Soundtracking: "Watchmen"

by Chris Feil

Ten years on and Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is remembered as a overly loyal misfire. But originally our hopes were sky high for this adaptation, a long-awaited superhero take for adults sourced from one of the most lauded tomes in graphic novel history. Maybe when it arrives this year, Damon Lindelof’s incoming HBO “continuation” series can satisfy our passion for Alan Moore’s original creation - however unlikely it is that is satisfies Moore himself.

Perhaps the single thing that set the film up for failure was the very one that made us think Snyder had pulled off the impossible: it’s stunning teaser trailer set to The Smashing Pumpkins’ “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”. It was one of the best teasers of an era when that still mattered, and we fans went crazy. But ultimately the song choice was writing checks musically that the film itself couldn’t cash...

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Nathaniel's Ballot: Best Actor / Supporting Actor

'It's not redundant to still be handing out awards after the Oscars as long as the awards themselves aren't the same!' This is what I tell myself as I wrap up the Film Bitch Awards two weeks later than is proper! There's just 3 categories to go now (so we'll be done by next weekend) before we can hold the world's fastest awards ceremony. It involves a behind-the-scenes slapping of gold, silver, and bronze visual designations onto three of the nominees in each category.

Today, we're talking about the men...

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Doc Corner: 'Leaving Neverland'

By Glenn Dunks

Please note this review discusses topics that will be upsetting to some readers.

How long is too long for a film like Leaving Neverland? Not long enough, it would seem. Don’t get me wrong – watching Dan Reed’s four-hour document of the physical and psychological abuses heaped onto two underage boys in the 1990s by the most famous man in the world, Michael Jackson, is rough-going. It’s sickening, it’s confronting, and its hard to sit through. It’s also compelling and I, for one, believe them. --  I figure I should get that out of the way right at the top.

Reed does something great with with this material, which could so easily have been sensationalized or turned into cheap, ghoulish true crime fodder. His approach is elegant, refined and simple and yet holds the weight that such a discussion deserves...

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Links: Lansbury, Midsommar, Olivier Awards, and "Shallow" at #1

We haven't done a link roundup in too long. Not all of these are "new" but they might be to you:

• Vanity Fair Edge of Tomorrow (2014) may finally get that sequel that's been hoped for by fans
• Billboard "Shallow" has gone to #1 following that Oscar performance by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. It had previously peaked at #5 on the Hot 100 and it's Gaga's first number one in 8 years!
• People former teen idol and current Riverdale co-star Luke Perry has died at 52
• AV Club Director Joe Wright and star Tom Hanks going back to World War II with a new film In the Garden of the Beasts...

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Belated César Winners List

Eeek! During Oscar madness we totally forgot about the Gallic Oscars cross the Ocean. How rude of us! For completism's sake here is the list of winners in case you also missed the news.

BEST PICTURE

• Memoir of War, dir: Emmanuel Finkiel
• The Trouble With You, dir: Pierre Salvadori
• The Sisters Brothers, dir: Jacques Audiard
• Sink or Swim, dir: Gilles Lellouche 
• Guy, dir: Alex  Lutz
• ★ Custody, dir: Xavier Legrand
• In Safe Hands, dir: Jeanne Henry

Custody's four wins reminds us that it's still so weird that France didn't push it as their Oscar prospect last season. The other big winner was Shéhérazade about young lovers on the mean streets of Marseille which was not nominated for best picture but won each of its three nominations. Sink or Swim, the nomination leader and dadbod comedy, which opened too late to be France's Oscar submission last year, only took home one prize. Supporting Actor...

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