What's next for the recently Oscar-nominated: Pt 1 - Writer/Directors

With the 95th Academy Awards wrapped, it's time to look to the future. Herewith a quick little series about what's in store for the recently nominated. Let's start with the writer/directors.

EDWARD BERGER
The 52 year old director behind Germany's latest Oscar winner, All Quiet on the Western Front, was surely thisclose to snagging an Oscar nomination for his directing (given how well the film did across the board) but he had to make due with sharing a writing nomination. His credits to date have largely been on German television but he'd already made inroads into Hollywood prior to the World War I Oscar magnet, directing episodes of two Showtime series, Your Honor and Patrick Melrose.

Let's just say he's very busy. He's already shot a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (as a miniseries) starring Benedict Cumbatch. Around the time of the Oscar nomination he was also shooting a religious thriller Conclave...

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Drag Race RuCap: “Wigloose: The Rusical!”

CLÁUDIO ALVES: Praise be the 90-minute episode, the Rusical team, the queens of season 15, and the politically prescient writers who saw the current anti-drag policies coming a year in advance. Praise be to everyone! “Wigloose” is the episode of the year so far, which is saying something when you consider the utter mediocrity of its LSFYL. Then again, nobody should’ve had to fight for their lives this week. Even more than in the original “Daytona Winds,” the queens delivered excellence across the board. Sure, some did better than others, and the runway could break ties, but the talent is so evident it’s hard to keep euphoria at bay. And yet, after last year’s non-elimination-palooza, I can see why the producers and Ru herself might want to keep things tight. I’m sad, but I get it. 

NICK TAYLOR: Praise be to the singers who actually interpreted all of those songs, too. I think the sheer brilliance of last week’s tooth-and-nail LSFYL and the performances in this week’s Rusical should (and, in a prior season, absolutely would) have prevented anyone from going home. Lord knows Marcia probably would’ve won this episode. Heaven Bacon was tailor-made for her...

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Quick Takes on Threequels: Ant-Man & Magic Mike

by Nathaniel R

Paul Rudd vs Jonathan Majors in "Quantumania"

Forever behind, always catching up. Herewith two spontaneous reviews of threequels that came out during Oscar madness that we never got around to talking about (as they weren't related to that all-consuming golden season): Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Steven Soderbergh's trilogy-closing Magic Mike's Last Dance...

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What's on your cinematic mind?

It's that post-Oscar lull. Are you even thinking about movies or catching up with tv or... reading a book (gasp)? The final few weeks of Oscar madness always have us losing track of what's in cinemas so we'll try to catch up this week. 

'Babette's Feast' next Thursday!

Thank you for voting in the readers poll about what movie we should talk about next week (Thursday March 23rd). So please watch Babette's Feast (1987) before that day. It's only 102 minutes long which used to be a normal movie length but now will feel like a short film! The Oscar-winning foodie classic is currently streaming on both HBOMax and Criterion and is also available to rent on most platforms if you don't have those services.

Somehow I've never seen it despite being a) really into Scandinavian things b) obsessed with the Best International Feature Film category and c) fascinated that Denmark has become Hollywood's "favourite" country other than Germany in the past two decades (if this keeps up those two countries will be to the 21st century what Italy/France were to the Oscars of the 20th century)