The Astronaut Dramas of the 2010s

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Two-time Oscar winner Goerge Clooney directs and stars in Netflix’s final awards contender to drop to streaming during this calendar year, the science fiction drama The Midnight Sky. Based on a novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton, the film follows a lone scientist (Clooney) in the Arctic who must contact a group of astronauts to stop them from returning to earth. This is Clooney’s first film as an actor since 2016’s Money Monster and his first as a director since 2017’s Suburbicon. The film will join a curiously large cinematic trend of 2010s Hollywood: the astronaut drama...

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What Qualifies as a Comedy for the Golden Globes?

By Abe Friedtanzer

It was announced this week that the forthcoming Promising Young Woman (my favorite film of 2020)  will be campaigned at the Golden Globes in the comedy/musical races. There’s definitely a case to be made for its classification as a comedy, even though it’s very dark. I agree that it’s the right choice though surely some will argue. Similarly, The Flight Attendant, which just earned a season two renewal from HBO Max, is likely to be considered a comedy for the TV categories, an interesting choice given the fact that it’s really a thriller. This isn’t the first time there’s at least been room for debate about what actually counts as a comedy with the HFPA and other groups…

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Showbiz History: The Children's Hour, Little Shop, and a Gyllenhalic holiday

6 random things that happened on this day, December 19th, in showbiz history...

1915 Edith Giovanna Gassion born in Paris and immediately abandoned by her mother. She would be raised by prostitutes and would become the famous songbird Edith Piaf, her last name slang for "sparrow", and eventually an international icon. Her life was dramatized (in excruciatingly non-linear fashion as was the fad in the mid Aughts) in 2007's La Vie En Rose which won Marion Cotillard the Best Actress Oscar. Like her contemporary Judy Garland she would struggle with addiction and die at age 47 years in the 1960s. 

1961 The now infamous drama The Children's Hour opens in theaters on its way to 5 Oscar nominations...

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Welles beyond Kane

by Cláudio Alves

With David Fincher's Mank on Netflix, many have been talking about Citizen Kane. The writing of Orson Welles' putative first feature (technically, though unfinished, Too Much Johnson precedes it by three years) is central to the new movie, but the narrative is far more interested in the 1934 California gubernatorial election than in the shooting of Kane. We never see cameras rolling on that which has been, at one point, considered the best movie ever made. Whether you agree with that hyperbolic title or not, it's undeniable that it's one of the most written about works ever produced by Hollywood, with essays such as Pauline Kael's Raising Kane enshrining the picture in prestige and controversy.

While I admire Citizen Kane and find it a masterpiece, I must admit to being far more fascinated by Welles' later efforts. Through exiles and a myriad of unfinished experiments, Orson Welles' filmography extends well beyond Kane…

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NYFCC loves "Da 5 Bloods" and "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"

by Nathaniel R

The New York Film Critics Circle have spoken, delivering their verdict on the Best of 2020. The only films which scored multiple awards were Da 5 Bloods and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. But the top prize went to First Cow (which is the only prize it won). This year featured the most female directors they've ever honored simultaneously with female-helmed films winning Best Film, Best First Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (all four of them different films, too!). Their honors for 2020 go like so...

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