Review: Erivo and Grande can’t save "Wicked: For Good"

by Cláudio Alves

Months before it arrived on Broadway, when it first opened for previews in San Francisco, Wicked was already being criticized for an act-two problem. Some finagling was made on the trip to the East Coast, yet the show that premiered at the Gershwin in October 2003 suffered from many of the same structural issues. They didn't stop it from becoming a commercial success or a cultural phenomenon, but still. Two decades later, the revisionist tale of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good was announced as being split into two movies, alarming those who were familiar with the show and its problems. Financial incentives aside, the decision allowed the first act to soar higher than it would were it still chained to an unsatisfying conclusion, but it left the second part unmoored. Bloating the runtime to double what it is on stage and transmuting a 15-minute act break into a year-long wait didn't help either.

This is not to say that Wicked: For Good was fated to fail, simply that it faced bigger obstacles to success than its predecessor. Sadly, Jon M. Chu and company weren't up to the challenge, no matter how hard the dream team of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande tried...

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Oscar Volley: Best Director is an embarrassment of riches

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Cláudio Alves Eric Blume to discuss the Best Director race...

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, Paul Thomas Anderson | © Warner Bros.

CLÁUDIO: This early in the season, every race is somewhat volatile, prone to radical changes down the road to Oscar. However, I think that Best Director feels especially mercurial as far as nominations are concerned, though not for a lack of contenders - quite the opposite! Voters are spoiled for choice from a roster of strong candidates, all with mighty campaigns behind them, sterling reviews and eye-catching narratives. So much so that only PTA feels secure in his nomination bid, all but locked for the honor unless AMPAS pulls a 2012 on us.

Personally, I can't complain, even if he has been way more worthy of these plaudits in the past and should have already won a couple of Oscars - There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread come to mind. Of course, One Battle After Another is excellent, not some mediocrity destined to win apologies in the form of unwarranted trophies. The "River of Hills" chase sequence alone will surely be played in all tributes to PTA's career in a couple of decades. And yet, my mind can't help but wander to The Departed when pondering OBAA at the Oscars...

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Oscar Volley: Can the world's biggest movie star win the Best Actor race? Surely not!

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Eric Blume and Nathaniel Rogers to discuss the Best Actor race...

Leonardo DiCaprio in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER | © Warner Bros.

ERIC: Nathaniel, I feel so lucky getting you all to myself to discuss this year's Best Actor race. There are probably several candidates we have yet to see this season, but let's dive in.  

It seems to me that the one actor most guaranteed a nomination also has zero chance of actually winning: Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another. The film will have a big nomination haul, and because his performance seems to be universally beloved (as opposed to his work in Killers of the Flower Moon, where he was may be objectively bad?), I think he's in. But there's no way he's winning. Too many other candidates with overdue narratives or even flashier parts…

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Gotham Awards Revue: The Breakthrough Performer Category

by Nick Taylor

Sebiye Behtiyar in Bing Liu's PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT LIFE | © Amazon MGM Studios

First, I’m bummed I wasn’t able to see Preparation for the Next Life before this article was published. Hopefully the film and Sebiye Behtiyar’s performance will raise my baseline appreciation of the Gotham Awards’ choices even further. I also have no idea if anyone notably missed out, what with the Gotham’s broad eligibility requirements and my lack of awareness about this year’s major debuts. Miles Caton in Sinners, Cary Christopher in Weapons, and... I don’t know! With these caveats in mind, I still say they’ve kicked off the year with a solid Breakthrough Actor category.

All four of these performers help to serve and strengthen their films, and I look forward to seeing them again on the silver screen...

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Nathaniel's Long Oscar Silence Ended. New Charts!

by Nathaniel R

Remember when Steven Soderbergh retired and then started making movies at quite a clip just a couple of years later? I will probably not be doing that with writing *cries*. Nevertheless I am hoping that my 'semi-retirement' proves a bit more like La Pfeiffer's or other actresses of a certain age wherein I stick a toe back in -- sometimes a whole foot or leg -- whenever I miss it. Lately after a few highly enjoyable screenings / events, wherein I marvelled that I was still invited,  I realized with deep embarassment that the Oscar charts had not been updated since the summer.  So now all the charts are updated, each and every one. Take a look.

As you can see I am confident that One Battle After Another, Hamnet, and Marty Supreme are the three behemoths in the upcoming race. I wish I wasn't predicting them to all hit double-digit nominations ("Spread the wealth!" being my eternal ignored command!)  but I try to be 85% realistic in my predictions and that's how Oscar voters do...

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