Dune, review: when a dream comes true

by Elisa Giudici

Dreams are messages from the deep. This line from Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's SF novel perfectly describes the seductive dangerous power of dream we've cherished for a very long time begin to come true. Villeneuve is one of many directors of a generation that grew up reading Frank Herbert visionary sci-fi novels about messianic leadership and predestination, colonization and contamination of an alien world and culture, and the dangers of mixing politics and religion (to name only a few of the main themes of the Dune novels).

He was well aware of how insidious it can be to work on something that's long been on the back of your mind and your abmition for decades. "I talked for hours with Hans Zimmer about the possibility (a long time dream for both of us), trying to understand if it wasn't advisable to let our dream remain in our heads"...

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Venice Diary #03 - D-Day: Diana, Dune and a huge hole in the ground

by Elisa Giudici

Today Venice lived its climax, with screenings of two of the most awaited movies of the entire year: Pablo Larraín's Spencer and Denis Villeneuve's Dune. The latter in particular is perceived by everyone as an event, even by Venice standards (where a lot of the protagonists of the last Oscar races have been premiered). The fight for tickets to the screenings was merciless. Every show  sold out in a matter of seconds and the artistic director of the Festival, Alberto Barbera, tried to answer the general audience and press's complaints with multiple tweets. Moreover, it is the first movie in the five years I've been attending in which every ticket holder is required to seal his phone in a bag for piracy prevention. Warner Bros faces more than a calculated risk here: Dune's box office can be the dividing line between the cinema experience as we used to know and something new and yet uncertain...

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Oscar Prediction Charts: Three questions about Best Supporting Actor

by Nathaniel R

We're not predicting Richard E Grant Oscar buzz for the drag musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie but we're sharing his picture because we're in this kind of cheerful mood and because he was ROBBED in his Oscar year and we've been fans for as long as we can remember. Wasn't he fun on Loki this month? 

The supporting categories at the Oscars are always hard to read this early. Supporting roles are rarely the focus of pre-release buzz. What's more they can have a tough time finding awards love since leading movie stars have a super gross and predictable way of constantly crashing the party for those lower on the call sheet (last year's "supporting" race arguably had just one 100% no debate supporting player). So we threw one lead into the predictions (Jesse Plemons in Power of the Dog) but it's more than likely that some other lead will be pitched here, too. We don't care to guess about who that will be right now. For first attempt at predicting nominations in this category for 2021 we're saying...

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YNMS: "Dune" (2021)

By Ben Miller

One of the most anticipated films of the year is Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction saga Dune.  We already had a Pink Floyd-scored teaser, a series of poster releases and a Venice Film Festival premeire date, but now we have a full trailer.  There is a lot to this trailer, so let’s play our Yes, No, Maybe So™ game ...

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Oscar Predictions: Visuals, Score, Animation, and Sound

by Nathaniel R

The Oscar charts are finally going up. Best Animated Feature was the first a month ago but it's been tweaked to reflect Belle, rising, post its special Cannes screening, as well as Disney's stingy release of Luca. We're saving Cinematography and Costume Design for their own posts tomorrow but for now the rest of the Visual charts as well as Score and Sound are up. Yes, we're predicting a strong showing for House of Gucci, Dune, and Eternals in craft categories. Take a look and sound off in the comments.