New Oscar Predictions: Best Actor

by Nathaniel R

Curiously all the action, or "buzz", to date is in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor races. The other two acting competitions are seriously wanting... at least from this vantage point. We haven't seen a Best Actor race this empty of potential players since circa 2003. Sir Anthony Hopkins (The Father) may well be destined to become the oldest actor ever to win in the male leading category (he's 82, and the current record holder Henry Fonda was 76). Gary Oldman's upcoming take on Mank and Delroy Lindo's much acclaimed turn in Da 5 Bloods are probably can't-miss nominees given the lack of competition unless something goes very wrong for them. But the 4th and 5th slots just might be a free-for-all. 

Much of that is due of course to the sparse field of films planning on opening before the eligibility deadline in February of 2021. Given this (currently) wide open race we might see someone from an ensemble picture like Trial of the Chicago 7 or One Night in Miami campaigning as lead. Who do you think might surprise us with a robust campaign and/or wild acclaim? Check out the new Best Actor chart. 

Links: Madonna's Biopic, "Fast Times" Read, Pattinson's Return, and "Popeye" Remaster

• CNN Madonna will direct the biopic she's been teasing about her own life. She's co-writing it with the brilliant Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult). It'll be interesting to see if Madonna can pull this off. She used to have such a great sense of humor about herself and that would come in handy here. No word yet about casting though the internet rumor mill has us convinced they're looking at Julia Garner (Ozark)
• Awards Daily Delroy Lindo will be submitted as a Lead to the Oscars for Da Five Bloods
• Theater Mania It took her long enough! Broadway star Laura Benanti is finally releasing her first album (next month)

Tatlany Maslany, Fast Times, Popeye and more after the jump...

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Review: Da 5 Bloods

by Lynn Lee

Perfectly timed.  The right voice for this precise moment.  Spike Lee’s never been more necessary than he is now. 

If you’ve read one variation of the “timeliness” reaction to Spike Lee’s latest joint by way of Netflix, Da 5 Bloods, you’ve read them all.  It’s a truth so self-evident it practically amounts to a truism.  Except the fact is that Spike Lee never went anywhere – he’s been here the last 30 plus years, educating us on the ugly persistence of systemic racism in the U.S.  His movies have always been timely; it’s our fault if we’ve failed to heed their underlying admonitions or give them the sustained attention they deserve.  It makes little sense, then, to accord his newest release any extra expectations that it will “speak to the moment.”  Still, given that it's Spike Lee, it does speak to the moment, if less directly – or less crisply – than some of his previous films...

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