The DGA shakes things up with a Mangold nomination

by Cláudio Alves

The guilds are going wild for James Mangold's A COMPLETE UNKNOWN.

The Directors Guild of America has had its say, nudging the awards season in one clear direction. And that is the way for A Complete Unknown, James Mangold's latest biopic which has amassed strong box office numbers and now is a threat for a Best Director Oscar nomination. Nathaniel was right to predict him in our first round of Team Experience punditry. But along with Mangold's inclusion come many notorious absences, including Jon M. Chu, whose best chance at a major Best Director prize was this guild honor whose tastes run closer to the Hollywood mainstream than the Academy's branch tends to be. Denis Villeneuve and Coralie Fargeat are also nowhere to be found, while RaMell Ross and Payal Kapadia were only honored in the First Feature category. 

Discover the complete list of DGA nominees after the jump…

Click to read more ...

Oscar Volley: Venice and Cannes loom over Best Director

Here's Nathaniel R and Elisa Giudici on the Best Director race...

ANORA, Sean Baker | © NEON

NATHANIEL: Elisa, my far away friend, I miss attending festivals with you. One of the greatest joys of film festivals, as opposed to normal moviegoing / movie coverage, is that it's a departure. It's both more intimate (you're choosing a bunch of films to watch alone even if you're discussing them later with strangers and friends) and more expansive: generally speaking you see films from all over the world (if you're doing it right) and it's more auteur-focused. The latter brings us to today's volley topic: BEST DIRECTOR...

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: Chinese Rappers, Wildfires, Queer History and More in These 8 Documentary Shorts

By Glenn Dunks

Short films, whether they be documentary or fiction, are a curious form. What may work in a feature-length film may not work in a short and vice versa, and this can make critiquing them a sometimes tricky prospect. To sit down and watch one often means to set aside the sort of internal critical devices we may use for a feature-length film, typically eschewing the things we may normally look for in films.

By their very nature, we don’t get to spend enough time in their ephemeral worlds but I do not care for short films that feel like truncated version of larger stories. They don’t necessarily have to tell an entire story, but they have to feel like a completed thought, mood, or idea.

Some of the short documentaries that I have been watching have been just that, others less so.

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: How much has the changing Academy changed the Best Documentary category ?

By Glenn Dunks

Among all of the talk happening since the Oscar nominations, a good deal of attention has been paid to the role the new roster of Academy members might have played in what we were given. With good reason, too, considering the nomination list reads rather obviously as the awkward merging of two very different kind of voters. Virtually every category has something for both the old and the new guards – or, at least what we perceive to be the old and the new guards. 

Even a category like Best Sound Editing has a horror movie and a Mexican domestic drama sitting next to musical biopics and action blockbusters. In Best Makeup and Hairstyling you'll see standard old/overweight and royalty makeup side-by-side with a curious Scandi whatsit. And doesn’t it feel odd to imagine the same acting branch voter notching Sam Rockwell’s name for Vice and simultaneously selecting Marina de Tavira one category over?  The documentary branch is no different. Their 2018 nominees for Best Documentary Feature are even more 'new guard,' taking this idea of a shift in identity even further...

Click to read more ...