Year in Review: Best Music and Soundscapes

by Nathaniel R

Are all cinephiles "visual" people or are some more sonically attuned? I ask this because in order to draw up my own lists of "bests" in the aural categories, I have to really focus to note the soundscapes. In some cases, as with the sinuous alien creepiness of Nope and the haunted bold swings of TAR, the genius is hard to miss even for those of us who are more visually oriented. If any of you have theories as to how Oscar's sound branch didn't include either in even their finalist lists, I'm all ears... no pun intended.

For the most part it's the images I remember which may explain why I am so allergic to end credit songs over a dark screen being hailed the "Best" of any given season in Original Song. Marry the images and sound and it's far more memorable and valuable to the overall film experience...

Click to read more ...

Cinema Audio Society nominees. How are they as a precursor?

by Nathaniel R

THE BATMAN

In the mad rush of guild announcements last week (all over but for the ACE Eddie awards which will curiously be announced after the Oscar nominations this year) we missed this one: The Cinema Audio Society. While Top Gun Maverick has long been marked the frontrunner for the Best Sound nomination it has formidable competition in the sound spectacle department. Nominees, comments, superhero split, and Oscar stats after the jump...

Click to read more ...

'Fire of Love' and 'Good Night, Oppy' lead the Critics Choice Documentary Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Seven years ago documentaries got their own division of Critics Choice Awards with multiple categories and thus departed the main show where they were restricted to just one. For the seventh anniversary edition the box office hit Fire of Love (read Glenn's review) about married volcanologists and the space exploration doc Good Night Oppy (for which we just led a Q&A at Middleburg) lead the nominations in 17 categories. The ceremony will be held on November 13th at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan.

UPDATED 11/14/22 What follows is the full list of nominees AND WINNERS with links going to reviews if we've done them. Thanks to Glenn's expert "Doc Corner" column and various festival peeks, we've reviewed quite a few of them...

Click to read more ...

Did you see The Woman King this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

AND WE'RE OFF... Fall film season is now underway, thanks to the wrap up of TIFF and something finally happening in the nation's theaters again. Those somethings were Gina Prince-Blythwood's action drama The Woman King and the David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream on IMAX screens, both doing fine business. Here are the charts from the weekend. We separate the wide and limited because otherwise limited release don't get any attention in stories about what people are seeing. But more people SHOULD frequent their local arthouses. 

Holiday Weekend Box Office  September 19th-21st 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
THE WOMAN KING	MOONAGE DAYDREAM
1 🔺★  THE WOMAN KING  $19 *NEW*	1 🔺★ MOONAGE DAYDREAM  $1.2 *NEW*

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: Bowie and 'Moonage Daydream' at Melbourne International Film Festival

By Glenn Dunks

Moonage Daydream is unlike any other Brett Morgen film. If you expected the same stately warmth that imbued Jane or even a tragic rock and roll epitaph like Cobain: Montage of Heck, then you would be wrong. This is evident immediately into its 140-minute runtime, beginning as it does with not just any David Bowie song, but the (incredible, it must be noted) Pet Shop Boys remix of “Hallo Spaceboy” from 1996. I love a bit of trolling the rock crowd, so I was instantly on board. The mere inclusion of this song—to say nothing of the kaleidoscopic, tie-dyed montage that accompanies it—keyed me in that Morgen wasn’t just going to do what a Bowie fan may expect from a biography documentary.

These high-octane opening minutes don’t exactly let up, either. Moonage Daydream is a work of documentary that is almost as exhausting as it is exhilarating.

Click to read more ...