Gotham Nominees: Natalie Morales in "Language Lessons"

by Nick Taylor

Every year or two at the Gotham Awards, there’s a nominee in the Breakthrough Performance category whose storied career in film or television generates a few raised eyebrows. Yes, the category is clearly meant to honor film breakthroughs, and this shouldn’t automatically be any more suspect or praiseworthy than a familiar face being recognized for reaching a new apex in their careers. Nevertheless, it’s always a bit odd when a performer who’s already highly prolific in a different medium gets slotted here. Kathryn Hahn, Michael B. Jordan, Mary J. Blige - it makes sense, but there’s also a wildly celebrated career being 'broken through' for the sake of movie stardom.

Natalie Morales, a regular supporting player on film and television for the past decade, has gotten those notices this year. Morales has been recognized for her starring role in Language Lessons, which she also directed and co-wrote with her producer/co-star Mark Duplass...

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Will Smith is the Best Actor frontrunner. But who else is coming to that party?

by Nathaniel R

While the Best Supporting Actress race, discussed yesterday (and chart updated), is a little fuzzy and possibly volatile with major performances still left to screen, Best Actor is feeling more or less concrete in terms of available possibilities. Mind you, the cement is still wet.

THE FRONTRUNNERS
Two time nominee Will Smith (King Richard) and one-time nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (Power of the Dog) have the early lead. Both films are widely screened and well liked and both roles are actorly showcases.  Major stardom does a lot of footwork in building Oscar traction; they both have that advantage, too. But who will join them?

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AFI Diary #4: "Jockey," Audience Award Winners and More

Christopher James wrapping up his 2021 AFI Fest coverage. 

JOCKEY wins the Audience Award

Phew! The AFI Film Festival is done. The weekend was full of lots of great movies from around the world and some high profile premieres, such as Swan Song, Tick, Tick... Boom, and Bruised ! Still, there are a few more reviews to wrap up the festival with including Jockey, starring Clifton Collins Jr, which took the Audience Award for Narrative Feature...

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Red Notice: just enough to press play

by Elisa Giudici

As early as the prologue, Red Notice sets the bar so low that you instantly know to shut up and meekly accept every absurd thing it gives you. When an adventure movie starts with Marcus Antonius gifting his future bride Queen Cleopatra with 3 Fabergé jeweled eggs around 1000 years before Gustav Fabergé himself came to the world, you know realism is not high on the list of the movie's priorities. Not a priority at all, whether in the past or the present. Five minutes later we are introduced to Dwayne Johnson's FBI criminal profiler John Hartley. Sporting a black turtleneck (and later a silk patterned scarf), the notion of The Rock being a criminal profiler is so improbable that the screenplay mounts a preemptive defense. "You don't look like one".

"I get that a lot" replies The Rock, introducing us to a parallel world in which a lot of characters are nonsensical in service of an action-comedy about art thieves and double plays.  This is the kind of movie in which the audience will likely forgive anything, provided they are offered some spectacle, a few good liners, and chemistry between glamorous supertstars. Unfortunately, Red Notice lacks almost any of these elements...

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Almost There: Robert Mitchum in "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" and "The Sundowners"

by Cláudio Alves

This month, the Criterion Channel has programmed a collection called "Robert Mitchum: Playing It Cool," dedicated to the star of classics like Out of the Past and The Night of the Hunter. This movie star wasn't always the easiest person to work with – he was even declared the Least Cooperative Actor by the Golden Apple Awards – but his talent was undeniable, as was his screen presence. That quality would make him an iconic face of postwar film noir and, consequently, a perfect fit for 'Noirvember'. However, we're not here to discuss that part of his filmography. Unfortunately, those flicks seldom got awards traction, and the Almost There series is about performances with Oscar buzz but no nomination. 

Instead, the focus shall be on a couple of Deborah Kerr vehicles that costarred Mitchum and resulted in multiple Oscar nods. They were John Huston's Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, and Fred Zinnemann's The Sundowners…

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