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Saturday
Feb022019

Streaming Roulette, February: Ant-Man and the Edge of Velvet Buzzsaws

As is our practice we've selected two handfuls of titles of note and frozen the films at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up) for this quick preview.  Do any of these screencaps make you wanna watch the movie? At the bottom of the page full listings for Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and HBO this month. Okay, let's go...

Guess what? You're my favorite student.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016) on Netflix
Remember how good this Hailee Steinfeld high school comedy was?  She was nominated for a Golden Globe even! But why has Hayden Szeto, her love interest, not busted out yet as a star? He was great, too. Turns out (just looked it up) that he's got three movies coming out this year and will also be a guest star on the TV series adaptation of Taika Waititi's What We Do in the Shadows so there's still hope that people (or in this case Hollywood) will realize how fab he is. Yay!

A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringin'
We'll make you happy 🎵

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Feb022019

Sundance Closing Night: "Troop Zero"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

It’s almost always appealing to see two recent Oscar winners work together shortly after they take home their trophies. The notion of the last two Supporting Actress victors, Viola Davis and Allison Janney, teaming up is certainly enticing. Their Oscars were for playing very different types of mothers, and in Sundance’s closing night selection, they face off as competing scout leaders in a hilarious 1970s-set comedy about being who you are...

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Feb022019

22 days til Oscar - Walt Disney and his nearest rivals (?)

by Nathaniel R

Everyone presumably knows that Walt Disney (1901-1966), one of the 20th century's most influential titans, holds the records of most competitive Oscar wins. He amassed a total of 22 Oscars in his career which broke down like so:

  • 12 animated shorts
  • 6 live action shorts *
  • 2 documentary shorts
  • 2 documentary features

A few notes on these achievements and Disney's nearest rivals in these categories (and whether or not the ranks might change) after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Feb012019

Best Actor & Best Actress. Vote on the Trivia-Filled Charts

by Nathaniel R

Lead acting nominees ranked by how many Best Picture nominees they've starred in.

We continue to expand the Oscar charts so we're hope you're enjoying them. All four acting charts are now complete, with Best Actress and Best Actor both newly updated with lots of trivia, theories on how the actors were nominated and more. Just like how we did with Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor. Don't forget you can vote each day on who should win. But for the here and now, here's some trivia in relation to all four acting categories combined:

BY THE NUMBERS
64 = average gross (in millions) of their nominated movies (box office numbers via a couple of days ago)
52 = number of Oscar nominations between them
47 = the average age of this year's nominees 
33 = average number of films they've appeared in
18 = number of children they have among them
9 = number of Emmys won by this group (Close x 3, King x 3, McCarthy x 2, and Malek)
5 = number of Oscars won by this group (Ali, Bale, Rockwell, Stone, and Weisz)
3 = number of Tonys won by this group (Glenn Close only)
2.6 = average number of Best Picture nominees that they've each starred in*
2.4 = the average number of Oscar nominations (in acting) for this year's nominees
2 = number of the nominees married to other famous actors (Elliott & Weisz)
2 = number of nominees who have played Meryl Streep's immediate family on film (Olivia Colman was her daughter in Iron Lady, and Glenn Close her mother in Evening... albeit in flashbacks with Mamie Gummer as the young Meryl)

PERCENTAGES
35% of the nominated characters are LGBTQ people
35% of the nominees were born outside the US (Adams, Aparicio, Bale, Colman, de Tavira, Grant, Weisz)
35% have also been Emmy nominees (Ali, Close, Driver, Elliott, King, Malek, McCarthy)
35% have also been Emmy nominees (Ali, Close, Driver, Elliott, King, Malek, McCarthy)
30% of the nominees are Water signs (3 Scorpios, 2 Pisces, and 1 Cancer) 
25% are former Oscar winners
25% of the characters nominated are politicians of some sort, professionally or in practice
25% of the characters nominated are musicians or employed in the music industry
20% of the nominated actors have performed on Broadway (Close, Cooper, Stone, Weisz)
20% of the nominated characters are dying or dead by the credit scrawl of these pictures.
20% are former Emmy winners
10% are former Tony nominees (Close & Cooper)
0% of the actors nominated are LGBTQ ...
(but Lady Gaga is mother monster so maybe she counts a little?)

RANDOMNESS
There are no Geminis nominated! It's the only sign not nominated and as a Gemini, we object!

* Those figures are much higher than they used to be pre 2009 when the Best Picture field expanded. It used to be uncommon to have lots of Best Picture nominees on your resume which makes Willem Dafoe's record particularly impressive. He's appeared in the most Best Picture nominees of this group of 20 actors, SIX in total, and yet only one of them (The Grand Budapest Hotel) happened in the current expanded Best Picture era. 

Friday
Feb012019

January. It's a Wrap

Only one month of the film year left to go - haha. We all know the film year doesn't end until Oscar night, right? But we have technically begun another calendar year and we're already 1/12th done with it. We were reminded not by the calendar but by Murtada and Abe's Sundance coverage which is nearing completion. And the end of Sundance always means the end of January.

Herewith highlights we don't want you to have missed...

10 Reasons to Stream Support the Girls -Ilich's funny ode to this great indie
Say a Prayer for Serenity - Jason's must-read review of a future camp classic
Toni Collette: The Interview - Nathaniel talks to the great actor about her iconic performances and her feelings about grief and horror
Soundtracking: Best of 2018 - Chris surveys the best recent musical movie moments
Podcast Special - Murtada and Nathaniel answer reader questions
Mary Poppins vs Mary Poppins Returns - Lynn compares their ensemble of kooks
A Simple Favor's Design - Mark's ode to the very best of 2018's contemporary costuming
Ben Foster: The Interview - The Leave No Trace star is in a good life & career place
Months of Meryl: The Epilogue - Matt & John wrap up their year-long Streep series with a 10 best list
Film Bitch Visual Awards - the 12 most beautifully shot movies of the year, plus other eye candy

Most Discussed Articles

7th Annual Team Experience Awards - The Favourite wins big
Post Nomination Eulogies - odes to the Oscar-snubbed 
• Glenn Close Is Not Going To Be Ignored - Murtada on the actress's emotional Globe speech
Kevin Hart and a Crisis Of Oscar's Own Making - Nathaniel has words for The Academy (and Ellen)
Was 1993 the best "Best Supporting Actor" linup ever?- Ben looks back
12 Things we learned from the Oscar nomination - RT scores didn't matter, Alfonso Cuarón's precursor acceptances definitely did...

Hiccup is all grown up! COMING IN FEBRUARY
Oscar night obviously. But until then, a handful of new interviews with filmmakers and actors, the completion of the Film Bitch Awards as we wrap up the year in film coverage, favourite screen kisses, favourite acceptance speeches, the 25th anniversary of Reality Bites, the Berlinale, the return of the Supporting Actress Smackdown, and new releases like Birds of Passage, Alita Battle Angel, and How to Train Your Dragon 3

Any requests as we near Hollywood's High Holy Night?