"The Irishman" leads the nominations from the Online Film Critics Society

The OFCS was founded back in 1997 just as film criticism was exploding on the web but still disrespected by old media. Since their founding 22 years ago there is less reason for their existence (all critics are primarily "online film critics" these days) but we've always liked them because the taste level is consistent. Let's start with their nominees and move on to other winners from other associations, at home and abroad.

OFCS
(Online Film Critics Society)

Best Picture

• 1917 
• The Irishman 
• Jojo Rabbit 
• Knives Out 
• Marriage Story 
• Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood
• Parasite
• Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
• Uncut Gems 
• Us

Best Animated Feature...

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Spirit Award nominations spread the wealth for 2019.

by Nathaniel R

Nominations for the 35th annual Independent Spirit Awards have been announced with the wealth really being spread. For example the 5 nominees for the top prize “Feature” only crossover with “Best Director” on a single film, the Safdie brothers Uncut Gem which co-led the nominations with 5 prizes though it’s yet to open in theaters. Tying that films lead for most nominations was The Lighthouse even though that black and white oddity did not score a nomination for Best Feature!

Interestingly enough, the just-opened indie Waves was (almost) entirely shut out even though it’s a Best Feature nominee at the often quite parallel Gotham Awards. On a similar note the acting nominations aren’t heavily dependent on Best Feature love, either. 

A complete list of nominations plus commentary after the jump...

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Podcast: Ford v Ferrari, Honey Boy, and Marriage Story

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (59 minutes)

• 00:01 Ford v Ferrari, Christian Bale, impressive crafts, and Oscar talk
• 19:06 Marriage Story, the opening scene, comparisons to Kramer vs Kramer, and more. Plus a lot of love for the actors including Alan Alda.
• 36:05 Honey Boy a Shia Labeouf's confessional with a great Noah Jupe directed by Alma Har'el. But, we confess we have Lucas Hedges fatigue.
• 47:10 Best Costume Design. We're rooting for extreme longshot Hustlers but we survey the whole field.

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Ford v Ferrari

"Midway" tops the weekend while "Honey Boy" opens strong

Weekend Box Office [ESTIMATES] Nov 8th-10th 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
MIDWAY	HONEY BOY
1 🔺  MIDWAY  $17.5 *new*	1 🔺 PARASITE $2.5 on 603 screens (cum. $11.2) PODCAST ★
2 🔺 DOCTOR SLEEP $14.1 *new*	2 🔺 PAIN & GLORY $397K on 266 screens (cum. $2.6)  REVIEW, PODCAST ★
3 🔺 PLAYING WITH FIRE $12.8 *new*	3 🔺 HONEY BOY  $288k on 4 screens *new* ★
4 🔺 LAST CHRISTMAS  $11.6 *new* REVIEW	4 HOUSEFULL 4 $124k on 85 screens (cum. $2)
5 TERMINATOR DARK FATE $8.4 (cum. $85.2) PODCAST	5 LINDA RONSTADT... $43k on 59 screens (cum. $4) REVIEW

In a not quite as usual as you'd expect occurence all four new wide releases, were lined up 1-2-3-4 with no interruption from holdovers at the top of the box office. None of them really lit the box office on fire but Roland Emmerich's latest action epic did decent business up top. For platform titles, the big story was Honey Boy's surprisingly robust debut, earning $75k per theater despite being a very personal film and niche topic. A strong opening was by no means a sure thing so well done Shia Labeouf and Amazon!

Meanwhile Parasite continues to be all the rage (it's a rare foreign-language film that hits 8 figures in the US marketplace) while Pain & Glory is a steady performer. Jojo Rabbit expanded very well with a nearly $5,000 per screen average as it moved into just-barely wide release at 802 theaters with a $4 million or so weekend; all three of those titles are moving confidently into awards season. What did you see this weekend?

Abe's Sundance 2019 Wrap

Abe Fried-Tanzer closing out his Sundance coverage for TFE. Thanks, Abe!

Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat in ANIMALS (2019)

The Sundance Film Festival is officially over, closing out a busy week and a half of nonstop movies. I managed to catch 46 titles this year, most of which I enjoyed. Among them were the Grand Jury Prize winners from the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Clemency, and the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, The Souvenir, both of which were written up by Murtada. While I appreciated both of those films, here are my choices for BEST of the fest in various categories... 

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