Doc Corner: 'Gunda'

By Glenn Dunks

I’m not going to lie. There are times in Viktor Kosakovskiy’s buzzy new barnyard documentary, Gunda, that feel a bit like a colossal piss-take. Literally if you’re talking about that one extended scene of piglet urination. But between that, the one-legged chicken, the continued attention to the titular pig’s shaking udder, and its shiny black and white photography, the entire enterprise often feels like the punchline of an extended arthouse joke about what people perceive documentaries and international cinema to be.

That isn’t to say it isn’t impressive. It is, frequently. Especially from a purely logistical standpoint as Kosakovskiy and Egil Håskjold Larsen’s camera fluidly encircles and follows its animal subjects with access that often defies belief...

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Soderbergh's List

Each year Steven Soderbergh releases his screening / reading / watching log. And here's what he watched and read in 2020. These lists are very fun but they always freak us out a little because Soderberg is an Oscar winner and voter and yet he doesn't watch very many current movies though he does catch the big nominees...

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Showbiz History: DGA's prophecies, In Old Chicago's run, and Beckinsale's franchise

9 random things that happened on this day, January 6th, in showbiz history

1938 In Old Chicago released in movie theaters. The 20th Century Fox Tyrone Power and Alice Faye drama was big at the box office and at the Oscars... its relevant at the moment because it competed for the 1937 Oscars even though it was released in January of 1938 (with no qualifying run in '37). Why? Well, that year had a longer than the calendar year eligibility period which is what we're going through right now again. Films released through February 2021 will be eligible for the Oscars honoring the films of 2020 this time around. We prefer the clean lines of the calendar year but you can't always (or even often) get what you want.

1943 Hitler's Children, an American propaganda film is released, depicting the brutalities of the Hitler Youth.  Bonita Granville co-starred...

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Almost There: Diane Keaton in "Shoot the Moon"

by Cláudio Alves

The magnificent Diane Keaton is 75! The Best Actress champion of the 50th Academy Awards has been enchanting movie audiences since the early 70s, making a name for herself as a comedienne before proving she was a versatile performer, as good at having audiences cry for her as she's at making them guffaw. Unlike many great thespians of the silver screen, Keaton's Oscar history is a good representative of her talents. The winning turn in Annie Hall and the runner-up marvel that is Something's Gotta Give represent two wildly different approaches at comedy, one spiky and cerebral, the other warmly commercial. Then we have the romance of Reds and the melodrama of Marvin's Room, a drama played at the scale of an epic and a chamber drama respectively. 

Still, one can quibble with the results and wish Keaton had gotten even more love from AMPAS. For instance, when I examined the battle of the titans that was Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange's bid for the 1982 Best Actress trophy, many mentioned how Diane Keaton. Some said she should have been present among the nominees for her work in Alan Parker's Shoot the Moon for which she got considerable buzz. I confess I agree with those Keaton-loving readers…

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Links, Lists, and RIPs

• Vulture perceptive piece on how Ryan Murphy's Netflix deal has amplified his worst tendencies
• THR The Gotenborg Film Festival -- which we've always wanted to go to -- is conducting a bizarre experiment in social isolation and cinephilia
• No Film School Hollywood is shutting down production again

more after the jump including the confusing reporting on the death of Tanya Roberts...

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