A lot of (potential) variety this year in "Best Live-Action Short"

by Nathaniel R

Miriam Margoyles stars in "A FRIEND OF DOROTHY"

Each year after the Oscar shortlists are announced we try and dive in to the shorts categories (as well as the others that use a winnowing process). The shorts are undercovered in media but who can blame anyone given that it's difficult to know when where or if you'll ever have access to the titles. At any rate, there are some titles in each of the "specialty" Oscar categories that are easy to access. The Live Action Short category is often met with (deserved) criticism for being the "feel bad" category of the Oscars. Remember that year where every nominee was about something awful happening to a child?

But this year's finalist list has quite a lot of variety. This diversity of aesthetic purpose, emotional appeal, and genre, could well be an illusion. The Academy might pick pick the five heaviest and saddest shorts from this list of 15 but at the moment it's easy to imagine a nominated quintet that has a little something for everyone...

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“Heated Rivalry” is here to make the yuletide gay

by Cláudio Alves

HEATED RIVALRY | © Crave / HBO Max

First of all, everybody please say thank you to the Canadian taxpayers – Thank you, Canadian taxpayers! With that out of the way, let’s all come together and celebrate one of the loveliest surprises of the year in television, slipping right in at the end of 2025 to queer up the holiday season.

Written and directed by Jacob Tierney, Crave’s Heated Rivalry adapts the first two books in Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series of gay love stories in the world of men’s professional hockey. A good mix of angst and smut, like most projects born out of fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off, the novels are a delivery system for romance more than they are great literature, but that’s alright. Sometimes, that’s exactly what the heart yearns for, what the body needs. And, after the first two episodes, it was hard to argue against notions that Heated Rivalry was little more than soft-core under a very thin layer of respectability. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the show has proven itself more interesting. It has also become an international phenomenon…

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“OBAA” stays on top but “Sinners” is on the rise

by Cláudio Alves

SINNERS is gaining steam and catching up. | © Warner Bros.

It’s been two weeks since our last update on regional critics prizes and other such organizations. Much has happened in the meantime, though One Battle After Another remains the frontrunner with the most wins. And yet, Sinners is starting to show some strength. So far, Coogler’s southern gothic vampire proto-musical mélange is the only film to take Best Picture honors away from PTA’s latest. That’s not to say these are the only choices on voters’ minds. In a season already full of repetition, when notions of “spreading the wealth” are thoroughly repudiated, the runner-up mentions often tell a more interesting story than the winners' list. Just look at the LAFCA…

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“Sinners” and “Wicked” lead the Oscar shortlists

by Cláudio Alves

Despite poor reviews WICKED: FOR GOOD is beloved by the industry. | © Universal Pictures

The Oscar shortlists announcement is an occasion that many a pundit anticipates, sometimes fears. Because it’s a day when narratives change, some consolidate, some emerge, while others crumble into nothingness. Three years ago, the shortlists were the first hint of just how big All Quiet on the Western Front was about to become, for example. For the 98th Academy Awards, there is no surprise champion, as Sinners and Wicked: For Good earn the most categories in a year when Casting and Cinematography are also among the shortlisted races. More surprisingly is Sirât’s surge, a cinematography selection full of antithetical picks and a Best International Film race where ten out of fifteen finalists arrive from outside of Europe, a rarity that should be celebrated.

Without further ado, here are the Oscar shortlists with some commentary…

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Review: "Oh. What. Fun."

by Nathaniel R

La Pfeiffer is finally back in "OH. WHAT. FUN" streaming on Amazon Prime.

We love an accurate movie title. Michael Showalter's latest comedy Oh. What Fun. presents a quandary. Is the title true or false? While we generally hope for "fun" at comedies, the staccato cadence of those periods implies a sarcastic tone or eye roll; this woman Claire Clauster (played by the long-missing Michelle Pfeiffer) and her family (assorted SAG members cashing a check) are not having any fun! This general tonal conceit, deployed in all sorts of holiday comedies, is that we are meant to laugh at and relate to people who are experiencing the universal misery of forced holiday cheer and durationally challenging "quality time" with family. We've presumably all been there even if we actually love both the holidays and our family...

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