Best International Film Reviews: Armenia, Canada and Paraguay

by Cláudio Alves

Submitting a documentary is a risky strategy in the Best International Film race. Since Waltz with Bashir in 2008, only four other non-fiction features have been able to score nominations in the category – Cambodia's The Missing Picture, North Macedonia's Honeyland, Romania's Collective, and Denmark's Flee. None of them won. Still, hope is everlasting, and one often finds that some of the year's most fascinating submissions happen to be documentaries. The same is true for our current season, with two titles going as far as incorporating animation, like Waltz with Bashir and Flee. Mayhap they can repeat their antecessors' success at getting nominated. It's unlikely but not impossible…

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RIP Angelo Badalamenti

“Today, no music.”

Those were the words of David Lynch this morning following the announcement that composer and lyricist—and Lynch’s longtime friend and collaborator across a variety of mediums—had died at age 85. The death of Angelo Badalamenti is another heartbreaking loss for those like myself for whom Twin Peaks is something like a religion. Coupled with the 2022 deaths of Julee Cruise, Al Strobel, Kenneth Walsh and Lenny Von Dohlen, it’s been a tough year...

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More Thoughts on "The White Lotus: Sicily"

SPOILER ALERT:  DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE VIEWED ALL SEVEN EPISODES.

by Eric Blume 

One of the things that separates The White Lotus from many other TV programs, which are usually divided amongst several writers and directors, is that the show has a very, very specific point-of-view.  Even though other great television series (Succession, Severance, etc.) have a unified tone and the individual episodes are kept in harmony by the showrunner, it’s a different thing to have the same person actually writing and directing every episode.  Mike White views the universe and views characters comically.  He sees the world as an outsider does, with an arched eye towards human behavior, and he sees people as funny and full of contradictions.  He also lends to White Lotus a truly gay sensibility, in terms of the way he frames his actors, the way he films male and female bodies, and the way his empathy shifts between characters in a roundelay of surprising reveals, each character granted grace notes, psychology, and humanity... 

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Weekend Box Office: The Waiting of Water

By Ben Miller

Remember a month ago when no film wanted to release ahead of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever?  The box office is on the second verse, same as the first with the anticipation of Avatar: The Way of Water debuting next weekend.  Wakanda was tops for the fifth straight week of putrid box office.  The weekend total was just $35.5 million, which is the second worst of the year after the last weekend in January!  Thank goodness we have the Na'vi to save the box office.  God forbid studios try to release counterprogramming.  Apparently, the National Association of Theater Owners agree but Hollywood isn't cooperating...

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 9th-11th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
VIOLENT NIGHT	THE WHALE
1 BLACK PANTHER WAKANDA FOREVER $11.2 (cum. $409.9)	1  🔺 SPOILER ALERT  $680k (cum. $782k) 783 screens
2 VIOLENT NIGHT $8.7 (cum. $26.7)	2 🔺 THE WHALE $360k *NEW* 6 screens

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White Lotus Season 2 - Mike White Sticks The Landing

By: Christopher James

Season two of HBO’s Emmy winning anthology series The White Lotus ended with a bang on Sunday night. This season brought a new cast of characters to the Sicily location of the White Lotus hotel chain, save for Jennifer Coolidge reprising her role as Tanya, a depressed heiress, from season one. Much like season one, the season begins with a dead body. This time discovered by the deliciously flighty Daphne, played by season MVP Meghann Fahy. While season one was a rumination on class, season two was more of an Aperol Spritz - it was a delectable piece of sexy fun dramatizing the ways sex is used for social and economic currency. The season finale wrapped up all of the storylines, including that mysterious death, in an episode packed with sex, intrigue and its own fair bit of filler. 

Major Spoilers Ahead. Don’t read further if you have not seen the final episode.

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