelling. This time it is also a blend of gangster film, romance, and social critique. Again it starts his muse and collaborator Zhao Tao, this time playing Qiao, a quick-witted resourceful woman who falls into a decades long epic entalegment with her mobster boyfriend Bin (Fan Liao) within the jianghu (criminal underworld) of post-industrial Datong. We called it "bold, epic and fully detailed in equal measures" in our review. While in New York last October for NYFF, we got a chance to talk with Jia about his film. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Murtada Elfadl: What ideas did you want to push forward with this film?

Jia Zhang-Ke: This film spans from 2001 to 2018 and within these 17 years I wanted to examine how Chinese people are living in this particular historic context. For this particular film, even though it has the same thread of my previous films of examining the transformation of society and its impact on interpersonal relationships among characters, this time I focused on the principles and values that people either uphold or give up during societal transformation. I created these two characters who are moving in opposing directions. Bin was a drifter at the beginning, then he decided to join the mainstream culture which is very much about power, money and fame whereas the female character Qiao takes the opposite route so we can see how diametrically they have changed...

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: "Avengers: Endgame"

by Ben Miller

Few things in the world are as steady as Marvel movies.  Once every few months, one comes in and it is an EVENT. Avengers: Endgame is probably the most anticipated film sequel since The Matrix Reloaded in 2003, and though that didn't go well, it's safe to say that legions are excited again.  Marvel still being Marvel, they don’t want to give too much away so the trailers have been teaser-like.  The new one dropped today, so let’s do our patented Yes, No, Maybe So after the jump...

Click to read more ...