Best International Film Reviews: Final Flurry before the Shortlist

by Cláudio Alves

The Oscar shortlists are almost upon us, culling the 90-plus Best International Film submissions to a measly 15-wide field. Unfortunately, that means we're running out of time to consider those unfortunate titles unlikely to catch AMPAS' eye, no matter how deserving they may be. This includes productions perchance a bit too low-profile and others whose style skews too far from the Academy's sweet spot. Sometimes it's a matter of formalistic austerity. Sometimes, unresolved bleakness or genre stylings do the troubling trick. So, from an Iranian movie set to an Alpine tragedy, going through multiple wartime tragedies and the domestic sorrows of an Irish girl, let's indulge in a final flurry of capsule-sized reviews…

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St Louis, Dallas, Utah and more enter the multiverse of "All At Once"

by Nathaniel R

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE will need multiverses to contain all of its awards

Two non-location based groups, The Women's Film Critics Circle and The Online Association of Female Film Critics, have now named their "best of 2022". And fFive more regional critics groups have announced their winners with Dallas-Forth Worth, St Louis, Utah, Philadelphia, and Indiana chiming in. Ke Huy Quan and Everything Everywhere All At Once won at all of these organizations that have the traditional categories of Supporting Actor and Best Film. (Women's Film Critics Circle does not have traditional categories and instead focuses on depictions of women onscreen with She Said taking their top prize.) Complete lists of winners are after the jump...

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Sunday Short(s): A few films that we might see on the finalist list

by Nathaniel R

We've been meaning to launch a small but sweet "short" series for a long time. But alas, despite the tiny nature of the beast, we haven't. On December 21st, we'll hear which 30 eligible shorts Oscar voters favor across the Documentary, Animated and Live-Action flavors and we'll have a good excuse to dig in a bit more. With all golden categories back on the broadcast for the 95th Oscars (yay!) we should highlight the three miniature categories in someway!

Sadly, the Academy has gotten less transparent over the past handful of years. They no longer release their eligibility lists in the shorts categories. We are sometimes able to get approximations of the lists from various sources but it's not the same thing as having an "official" list. Nevertheless we believe the following five shorts are eligible and we've seen them so let's briefly discuss...

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Weekend Box Office: A $134 Million Disappointment?

By Ben Miller

Avatar: The Way of Water made most of the money from this weekend's box office.  James Cameron's follow-up to 2009's Avatar was the unsurprising winner of the weekend with $134 million.  Oddly, that number is far below expectations for a supremely expensive film, which is in the realm of $250 million.  That doesn't mean all is said and done for the film's commercial chances.  The rest of the box office only managed $18 million.  It's still realistic for The Way of Water to end up as the highest grossing film of the year not named Top Gun: Maverick.

It also helps that Way of Water is playing on more expensive IMAX and 3D screens.  The film is well-regarded by critics (78% on Rotten Tomatoes) and has an A Cinemascore.  If anything can have legs, it's probably this.

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 16th-18th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER	THE WHALE
1 🔺★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $134.1*NEW* 4202 screens	1  🔺  EMPIRE OF LIGHT $233k (cum. $460k) 436 screens

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Through Her Lens (Season Finale): The 83rd Oscars + 2010s RECAP

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Introduction / Explanation

After Kathryn Bigelow’s historic Director win at the previous Oscars for The Hurt Locker, the 2010 roster of nominees returned to the usual all-male lineup. The eventual five were pretty much unquestioned. David Fincher was the early frontrunner for Facebook drama The Social Network. Darren Aronofsky and David O. Russell received their first nominations in this category for the psychological horror Black Swan and the sports drama The Fighter, respectively. The inclusion of the Coen Brothers was considered a semi-surprise for the late-breaking Western True Grit. Ultimately, the winner was Tom Hooper for the Best Picture-winning historical drama The King’s Speech. 

Given that context, it is still a bit discouraging to see the return to normal especially with two female-directed films also up for Best Picture: Lisa Cholodenko’s dramedy The Kids are All Right and Debra Granik’s mystery drama Winter’s Bone. Both films received four nominations, though neither secured any wins. Women were also largely absent from the Best Director conversation. Out of the 248 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2010 (83rd Academy Awards), only 24 (9.7%) were directed/co-directed by women...

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