Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 6:31AM Marlon Brando in Sayonara (1957) is from the same farm as Foghorn Leghorn, that's where he's from.
Talk amongst yourselves, readers. What's on your cinematic mind? We'll have a review of Da 5 Bloods soon but what else is on your cinematic mind? Behind the scenes wer're having a Sayonarara / Peyton Place kind of weekend.
Friday, June 12, 2020 at 9:31PM 
To celebrate Pride Month, the Criterion Channel has chosen to highlight several works of queer cinema as well as various films featuring LGBTQIA+ characters. The selection is varied, spanning from Ettore Scola's Oscar-nominated A Special Day to the avant-garde work of Chantal Akerman and Cheryl Dunne. It's not all high-brow artistry -- there's space for kitschy entertainment, too. Such is the case of 1999's But I'm a Cheerleader directed by Jamie Babbit, a cult classic looking at gay conversion therapy through the prism of outrageous farcical humor. It's a movie I had never watched before, making it a great subject for this particular series…
Friday, June 12, 2020 at 1:13PM by Nathaniel R
Ah... the annual tweaking of the rules is upon us again. The Academy has been frantically trying to keep up with societal changes and has made quite a few strides with their gender parity and racial diversity inititiatives over the past handful of years. We've also seen Best Picture winners that would have seemed impossible ten years before like Moonlight (2016) and Parasite (2019). The Academy is continuing with their diversity initiatives over the next five years which you can read about here we won't attempt to summarize it as it's definitely in the planning rather than implementing stages. But a lot of it sounds really smart like unconscious bias training and screenings and discussions and industry-focused inititatives (as we've long said, the Academy can only vote on the films that Hollywood actually makes!).
Nevertheless there are two concrete pieces of news we must discuss...
Friday, June 12, 2020 at 10:00AM As we march towards the Smackdown, we're also checking in with great supporting performances that weren't nominated. Here's Nick Taylor...
We've already discussed how Viola Davis had a spectacular 2002. But truth be told, it’s incredible how many actresses turned out multiple great performances in that film year: Samantha Morton headlined one of the best films of the past 20 years with intoxicating subtlety in Morvern Callar while delivering the most visceral, unsettling element of Minority Report. Maggie Gyllenhaal announced herself with a bang in Secretary and folded beautifully into the ensemble of Adaptation. Multiple cast members of The Hours gave equally memorable characterizations in other films - Meryl in Adaptation, Julianne in Far From Heaven, Miranda in Spider, Toni in About a Boy, and Claire in Igby Goes Down. (Side note: how wild is it that Nicole Kidman is the one who only made one movie that year?).
I’d argue Isabelle Huppert had the strongest one-two punch of any actress in 2002. Her ferocious, perverse, achingly lonely turn in The Piano Teacher ranks among the best acting feats of the ‘00s all by itself, and the fizzy, entertaining work she contributes to 8 Women is one of the funniest performances of a year defined by great comedic work...
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:31PM 
Ten years ago this weekend, the public met a new Hollywood star in the making. The movie that brought the world a new silver screen goddess wasn't the sort of big studio production that in the old golden days would've been the logic harbinger of stardom. Quite the contrary, the film in question was a modest indie. Director Debra Granik's Sundance prize-winning critical hit would go on to become a sleeper hit in arthouse release. We're talking, of course, about Winter's Bone and the performer bound for stardom's was future Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence…
