Review: The Hunt (2020)

by Tony Ruggio

Blumhouse’s much-ballyhooed American political satire has finally seen the light of day after postponement due to a mass shooting last August, only to meet an unprecedented global pandemic this spring. With multiplexes closed nationwide, it’s one of a few major motion pictures to release early on VOD. Eschewing anything resembling subtlety or a desire to make a cogent point, The Hunt is a glib quasi-horror romp designed to prod and provoke, but dips into irrelevance by trying too hard for that sweet spot of zeitgeist...

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Desperately Seeking Link

THR Insightful piece about experimentation of studios and Hollywood's post-coronavirus future
Vulture "are the celebrities okay?" a funny piece about the bizarre social media of stars during quarantine
Awards Daily Contagion (2011) reframed
Boy Culture a huge celebration of Madonna's "Vogue" as it turns 30

More after the jump including showbiz obituaries, Marvel's What If?, and the cinema of 1962...

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The first Oscars I lived through

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout my life, I've always had trouble remembering numerical data, be it phone numbers or birthdays. Curiously enough, that never stopped me from being able to memorize movie's release years or various tidbits of Oscar trivia. That's why I started associating Best Picture winners to people's ages, to remember them. Some people have astrology; I have the Oscars. For instance, my sisters are Terms of Endearment, Dances with Wolves and Gladiator and my parents are West Side Story and The Sound of Music.

Although, maybe I shouldn't have chosen such a systemsince I've always detested my Best Picture, which won the Oscar precisely 25 years ago today. It was none other than 1994's maudlin hymn to political passivity and dumb luck known as Forrest Gump…

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Five Reasons to Watch "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" Immediately

by Murtada Elfadl

A movie event of the highest order is a click away, at least for those of us in the US. 

#1 Portrait of a Lady on Fire is now streaming on Hulu. You can watch right this very second if you want.

#2 There’s a lot of choices on streaming but this gives you the chance to swoon as you watch. Gorgeously shot, Portrait is a romance between an artist (Noémie Merlant) and her subject (Adèle Haenel) set in late 18th century France, that smolders with heat and passion...

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Lunchtime Poll: What are the oddest Best Actress wins?

Claudio recently celebrated Glenda Jackson's Oscar winning performance in Women in Love and we have to ask if you've ever seen Women in Love's trailer? We personally can't recall a time another time when critical pullquotes were wielded to shame people into praising something. Haha. Note that final blurb! 

While most Oscar wins make sense given the context of their own years (for various reasons), they don't always make any sense in the grander scheme of Oscar history and taste. Women in Love stands as one of the strangest Oscars wins in its category given the nature of the role and the acting achievement. I'd argue that Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins is another odd duck, with no correlative elsewhere in Oscar taste. Who would you name as one of the strangest Oscar wins in Best Actress history (besides those two)? And why?