Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 9:22AM 
Barry Jenkins was in Rome Sunday to promote If Beale Street Could Talk. Was he...
...so overwhelmed with the adulation that he passed out on the red carpet?
...just really jet-lagged?
...super chill about his glamorous life as an auteur?
... Other ______ (write in votes accepted in the comments)
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 12:10PM by Nathaniel R
It's the first official awards announcement of the season! The Gotham Awards, the East Coast's answer to the Independent Spirit Awards, have announced their nominations with the palace intrigue tragicomedy The Favourite and the existential heavy drama of First Reformed sharing the lead with 3 matching honors each: Best Feature, Best Screenplay, and one acting citation (a special ensemble prize for the former and Ethan Hawke for the latter). One assumes that they'd have both been nominated for director, too, but one of the quirks of Gotham is that they don't have a Director category, only a category for brand new directors and we love the nominees there, especially Bo Burnham for Eighth Grade and Ari Aster for Hereditary.
Other films receiving much needed good news since they were released before the fall glut and needed awards bodies to be reminded of them over the next few months: Leave No Trace, The Wife, Sorry to Bother You, and The Rider. The complete nominations and a few more comments after the jump...
Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 12:30PM As the New York Film Festival winds down, here's Murtada Elfadl with some of his favorite performances from the movies he's screened.
Sakura Ando in Shoplifters
Shoplifters, Japan's Oscar submission, is about familial bonds that unite with love and real connection rather than blood. Ando plays Nobuyo, the matriarchal figure in this family of outsiders. Her character is the wisest, always knows more than the other characters in any situation. She’s in charge emotionally and that needs an actor who's restrained yet immediate and easy with feelings. She always has the emotional truth in the scene whether her character is having a tender moment with a lover, or facing up to ignorant authority.
Ando shines everytime she’s on screen, yet there’s one moment that is forever marked in my memory...
Tuesday, September 18, 2018 at 4:00PM by Nathaniel R
Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy are a dream together in "First Man"
Festival season is a relentless sprint. NYFF screenings are already underway and Middleburg is right after that so herewith a few quick notes on two TIFF movies whose directors are coming off of their most successful film yet two years ago and an Oscar year where they competed against each other quite famously though both left with Oscars (Barry Jenkins for writing Moonlight and Damien Chazelle for directing La La Land). I personally loved both of those movies but I think Barry Jenkins won the first round and Damien Chazelle takes the second . I realize they're not actually competing with each other. They're friends. Prizes for everyone! Yay for talent. We just like talking awards. It's a sickness. Okay, quick takes here we go...
Friday, July 13, 2018 at 5:11PM • Out Scarlett Johansson leaves the upcoming trans drama Rub & Tug post-backlash
• THR In unrelated news Scarlett is finally getting her Black Widow solo movie. Australian Cate Shortland (Lore) will direct, beating out finalists Amma Asante and Maggie Betts.
• MovieMaker the 25 coolest film festivals in the world (the giant A list fests are not listed in favor of quirkier ones that use their location in interesting ways.)
• Gizmodo only one Blockbuster video store is still open in the United States!
More after the jump including Die Hard, Danai Gurira, Tab Hunter, Joss Whedon, If Beale Street Could Talk, West Side Story revival, and more...
