AFI Honors: Bridgerton, Ma Rainey, Chicago 7, Nomadland, etc...

Like the National Film Registry but in a more 'in the now' kind of way the American Film Institute offers up a top ten list each year meant to denote American screen entertainments that are "culturally and artistically representative" of the artform that year. This year's jury included luminaries like Oscar winner Marlee Martlin, Oscar nominees Cynthia Erivo and Rian Johnson, Honorary Oscar winner Wes Studi, 2021 Kennedy Center Honoree Debbie Allen, Emmy winner Amy Sherman-Palladino, Director Lulu Wang, film historians like Molly Haskell, Mark Harris, and Leonard Maltin, and many more including critics from Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, TV Guide, and The Washington Post. Here's what they came up with after the jump...

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Thoughts on "The Father"...

by Eric Blume

It's difficult to write reviews these days, because it feels like no film is ever actually "released", and all of us are scrambling to find what movies are even available, how they're available, if they're VOD, or on a streaming service, etc.  Sony Pictures Classics might have made a fumble mostly holding back from view director Florian Zeller's The Father, taken from his own play, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman:  if more people could see it, everyone would be talking about it.

The Father is one of those Movies They Don't Make Anymore, i.e., a damn adult drama that challenges your mind and heart.  This is a film where the entire creative team treats the audience with dignity and respect, trusting that you're listening and paying attention, and they will reward you with literate ideas, high drama, and an emotional experience.  But The Father is more than just that:  the storytelling and the visual conceit of the film are surprising and demanding, and it is not a passive undertaking for the viewer...

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Where are we at in the Oscar race? Screenplays, Directors, Pictures

by Nathaniel R

Looking at the calendar this morning on this blessed Inauguration Day, we realized with great alarm that the SAG, Globe, and Critics Choice nominations are just two weeks away so it's time to update all the Oscar charts again...

BEST PICTURE
What if we only get 7 nominees this year?

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More critics prizes: St Louis, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Denver, and Houston

Here's five more groups of prizes from critics groups that have announced in the past handful of days. Chloe Zhao continues her total sweep of Best Director prizes for Nomadland, an achievement we haven't seen in quite some time. Generally there's one award where someone steamrolls but it's usually in one of the acting categories. Promising Young Woman, Trial of the Chicago 7, Soul, First Cow, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom also do well in this week's regional critics haul...

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Review: One Night in Miami

by Matt St Clair

Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami is a wonderful departure from the traditional biopic formula. Instead of focusing on key events from the lives of the famous, One Night in Miami  gives us a fictionalized, night-long conversation four iconic men might have been having at that exact moment in history. The titular night is February 25th, 1964, just after Cassius Clay’s boxing match with Sonny Liston and just before the famous athlete changed his name to Muhammad Ali.   

Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), musician Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and former NFL player Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) gather together in a motel room to discuss the weight they carry as celebrities to help create social change through the Civil Rights Movement. Thanks to the lead actors, along with genius writing by Kemp Powers who adapted his own  play for the screen, we’re able to get a glimpse of the real people behind the iconic personas...

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