Almost There: Rita Moreno in "The Ritz"

by Cláudio Alves

She just turned 90, but Rita Moreno is on the top of her game. The 1961 Best Supporting Actress champion is back on the silver screen thanks to Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story. While not playing Anita this time around, Moreno still manages to steal the spotlight and deliver one of the movie's most impactful songs, the emotional high point of the entire production. As pundits argue over the nonagenarian's Oscar chances, it's a good time to look back at her filmography and consider the last time she was in the awards conversation. After the success of West Side Story, Moreno's most acclaimed movie role was probably that of Googie Gomez in the big-screen adaptation of The Ritz…

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Spirit Award Nominations!

by Nathaniel R

Zola leads the nominations with The Novice and The Lost Daughter in runners up position

Zola, A24's raucuous stripper roadtrip comedy led the 37th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards with 7 nominations. A24 also scored with  C'mon C'mon (3 nods) Red Rocket (2 nods) and The Humans (1 nod) putting them in the lead for distributors. Netflix was in second place with 9 citations, 4 of those for The Lost Daughter. The big surprise, though, was arguably the very strong showing by IFC Film's horror entry The Novice which received 5 nominations.

It wasn't all good news. Passing was given the short end of the stick yet again (why can't people see its brilliance?) and due to the vagaries of juried nominations there are always a few odd omissions to consider. Full list of nominations with commentary after the jump... If there's a link it goes to our review of that picture.

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Review: Netflix's all star comedy "Don't Look Up"

Netflix's latest release, "Don't Look Up" sees a cast of A-listers staring down the apocalypse.by Christopher James

Satire is a precise tool, not a blunt object.

Adam McKay has led a polarizing, yet successful career trying to tackle tough topics with a sardonic edge. In The Big Short, he broke apart the 2008 financial crisis with some degree of success through raucous and audacious storytelling techniques. Vice, which received many Oscar nominations, took the “more is more” cinematic devices to dine out on anger towards the right. While I found it smug, it makes sense why some nodded their heads and found some shred of insight in a film confirming their own biases. That begs the question: what do we do with our anger towards people and movements that we believe are leading to the destruction of our world? 

Don’t Look Up is a disaster movie that bills itself on being a prescient allegory for our inability to deal with climate control (aka the big comet heading to destroy us). McKay presumes the world, and all of us who inhabit it, are doomed and good riddance because everyone sucks. It’s a nihilistic movie with many ill formed targets...

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Best International Film: Belgium, Kosovo, Russia

by Cláudio Alves

Our odyssey through the Best International Film submissions continues, this time focused on women behind the camera. As Juan Carlos' series Through Her Lens reminds us, there's a wealth of women directors every year whose work gets forgotten in lieu of their male counterparts. Of course, that's true in the Best Director Oscar race, but it also applies to every other category, including this one. From schoolyard bullying shot as psychological warfare to the physical aftermaths of an unspoken massacre, the submissions from Belgium, Kosovo, and Russia showcase the talent of female artists who explore many shades of brutality through a woman's point-of-view…

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"Belfast" and "West Side Story" lead the 27th annual Critics Choice nominations

by Nathaniel R

It's not a spread the wealth year (sigh). Belfast and West Side Story led the 27th annual Critics Choice nominations with a potent 11 nominations each. Dune and The Power of the Dog were close behind with 10 nods each. With four films in the double-digits, chances are we're not heading into a spread-the-wealth kind of year as all roads lead in to the Oscar nominations (still a month and a half way on February 8th). That's sad for us given the wealth of options out there but it is what it is.

Full list of nominees with commentary after the jump...

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