Every weekend means... yet more prizes.

by Nathaniel R

Some of these were announced during the week but the weekend is when we catch up. In today's lineup: The Satellies (who went Ford V Ferrari crazy), The Black Film Critics Circle, plus Dublin and  Nevada critics. There's also a second organization from Phoenix listed. At first we were stunned because the only cities with two critics orgs that we can think of off the top of our heads so far are New York, Los Angeles (major media hubs both), and Boston... all, notably, places with very elite and long-lived film critics orgs that are difficult to be accepted into. Thus a second upstart group forms usually with "online" in the title (back in the early Aughts when print vs web was still sort of a thing). That 'online' designation makes less and less sense these days so some critics organizations who originally had it have been rebranding (all critics are now online critics with every former major print publication having long since moved to the web). Is Phoenix a sign that all major metropoles* will have two or three critics organizations by, say, 2025? Will critics organizations eventually outnumber the actual industry guilds that make the movies (if they don't already).

But I digress. In this weekend's roundup, Marriage Story comes out on top but we also want to talk about Texas in general because it's, shall we say, curious when it comes to film critics awards...

Click to read more ...

Curious notes on the 344 films eligible in most Oscar categories

Feature categories like International, Documentary, and Animated and all three shorts categories have their own eligibility rules with Oscar. Visual Effects, Makeup, Song, and Score have bake-offs to narrow things down. But the bulk of Oscar's 24 categories don't have any winnowing process to speak of. The Academy has recently released their annual reminder list of eligible titles which always has a few odd reveals. You can read the full list of 344 features here but here are a four things that stood out to us.

Netflix gave most of their originals one week qualifiers from Velvet Buzzsaw early in the year til Atlantics now

1. Netflix gave almost all their non Best Picture contenders one-week qualifying releases this year, including Velvet Buzzsaw, Always Be My Maybe and Earthquake Bird and the mesmerizing Atlantics ...

Click to read more ...

Best Animated Feature Contenders: How to Train Your Dragon 3

by Tim

Only time will tell which five movies are going to receive nominations for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in January, but I can tell you this much with absolute certainty: there are going to be a lot of sequels in the mix. Each of the four biggest American animation studios released a single film in 2019, and each one of those was a franchise entry. Disney had the blockbuster hit Frozen II just a month ago, and their corporate cousin Pixar released the slightly smaller hit Toy Story 4 over the summer. Illumination Entertainment had a rare flop with The Secret Life of Pets 2. Before any of these, though, came my pick for the best major studio animated feature of the year, and a film we really haven't talked about very much at the Film Experience: DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, third and final film in a trilogy that started in 2010.

The film was greeted without much enthusiasm, whether from critics, fans of the series, or audiences more generally; this seems horribly unfair to me. While it is more than a little bit of a retread of 2014's How to Train Your Dragon 2 in its plot and especially in its generic, forgettable villain (and one should never think "unforgettable" when watching a character played by F. Murray Abraham, but here we are), the emotional stuff is all new...

Click to read more ...

Great Acting or Great Makeup?

by Cláudio Alves

As soon as the first Bombshell teaser dropped, many were ready to claim Charlize Theron's performance as a great feat of transformative acting. She had become Megyn Kelly, apparently. That people were saying this after having only seen a couple of pointed glances and a tense smile left me perplexed. Were people reacting to the acting or the makeup? Still thinking about Theron, one remembers how she sailed to an Oscar in 2003 but Monster didn't get a much deserving Best Makeup nomination. Sure, that performance is incredible, but part of the transformation is the cosmetic wizardry of the makeup brush rather than the virtuosity of the actress.

When it comes to "transformative performances", a lot of people conflate great acting with great makeup...

Click to read more ...

Tis the Season; Carol-mas

Today we celebrate the anniversary of Carol and Therese's first date. That fraught with desire and longing first date. That rudely interupted by Harge first date. That beautiful trip from NY to NJ that felt like a lifetime and looked as dreamy and gorgeous as a water color painting come to life.

I'm celebrating by going to a screening of Carol (2015) at Metrograph in NY, introduced by master cinematographer Ed Lachman. How are you celebrating Carol day?