March. That's a Wrap

The first quarter is done. Wheeee. We didn't escape the post-Oscar malaise that hits every year just after all that golden hoopla so we spent most of the month obsessing over Feud and Big Little Lies but hopefully we'll be roaring back to creative life in April. Here are a dozen highlights from March in case you missed any of them.

Grease 2 (1982) random thoughts on a bad movie we love
RuPaul's Drag Race goes Gaga
Three Billboards Frances McDormand slays in the trailer
The Glass Menagerie the classic reinvented, new Broadway run
Animated Tease will it be a rough year for Animated Features?
Interview: Melissa Leo on playing 'the most hated woman' 

Beauty & The Beast (1991) ranking the songs
Buffy's 20th Manuel's instagram project 
Three Fittings: The Pirate (1948) a hallucinatory musical
Interview: Celine Sciamma on her rich coming-of-age screenplays
The Furniture: The Love Witch (2016) a cohesive vision 
Barry Jenkins his follow up project to Moonlight 

Coming in April: Nathaniel and Jason at Tribeca Film Festival, Anne-Marie returns via the TCM festival, revisits to Ladyhawke (1985), Tom Jones (1963), Election (1999), and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964). Plus Feud's conclusion, Celeste Holm Centennial, The Fate of the Furious, Free Fire, Smackdown news (once we nail juries down), Pedro Almódovar, Barbra Streisand's 75th, and a special mini-series on rising young actors (as a brief break from always focusing on actresses).

89th Academy Awards. That's a Wrap

Another Oscar season wraps up. It's all over but the memories and the future debates. Here is a complete guide to our coverage in case you missed any of these pieces...

• New Facts & Trivia Interesting developments
• Twist Ending & The Winners List Surreal but fascinating
• Jimmy Kimmel  How'd he do as host?
• Emma Stone ♥︎s Moonlight In the press room
• Pic / Director Split Is this the new normal? 

• Moonlight's Missing Speech What we lost in the snafu
• Oscar Packages they really biffed the craft presentations this year!
• Viola's Speech Great or too much?
• Best Oscar Tweets Fun 140 character reactions
• Oscar Stage Design They're obsessed with art deco

• Warren vs Faye Reader poll - VOTE
• Only one "Woke" at a time - Oscar = always problematic
• Faces in the Crowd  So much variety in the surprise looks
• 5 Most Handsome Men Chris, Riz, Mahershala, Ryan, Dev
• Kevin O'Connell Wins! It only took 21 nominations

• 13 Fav Photos Celebrity beauty & randomness
• Random Leftovers Screengrab thoughts
• 10 Best Gowns from our fashion guru Jose 
• Podcast The Season Finale 
• The Oscar Charts in all categories 

and yet another set to add to our imaginary doll collection

AND OSCAR WINNER INTERVIEWS

• Asghar Farhadi merging theater and film for The Salesman
• Krystof Deak preps for a big career with the little Sing
• Robert Legato putting exotic animals out of business with The Jungle Book
• Rich Moore on the global resonance of Zootopia 

UP NEXT
Don't go away! We're more creative off season when we don't have so many golden statue deadlines. Pleaes like us on Facebook, sign up for a newsletter (it'll start going out weekly in March), and consider being a patron saint so that we can keep doing this.

Coming in March, the 1963 Supporting Actress Smackdown, Michelle Pfeiffer and the costumes of Scarface, Logan and King Kong and Belle and Gaston all return to the movies (so much nostalgia at the multiplex), thoughts on Big Little Lies, Jake Gyllenhaal in Life, and the 50th anniversary of Thoroughly Modern Millie... "Rasberries!". And on April 1st, new predictions for the 2017 Oscars (yes, the 2017 Oscars. Don't get it twisted like the rest of the internet)

January. It's a Wrap.

Busy month. As Januarys always are. Between the Oscar nominations, the Golden Globes, the SAG awards, the campaigns raging, and the world collapsing, it's been quite a month. In case your visits were spotty here are 15 highlights you might have missed...

What if Miranda Priestley styled the Vanity Fair covers?

8 Must Reads
Miss Orange County we pfinally started a Pfeiffer retrospective series. Have you been reading?
Interview: Denis Villeneuve the Oscar nominee talks about the shape of Arrival
Three Fittings: La La Land simplicity rules but the costume design isnt simplistic
Doc Corner Glenn on the Oscar nominated feature list
We Can't Wait our 17 most anticipated films of 2017
The Furniture tackled the tackiness of legendary bad movie The Oscar (1966)
Lunchtime Poll What cartoon should come with a trigger warning?
Film Bitch Awards I trust you've been following along?
Kissing Andrew Garfield would it make you feel better? 

7 Most Discussed
Devil Wears Prada musical? They're taking it to the stage
Vanity Fair Hollywood Cover -Annie Liebovitz attacks
Isabelle Huppert & Other French Icons - César vs. Oscar in the stats
Oscar Snubs This Season Annette Bening, Sing Street, Cameraperson, etc
8 Big Takeaway of Oscar Nominations - untrustworthy buzz, Michael Shannon, etc
Team Experience Awards - Moonlight, Zootopia, Jackie and more win prizes
Nathaniel's Top Ten List -20th Century Women, The Witch, Arrival and more...

Coming in February
The Supporting Actress Smackdown for 2016, a Laura Dern celebration for her 50th birthday, lots of Oscar madness, a look back at Grease 2, favorite kisses for Valentines Day, 50 Shades Darker, and more.

Best of Year: Nathaniel's Top Ten

We've reached the end of our Year in Review List Making if not the end of the year in review list making -- wait wha?!. Which is to say that we still have our own awards nominations (both Oscar and fun extras) in some 40 categories to come. That's right. It's time for the annual Film Bitch Award Nominations -- our 17th annual prizes (gulp) -- which begin with the age-old tradition of the top ten list.

But first...

HONORABLE MENTION

If The Salesman borrows too liberally from Asghar Farhadi's masterpiece A Separation so be it (let's face it -- all the great auteurs steal from themselves. This is how we recognize their films). It's a riveting drama exposed by destabilizing cracks in the foundations.

Sing Street was the year's most rewarding nostalgia piece causing flashbacks of teenage identity experiments and that usually short lived  'i could be a pop star!' phase. And what a fantastically fresh cast.

Viggo Mortensen's uniquely out of place and time persona (think about it: he could be from any country or era) is a huge boon to the thought-provoking Captain Fantastic. Writer/director Matt Ross harnesses Viggo's energy for a head-first sprint into the woods of non-conformity but those idealogical woods thin out and soon enough we're face-to-face with reality.

The Fits' unique character as something of a mystical movement film had us levitating. Its hard-to-pin-down allegory wasn't so much tentative and amorphous as thrillingly ambiguous...

Click to read more ...

ICYMI Year in Review

We'll finish up our Year in Review lists with Nathaniel's Top Ten List (and with it the daily Film Bitch Award Nominations in all Oscar-like and beyond categories) in the next couple of days but until then, please catch up with all the lists we've already made celebrating this amazing film year while the Academy starts filling out their ballots (today's the day). 

Surely you missed one of these lists or forgot to share your favorite on social media (hint hint *shameless* plug plug)

Movie Cats of the Year 
From The Legend of Tarzan's nuzzling pride on to Isabelle Huppert's pussies.

Grief and Letting Go 
Kubo and the Two Strings, Manchester by the Sea and more dealt with losing parents...

Click to read more ...