'April Foolish' in May. Oscar Predix Prep Work

It's almost past time for the April Foolish Oscar Predi --  SIGH...

Okay, yes, kids. I'm behind. Before we get started on the April Foolish Oscar Predictions which have somehow migrated to May, I'd like your input a wee bit. Please peruse my list of films to watch out for in one to nineteen ways after the jump and let me know if I'm missing any you've heard about or are excited for. I don't want to post anything official if I'm stupidly forgetting a film somewhere.

Why do I say "one to nineteen" ways?

 Well that's how many feature film Oscar categories there are if you ignore, for the time being, the documentary and foreign film categories which have different rules and which we don't make year-in-advance predictions for. Technically there are 21 feature film specific categories (the 3 shorts categories make the Oscar 24)  but no film could be eligible in all of them since there are competing categories like Original and Adapted Screenplay. What's more, a film that could theoretically qualify for all three "special" feature prizes (Foreign Film / Animated / Documentary) like a Waltz With Bashir is never going to be nominated for all three and find itself eligible for acting prizes and craft categories. 

MUCH MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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12 Thoughts I Had... While Watching "Pocahontas" Again

In the effort to be more succinct each week in my best shot entry -- it's called 'Best Shot' not "Ginormous Review of Everything I Think About This Movie and My 25 Favorite Images" and I'm so guilty of muddying that water --  I'm going to try and relegate all extraneous feelings into an additional catch-all post. So herewith some more ravings about Pocahontas and its relation to the Disney oeuvre (particularly Frozen). 

They're presented in mostly random chronological order. Thoughts I jotted down while watching or feelings I was feeling. So many felt feelings.

• Confession: I almost never like Disney's Opening Songs. From The Little Mermaid's "Fathoms Below" through Frozen's weird chanting that sounds vaguely African though it's meant to be Norwegian, they're always B side filler, meant only to prep you for all the show tunes headed your way. The lone exception is surely The Lion King's "Circle of Life" which is really an A+ opening scene every way you look at it. 

• Thomas is totally gay (and gay for John Smith). [More...]

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April Showers: Silkwood

The waterworks conclude with the month's last entry from abstew. And it's a doozy...

Although the most famous shower scene in the history of film may belong to Hitchcock's Psycho, no other cinematic shower has entered into pop culture, taking on a life of its own outside the film, in quite the same way as Silkwood. To take a Silkwood shower is even an entry in the urban dictionary (so you know it's legit.) But for something that has morphed into such an iconic cultural moment, it may be surprising to note that Meryl Streep only spends a little less than a minute in the film's entire two hour running time actually in the (invasive) cleansing waters. Despite its brevity, its emotional impact is palpable.

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Hot Docs '14: Actress

[Amir, our Canadian correspondent, is reporting from The Hot Docs Film Festival, the biggest documentary festival in North America currently underway in Toronto.] 

Where does an act end for a performer? What happens if the persona seeps in so deep that the performer can never shake it off? Can an actress adopt the traits of the characters she once embodied so deeply that she permanently remains in their skin? How far can passion for the craft take an artist? These are all questions that Robert Greene’s intelligent, artfully constructed documentary, Actress, poses to the audience in the first few minutes.  

The subject, Brandy Burre, played the part of Theresa D’Agostino, a recurring character over a 15-episode arc in the third and fourth seasons of The Wire. She was never a star, but her future seemed bright, having taken a prominent role in one of television’s best reviewed series...

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Tribeca Is a Wrap for The Film Experience

Thanks for following along with our Tribeca adventures and remember to follow Glenn, Diana, Jason, Abstew and myself on twitter for continual movie madness. Here are the 40 films we reviewed this year in alpha order...

a still from Der Samurai

5 to 7 (Diana)
About Alex (Glenn)
Alex in Venice (Glenn)
The Bachelor Weekend -Irish comedy (Nathaniel)
Bad Hair -Venezuelan childhood drama (Nathaniel)
Beneath the Harvest Sky (Glenn)
Boulevard -with Robin Williams (Nathaniel)
Bright Days Ahead (Abstew)
The Canal -horror (Jason)
Chef -starry indie from Jon Favreau (Abstew)
Dior and I (Glenn)
Electric Slide -hipster 80s crime drama (Nathaniel)
Every Secret Thing -mystery with Dakota Fanning (Nathaniel)

Extraterrestrial - horror (Jason)
Gabriel - with Rory Culkin (Abstew)
Glass Chin - with Corey Stoll (Diana)
Goodbye To All That (Diana)
In Your Eyes - Joss Whedon online film (Jason)
Indigenous -horror (Jason)
Just Before I Go -Courteney Cox directing (Glenn)
Life Partners (Jason)
Loitering With Intent -starry indie (Nathaniel)
Lucky Them (Abstew)
Mala Mala -drag documentary (Glenn)
Match - with Patrick Stewart (Nathaniel)
Ne Me Quitte Pas (Diana)
Night Moves -from Kelly Reichardt (Glenn)

Jack O'Connell (300: Rise of an Empire, Starred Up, Unbroken) is the next big thing Now: In the Wings of the World Stage -Kevin Spacey & Shakespeare (Abstew)
The One I Love (Glenn)
Preservation (Jason)
Der Samurai -queer horror (Nathaniel)
Something Must Break (Jason)
Starred Up -prison drama (Abstew)
Summer of Blood -hipster horror (Jason)
Third Person (Diana)
Vara: A Blessing -foreign melodrama (Nathaniel)
Venus in Fur -Roman Polanski's adaptation (Glenn)
X/Y (Glenn)
Zero Motivation -Israeli military comedy (Diana) 
Zombeavers -horror (Diana) 

previously in festival coverage:
forty-two films from Sundance
next:  Amir @ Hot Docs / Diana @ Cannes