Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 11:39PM 
• THR talks to Michelle Yeoh about her new film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Great 'meeting Tarantino' story and now I wish they'd have worked together
• AV Club our era of famous faces being paid lots of money for those faces to be buried / unrecognizable under prosthetics continues with Sean Penn in a Watergate thriller
Vanessa Bayer, Ewan McGregor, Anne Hathaway, and more after the jump...
Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 11:58AM Please welcome new contributor Catherine Springer
Sandra Bullock has something to prove. No matter how beloved she may be as a performer, she’s never really been taken seriously as a dramatic actress. Her Best Actress Oscar win for The Blind Side (2009) is widely considered to be one of the weakest, as many feel she won more as a nod to her popularity and successful career than for the performance itself. Bullock has always had a healthy perspective on herself and her career, and has taken all the criticism in stride. And yet, there must be a place deep inside that wants to prove to the world that she deserves her Oscar, and that she is so much more than the funny, affable girl next door.
Bullock’s starring role in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity (2013) went some of the way to proving she is more than the feel-good funny girl. But the question still remained: can Sandra Bullock deliver in a dramatic role, with no CGI or alien buffers? She's never truly played an unlikeable character, either. Can she change her brand this late in her career, and prove she can deliver in a serious and not loveable role?
The new Netflix film, The Unforgivable, proves the answer is an unequivocal yes. Unfortunately, few may hear that answer because anything she’s doing in this film that’s right is offset by everything else that is so, so wrong...
Netflix, Reviews, Sandra Bullock, The Unforgivable, Viola Davis, streaming Saturday, March 6, 2021 at 11:02AM On this day, March 6th, in showbiz history...
1853 La Traviata, Verdi's popular opera premieres in Venice. Have you ever seen the 1982 film version by Franco Zeffirelli? My parents took us, if I recall correctly. I wasn't sure what was going on but I remember it being quite beautiful. Oscar voters thought so too nominating in 'the Moulin Rouge! categories' (Costume Design + Art Direction)
Monday, November 4, 2019 at 11:13AM 
by Cláudio Alves
Some films prove their greatness by challenging the audience. Some engage the mind, others spellbind the senses, immersing those who watch them in formalistic dreams of celluloid and digital beauty. Abrasive, cerebral, immersive, cinema can be a wonder, but we shouldn't suppose there's a single path to cinematic glory.
Don't get me wrong, I love my slow cinema, my European art-house hits, and Philosophical reveries. To cry with Carol is magic, to wander through Stalker's desolation is like dreaming with open eyes and to see New York, New York is to applaud its spectacle of ambition. But a cinephile can yearn for simple pleasures, too. Sometimes, one just wants to forget life's troubles and escape, to enjoy the goofiness of a nice comedy or the sweetness of an impossible romance. Sometimes, one just needs a hug.
And I've only just discovered that While You Were Sleeping (1995) fulfills that need with the warmest of embraces…
Monday, June 10, 2019 at 1:00PM by Lynn Lee
When Speed was first released a quarter century(!) ago, the premise seemed ridiculous: Bomb on bus is triggered to go off if the speed ever drops below 50 mph. A bus in Los Angeles, no less. At rush hour! (Actually, it’s always rush hour in L.A., then as now, which only reinforces the preposterousness of the scenario.) Nevertheless, Speed managed to suspend viewers’ disbelief – and their breaths – with a combo of taut white-knuckle thrills that didn’t require elaborate special effects and light humor that relieved but didn’t distract from the constant tension.
A major hit both critically and commercially, it went on to win two Oscars (for sound mixing and sound editing) and elevate the then up-and-coming Keanu Reeves to full movie star status. Now that Keanu seems to be having another “moment” in his long and eclectic career, it feels like an especially opportune time to revisit the movie that vaulted him on to Hollywood’s A list.
How does it hold up?
