Audra, please make more movies

by Cláudio Alves

With Rustin now on Netflix, cinephiles worldwide can enjoy one of the season's top Best Actor contenders. However, one shouldn't presume there's no more to George C. Wolfe's picture than Colman Domingo's spirited turn. Indeed, there's a vast pool of brilliant Black actors around him, breathing life into civil rights icons left and right. Among them, Broadway's First Lady and Tony champion Supreme stands out, the one and only Audra McDonald as Ella Baker. She's only in a couple of scenes but leaves a lasting impression, embodying strength and conveying a rich history between the activists that goes beyond the narrative's limited scope.

As of late, that's McDonald's big screen specialty, serving excellence for a scene or two, and then – poof – she's gone. Just look at her other 2023 movies…

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TIFF '23: The Origin of Our Discontents

by Cláudio Alves

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in "Origin"

Dealing with complex sociological issues in cinema is tricky. The risk of didacticism is hard to avoid, but abstraction can also be the enemy of clarity, especially when the filmmakers want to posit movies as an instrument of change, a spike of awareness. Writing about this type of film, I'm often confronted with inner conflicts about how to approach criticism. It's tempting to celebrate cinema that confirms one's worldview and political alignments. But does that alone make for a good film?  Many films at this year's TIFF confront issues of systematized injustice on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, and other forms of identity. Two such films, Ava DuVernay's Origin and Nora El Hourch's Sisterhood present distinct visions though a striking sense of confrontation unites them...

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Would you rather?

We haven't loooked at Instagram for a bit. So let's play our fantasies about celebrity bffs game which is just an elaborate excuse to share photos we liked recently. Would you rather...

• hang at the pool with Elliot Page?
• celebrate the anniversary of "Born this Way" with Lady Gaga?
• sit for a portrait with Kristin Scott Thomas?
• make like Tarzan under a waterfall with Tony Goldwyn?
• have a "salad" with Reese Witherspoon?
• get an honorary degree from Yale with Ava DuVernay?
• visit Monaco with Haz Osterfield and Tom Holland?
• relax at a resort with Kathryn Newton?
• bungee jump with Zac Efron and brother?
• celebrate pride with Jeremy Pope's cake?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide. (If there's a gif, you can click on it to see the whole video)

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Academy's New Governors: Whoopi Returns, Ava Rises.

by Nathaniel R

Ava DuVernay is now on a Governor in the Director's Branch of the Academy

As you might imagine, steering a behemoth institution like The Oscars is no small task. To do that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has about 8 "officers" (including the current President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson) as well as a 3 "Governors" from each of the 17 branches.

Each governor serves a 3 year term so there aren't huge upheavals from year to year since only 33% of a board might change). Some of the Officers are also Governors within their respective branches. The Academy recently held elections again for the 2020/2021 season and these folks will be helping to make the difficult decisions like "what to do about the upcoming Oscar ceremony given COVID-19" and such...

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How to fix the Best International Film category?

by Cláudio Alves

This year, the Best International Film category celebrated a record-setting number of submissions - 93 in total. 2019 has also been marked by the renaming of the award, which was previously called the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, as well as some new rules that slightly change the voting process. However, one of the unhappiest yearly traditions associated with this honor refuses to go away. Once more, some films are being disqualified.

Nigeria's Lionheart isn't eligible for the Oscar. This is particularly terrible when one considers it's the first submission from one of the few African nations with a thriving film industry. Not surprisingly, the decision has generated quite a bit of controversy, with such renowned filmmakers as Ava DuVernay criticizing it…

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