Middleburg Day 1: "Lion" is a winner

By Nathaniel R

Sheila Johnson welcomes you!Salamander

Middleburg Film Festival, now in its fourth year and just an hour outside of Washington DC, is a rising festival to watch. Most of the festival's big events take place at the Salamander Resort and Spa which sits on 340 beautiful acres. The rooms are gorgeous -- I even have a nice little terrace to sit on while typing up these diaries for you. In short, this is a destination festival rather than a 'drop in for a film or two or two after work' type big city festival. Emma Stone and Damien Chazelle are coming into town for La La Land and other luminaries appear for their films, too.

The festival, which has an Oscar hopeful heavy lineup, was founded by the African-American billionaire Sheila Johnson (co-founder of BET network) who welcomed us to the opening night screening. The event was in the resort's huge ballroom and I was surprised to be very happy and pleased with the screen size and sound since non-traditional venues at regional festivals can sometimes present challenges.

 The opening night film was the lost child / adoption drama Lion. True to early buzz we've heard the movie is quite wonderful...

Click to read more ...

Rooney Mara: Pop Star

by Murtada

Rooney Mara and Sia is the collaboration we didn't know we wanted, but which makes perfect sense. Mara's impenetrability meshes well with Sia’s desire to remain unknowable. Not that Mara is playing Sia..

Click to read more ...

Red Carpet: TIFF Finally Does Couture

Jose here. Color me impressed with all the couture at Toronto this year! Congrats to stylists for bringing it, and when there are so many great looks to discuss, let's get to it. Amy Adams is the epitome of "if it ain't broke", she has rarely looked sexier than she does in this simple Tom Ford design. Her Rita Hayworth-esque locks and the perfect earrings might just make this her best look in years. No one can pull off as many shades of yellow as Emma Stone as proved by this textured Chanel minidress, which sees her at her most playful. Rooney Mara wearing color warms my heart, especially when it's such bold pieces as this Aouadi bolero dress, knowing the unique design was more than enough, her makeup and accessories are minimal, love that the strappy sandals make it look as if she's floating. Lupita Nyong'o in Carolina Herrera is the thing fashion photographers dream about, gotta love her red lipstick too. Can she do any wrong? The answer is no.

More looks after the jump. 

Click to read more ...

Best Acting. New Oscar Predictions

Having just taken a trip back to 1984 for the Smackdown and memory sufficiently jogged about how dense the acting branch can sometimes be (the discernment skills vary so much annually it can feel like invasion of the AMPAS body snatchers in some calender years) I'm finding myself in the odd position of defending my more extreme hunches from my more cynical side.

Huppert is amazing... and (more importantly) Huppert-esque in ELLEBEST ACTRESS
Whenever you make a call here suggesting that so & so in some non-Oscary film actually has a shot at an acting nomination, people are prone to scoff. But each year's Oscar races have so many intangibles in the acting categories that it's best to keep an open mind. The four acting categories are arguably the categories that are least beholden to the actual movies since a famous actor doesn't need a strong picture to generate buzz nor do they (in some cases) even need for people to actually like their movie they're in or, in fact, see it. And then you have the vaguely opposite case where a particular movie, whether or not people actually warm to it as a whole, can remind the world how fabulous a particular actor or actress always has been...

Click to read more ...

Actresses We Love & the Festivals They Are Going To

Murtada here. It’s the week of fall film festivals announcements. We just heard that The Bening is going to New York. Lupita Nyong'o and Rosamund Pike are going to both London and Toronto. Let’s check in with a few others who are going to Venice, Toronto and possibly Telluride (Telluride doesn’t announce its program until its first day but if a film is announced as a Canadian Premiere at TIFF, and it hasn’t appeared at Sundance, it’s assumed to be Telluride bound).

Sally, Dakota, Rooney and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...