Oscar Volley: High Quality / Low Suspense in "Best Director"

The Oscar Volleys continue with Ben Miller and Nathaniel R talking Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson will FINALLY win an Oscar... for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

BEN: Welp Nathaniel, this felt like the most boring category of the whole Oscars a month ago. Luckily, there seems to be a bit of flux in this race. Paul Thomas Anderson seemed poised to run away with the statue, but Ryan Coogler can't stop butting in.

Before we get to that, I wanted to know your thoughts on this lineup as a whole. This certainly wouldn't be my personal lineup, but there aren't any Todd Phillips or Adam McKay mucking up the group.  How do you feel about this Best Director lineup?

NATHANIEL: What a lede to entice the readers, Ben. "Most Boring" Ha ha. But true. What I really want to know is WHY do you find it boring?

Please click all that apply...

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An Awards Night in New York

by Murtada Elfadl

Award events where the winners have already been announced have a particular way about them. The speeches are mostly prepared before, and the winners  - or their publicists and the people behind their movies - have a say in who gets to present them with the award. Last night the New York Film Critics Circle presented their 2019 awards and here are some of the presenter / winner pairings and why perhaps they’ve been chosen.

Yahya Abdul Mateen / Lupita Nyong’o…. He played her dad in flashbacks in Us

Claire Denis / Mati Diop …. Diop was in Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum...

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Review: Uncut Gems

by Chris Feil

In recent years, director duo Josh and Benny Safdie are cornering a market all their own of thriller of toxic neons and fatal consequence, after the deeply grim exploits of Heaven Knows What and Good Time. Nobody makes films quite in the way that the Safdies are making them right now, even if their particular brand of originality swims in back alley, off-putting aggressiveness. This round, their Uncut Gems is a dose of high anxiety filmmaking that’s partly Shakespearean tragedy of hubris and part underbelly crime saga in another unexamined pocket of New York City life.

Their best and most subversively accessible, it’s something enervating, infuriating, and compulsively watchable, all centered on a complex protagonist that also embodies all of the film’s contradictory qualities. That man is diamond dealer Howard Ratner, arrogantly betting off his assets and dwindling goodwill in the hopes of one massive payout, brought to exhilarating life by a possessed Adam Sandler.

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Review: "Good Time"

By Spencer Coile 

2017 has quietly become the post-Twilight year of Pattinson & Stewart. After Kristen Stewart dazzled in Personal Shopper, Robert Pattinson was given a leading role worthy of his talent in the Safdie Bros. film, Good Time. Taking place throughout the span of one night, Pattinson's Connie scrambles to get his brother Nick (Benny Safdie) out of jail after a fumbled bank heist. 

As far as plot is concerned, that is all you need to know. The Safdie brothers then let this story unfold in such quick, confident ways that all you are left to do is sit back and grip the sides of your chair...

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