Review: Will Smith's Oscar hopeful "Emancipation"

please welcome new contributor Ankit Jhunjhunwala...

Will Smith stars in "Emancipation"

by Ankit Jhunjhunwala

It is arguable that all movies benefit from a theatrical experience - though some do more than others. The benefits are not merely technical (superior audio & video quality) but also behavioral. A paying public in a cinema is a captive audience and usually sticks with a film to the bitter end. At home, on streaming platforms, abandonment is easy and, by all accounts, frequent. This latter practice is likely to hurt Emancipation, which concludes with a sensational Civil War action set piece that is sure to rouse audiences. Only they have to get through 90 minutes of airless tedium to get to it.

Emancipation is a project undoubtedly born out of noble intentions. The infamous Whipped Peter photograph, showing the horrifically lacerated back of a Black man, remains a powerful contemporaneous record of the unimaginable cruelty suffered by Black Americans at the hands of white slave owners...

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Academy bans Will Smith for 10 years

by Nathaniel R

Two weeks too late the Academy has essentially asked Will Smith to leave the building. The only appropriate time to do that would have been immediately post-slap, if you ask us. But after letting him stay and deliver a tearful speech in which he apologized as well as blamed the devil, and giving him a standing ovation, they don't really have much of a moral high ground to do so now. But they had to say something... 

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Linkers Dozen

• MovieMaker Bruce Willis retires from acting after Aphasia diagnosis. Our heart goes out to him and his loved ones.
• World of Reel polled 150 critics (including me) on the best films of the 1970s. No surprise to see The Godfather top it even though it wasn't on my list (we could only choose 10-15 films each). Four of my selections made the top ten (Nashville, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, and Network)
• Pajiba great piece on Ryan Reynolds turning himself into a brand while becoming blander as an actor

More after the jump including Essie Davis, Chang Chen, Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, and the aftermath of The Slap at the Oscars... 

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What's next for this season's Oscar-nominated actors?

We already looked at what's next for 2021's most celebrated directors so let's turn our attention to the actors who received those coveted Oscar nominations. Whatever will they do for encores? Let's start with the winners...

WILL SMITH
Before his long-awaited Oscar win and that unfortunate slap, he'd already completed work on Antoine Fuqua's action film about a runaway slave called Emancipation (due at some point this year) and then Bad Boys 4 thereafter. Because he's a massive star he is attached, as an actor or producer, to another 40+ movies or television projects though obviously most of them won't get made. It's a miracle any projects get made really given how difficult it is for the stars, money, and scheduled to align in Hollywood on anything! People might need a break from Smith after this week of controversy and thinkpieces but they won't get a long one. 

TROY KOTSUR
The true test about whether CODA meant anything to Hollywood beyond a chance to feel proud of themselves  and inclusive while voting for it, is if they actually take deaf talent seriously thereafter. We hope they do...

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94th Academy Awards in Review: Slaps, Tears, and Confusion. "And the Oscar goes to... Mixed Messaging"

by Nathaniel R

Nicole reacts... to what? I was sent this image but it applies to the whole show really

"What just happened?" the question ricocheted across the room at our Oscar party last night. We weren't yet drunk enough to have lost the thread but confusion reigned.

Having cut the cords years ago we were watching the Oscars via the "live TV" on Hulu, putting us at the mercy of not just ABC and Hulu but a temperamental 5G internet connection in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. We heard Chris Rock making a pretty low G.I. Jane joke at Jada Pinkett-Smith's expense (we were already aware that she lost her hair due to Alopecia and how could Rock not be aware of that?) When Smith lept on stage and approached Chris Rock with what looked like aggression we knew something was up. But wait, is this a comic bit? Smith was laughing seconds earlier. Abruptly, true story, our screen-mirror connection cut out and the menu screen appeared. When we restored the connection a few seconds later, Chris Rock was doing his presenting job (the category now forgotten) but he looked and sounded a bit rattled. We missed the whole verbal exchange too. "What just happened?" No one in the room had the answer.

But dear reader, the booze kept flowing, the pizza (sans licorice) and fried chicken (in honor of The Power of the Dog) kept being devoured, and the Oscars kept "going to"...

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