One and Done? Toni Collette

by Matt St Clair

Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe. Those are just a few of the grand talents from Australia to grace the big screen. Then there’s someone who doesn’t have the same kind of Oscar record as those A listers: the painfully unsung Toni Collette who, despite having an eclectic fascinating career with roles that range in size, genre, accent, etcetera, in many noteworthy films, somehow only has one Oscar nomination under her belt. 

The Nomination

Her sole bid (thus far) came in 1999 when she was nominated in Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lynn Sear, a working-class mother whose child can see ghosts in The Sixth Sense...

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Best International Feature: Indonesia, Senegal, Thailand

by Cláudio Alves

Tomorrow we'll know which 15 films made the Academy's shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category. In this series of capsule review trios, I've looked at 27 films whose quality spanned from shoddy propaganda to caustic masterpiece. To end in a round number, I'd like to shine a light on three films that are very unlikely to be chosen by AMPAS. Three features whose singular oddness and inspiringly weird ideas deserve to be celebrated, even though one of them can be called faultless. Join me, as I try to describe the wonders of an Indonesian horror flick with historical ambitions, a Senegalese tragedy with Shakespearean proportions, and a Thai coming-of-age tale centered on the ideologies inherent to minimalist interior design…

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Supersized "Nomadland"... what will Searchlight do for a follow up?

by Nathaniel R

Click for the full illustrated new poster

The prolongued 2020 Oscar season is going to make 2021 weird, isn't it. Take Nomadland, for instance, which is just a smidge over HALFWAY through its long trek to Oscar night after its September bow). Hopefully the Biden Administration can figure out a way to speed up vaccine distribution and we can all get back to our favourite pasttime -- MOVIEGOING -- by summer 2021 when the new stuff starts arriving. Alas, that's too late to enjoy Nomadland on IMAX screens, beginning January 29th, which frankly sounds like heaven to us after watching it on a bad streaming link with a watermark across it.

Though Nomadland is not my #1 film of the year -- top ten list coming in a few days! -- there isn't a single film from 2020 that I'd rather see on the most gigantic screen possible. Joshua James Richards' cinematography and the beautifully aged resilient face of Frances McDormand deserve it.

After Nomadland's Oscar run, whether or not it wins the biggest prize in Hollywood, here's what Searchlight (now owned by Disney) will be releasing in 2021...

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Showbiz History: Multiple cult classics and volatile awards seasons

5 random things that happened on this day, January 19th, in showbiz history

1962 Tender is the Night opens in movie theaters. The film stars Jennifer Jones. 

1964 Joan Crawford stars in Strait-Jacket, new in theaters which is now a total cult classic. Here's one of my favourite posts I ever wrote. 

1990 Another cult classic, Tremors, debuts on this day...

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First annual (?) "Super" Awards

by Nathaniel R

The Old Guard takes "best superhero film" honors

We're still trying to wrap our heads around the absolutely bizarre decision by the executives of the Critics Choice Association to launch a genre-specific awards show (think the Saturn Awards only from talking heads at various outlets rather than the fans) in the very year where most of those kinds of movies didn't actually open and in which none of the big stars would be able to actually attend. It's a head scratcher in so many ways though happily two good movies (Palm Springs and Soul) led with the most prizes.

Here are the winners (no, we did not vote)...

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