"Barbie" Gets Pushed to Adapted Screenplay

by Cláudio Alves

Shed a tear for Andrew Haigh's Oscar hopes.

What many believed was bound to happen finally did. Despite Warner Bros. campaigning Barbie's script as original, an Academy committee formed by members of the Writers branch - Howard A. Rodman and Dana Stevens took precedence as governors, while Eric Roth recused himself - and  chose to uphold the usual rules for IP-based material. That means Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach will have to compete in Best Adapted Screenplay, shaking up the race in a big way. The pink fantasy was the assumed frontrunner in the other category, facing off against The Holdovers as its biggest competition. Now, it's up against a veritable battalion of Best Picture contenders, including titles wrestling for the honor of nomination leader – Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, and Poor Things…

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The Makeup Artists & Hair Stylists Guild disagrees with the Academy

by Cláudio Alves

Is GOLDA a bigger contender than predicted?

Not every Hollywood guild is in perpetual agreement with AMPAS. However, for most of them, the disagreement is unnoticeable until Oscar nomination morning. Not so with the Makeup Artists & Hair Stylists Guild, MUAHS for short, whose choices significantly differ from the 15-wide Academy shortlist. Despite having five categories with five nominees each, the guild managed to "snub" over half of AMPAS' selection. The only titles to appear in both lists are Maestro, Poor Things, Oppenheimer, and Golda, while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is one of the MUAHS nomination leaders after getting surprisingly shut out of the Oscar shortlist. 

Discover the full list of film nominations after the jump…

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Tom Wilkinson (1948-2023)

by Cláudio Alves

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014) Wes Anderson

True character actors often feel like a thing of the past, one of those artifacts of bygone eras lost in our collective trudge forward. And yet, some performers keep the idea alive into the 21st century, shining brightly as something other than an all-consuming star. Such was the case of Tom Wilkinson, the two-time Academy Award-nominated actor who died suddenly last Saturday, surrounded by family. He was 75 years old. 

I concede that it might feel wrong to start the new year with an obituary. Still, one must pay respect to the fallen titan, an artist of integrity and craft whose filmography contains over a hundred credits, from minor indies to awards juggernauts, chamber dramas, blockbusters, animation, and the whole shebang. On this sad occasion, let's remember the greatness of Tom Wilkinson…

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Goodbye, 2023...

by Cláudio Alves

SUPERSTAR is my favorite new-to-me film of 2023. What's yours?

As the year draws to a close, it's time for reflection and hopes for the year to come. All over film publications, lists dominate, cataloging the best pictures of 2023, rushing to proclaim their champions before the ball drops. Here, however, let's do another exercise. Looking back at the past twelve months, I like to think about my favorite first-time watches of years gone by, classics and other sorts that were new to me, even if they were well known to everybody else. 

I think of Brian De Palma's Body Double, a perverse predilection I discovered on my travails through Erotic Thrillers. Then, there was Labyrinth of Cinema, Nobuhiko Obayashi's swan song, and a wild counterpoint to Nolan's Oppenheimer. While I wrote about those two, I have yet to mention my affection for Jafar Panahi's rebellious Offside or how Jan Svankmajer's Food seemed to synthesize its auteur's visceral cinema in one bite-sized grotesque. However, no flick inspired as much adoration as Todd Haynes' long-banned Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. In the year when Barbie reigned supreme, his was still the superior plastic picture, nightmarish and moving, a song on biopic limitations and truth at 24 frames per second.

New or old, may 2024 bring more cinema triumphs. Happy New Year!

Paul Mescal must be stopped

by Cláudio Alves

Something must be done about that Irish menace known as Paul Mescal. He's out there ruining perfectly great songs, attaching such emotional devastation to them one can't help but start tearing up when listening to them. It's akin to a cinema-induced Pavlovian response, and it's making me feel like an insane crybaby. Last year, it was "Under Pressure," forever bound to Aftersun. This year, it's "The Power of Love" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the ending to All of Us Strangers. Twisting the horror out of Taichi Yamada's ghost story, Andrew Haigh re-imagined the book's conclusion as a melancholic gut punch, romance played for earnestness rather than betrayal.

It's probably the picture's most divisive element, but it works partly because of Mescal and how fleshed out his depressed stranger grows into being, narrative circumstances notwithstanding. I won't go further because everyone deserves to discover those surprises by themselves. However, I want to pose a couple of questions. First, has any film forever changed the meaning and effect of a song? Second, what did you think about the All of Us Strangers final goodbye?