TIFF '23: Kate Winslet elevates "Lee"

by Matt St Clair

Kate Winslet as "Lee"

After winning an Emmy for Mare of Easttown, I wondered how Kate Winslet would follow up her career-best work on the acclaimed HBO miniseries. Her latest starring vehicle, Lee, looked like a worthy follow-up project on paper. Winslet collaborates with cinematographer-turned-director Ellen Kuras, who lensed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which featured Winslet’s other greatest performance. Sadly, only Winslet’s performance lives up to the promise of the reunion...

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A Funny Time Loop in "Palm Springs"

Abe Fried-Tanzer nearing the end of Sundance 2020...

Time loops are cool again thanks to all the hoopla around Russian Doll, but, in the same way that experiencing the same day over and over again gets stale after a while, has the phenomenon been explored enough at this point? Hulu and Neon certainly didn’t think so when they set a Sundance record by spending $17.5 million (and 69 cents) for Palm Springs, a comedy that deals with the topic yet again...

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Golden Globe Host Watch: "Please Give Us Five Stars!"

by Lynn Lee

Andy & Sandra at their private after-party last night

That’s it?”

-My reaction to the final Golden Globes signoff by Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg.

Don’t get me wrong: one thing I love about the Globes – besides the glorious coming together of movies and TV and everyone in the room getting shitfaced – is how efficiently it runs its course, at least compared to our favorite bloated yearly Hollywood telecast.  But damned if it didn’t feel like this year’s Globes, in hurrying things along, gave short shrift to its hosts.  Which is a shame, since they showed potential that was never fully realized...

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Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping

Eric here, with a quick review of the new movie from The Lonely Island comedy trio of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping.  

Pop Star is one of those films, like Anchorman or Zoolander, that gives you two choices:  surrender or resist.  You can either dive headfirst into this mockumentary of pop music sensation Conner4Real, and enjoy a hodgepodge of hit-or-miss jokes…or you can yawn at the filmmakers calling in a favor to every famous person they know (Carrie Underwood, Adam Levine, Usher, etc.) to lend some authenticity to the piece. 

If you resist, Pop Star is probably a pretty unbearable sit, because it’s another movie from producer Judd Apatow that features a bunch of male comedy guys conning a studio out of about $30 million just so they can show the world (and themselves) how adorably imbecilic but ultimately likable they are.  While the film itself is about an egomaniac, there’s a lingering ickiness about the ego behind and in front of the camera too.  The film purports to skewer rap star narcissism, but the behavior is celebrated as often as it’s parodied. 

But if you surrender, the laughs deliver...

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