Best Supporting Actor - First Predictions!

by Nathaniel R

Willem Dafoe in "Poor Things" from Searchlight Pictures

Will Robert Downey Jr's scenery chewing in Oppenheimer, John Magaro's stealth beautiful support in Past Lives, and Ryan Gosling's giddy winking joy be "Kenough" several months from now when the Oscar nominations are announced? That's the pressing question at the moment when it comes to the Best Supporting Actor race. They're surely the top violable contenders from the first seven months of the year, give a pair from Air. But can you choose between the foul mouth charisma of Chris Messina and the hesitant gamber cool of Ben Affleck? 

We frame the Best Supporting Actor race this way because who knows what the rest of year might hold in terms of releases...

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Beyond "Oppenheimer": An Alternative Watchlist

by Cláudio Alves

HANAGATAMI (2017) Nobuhiko Obayashi

On August 6th, 1945, the atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, hit the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9th, a second device, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki. Between those immediately killed in the American attack and the thousands who would perish in the subsequent months, 129,000-226,000 lives were lost, most civilian. Japan had been effectively defeated before the nuclear assault, but the nation's surrender to Allied Forces came on August 15th. According to historians over the decades and high-ranking military of the time, the US needn't have perpetrated such horrors.

And yet, for some, the idea of the bombings as a necessary evil persists. Considering this, one shouldn't be shocked that some viewers came out of Christopher Nolan's latest, grumbling it hadn't done enough to question the narrative. A common complaint is that Oppenheimer doesn't show the effects of the bombings, looking away like its titular character when confronted by such images. But would those images have fit the picture's intentions? Isn't the inability to consider consequences beyond abstraction one of the narrative's central tenets? 

As one marks these days of remembrance, it may be more productive to look beyond Oppenheimer and consider Japan's perspective. Perhaps, it's not that Nolan pulled his punches, but that they weren't his to throw…

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Woof! It's another 'First & Last' game.

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot? 

The answer once you scroll down is after the jump...

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Weekend Box Office

by Nathaniel R

What did you see this past weekend? Among the new options were the Sundance hits Shortcomings an Asian American drama and the bisexual drama Passages starring Ben Whishaw, Adele Exarchopolous and Franz Rogowski. In wide release the new titles were action movies like Meg 2 and the latest reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. But Barbie still reigns...

Weekend Box Office Aug 4-6 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (Over 600 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
BARBIE	SHORTCOMINGS
1 ★ BARBIE $53 (cum. $459.3) 4,178 screens	1 🔺 THEATER CAMP (US, comedy) $602k (cum. $2.4) 555 screens
2 🔺 MEG 2 THE TRENCH  $30 *NEW* 3503 screens	2 🔺 SHORTCOMINGS (US, comedy) $300k *NEW* 404 screens

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First & Last 027

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?

The answer (once you scroll down) is after the jump...

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