FYC: Christine Baranski in "A Bad Moms Christmas"

By Spencer Coile 

As this year's Oscar race heats up, two performances appear to be our Supporting Actress frontrunners: Allison Janney in I, Tonya and Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird. These two veterans share more in common than scene-stealing roles in their respective films. They are each renowned television actresses (with 13 Emmy nominations and 10 wins between the two of them). With careers spanning decades and their biggest success arguably coming from TV, there is something deeply satisfying about seeing these two respected television actresses be paid their dues for film as well.

That said, there is another 2017 performance in the same vein that merits some discussion: Christine Baranski in A Bad Moms Christmas... 

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A First Trailer for Haigh's "Lean on Pete"

Chris here. Andrew Haigh's adaptation Lean on Pete made it all through the fall festival season with only a few stills to entice us. But now we have a gorgeous new trailer to feast our eyes upon ahead of the film's March release. You might recall that the film's young star Charlie Plummer won the young actor Marcello Mastroianni prize at the Venice Film Festival - looks like we've got one of 2018's major breakthroughs, as he has the plum role of the kidnapped John Getty in Christmas's All the Money in the World.

After the impressive triple punch of Weekend, 45 Years, and HBO's short-lived Looking, we are ready to line up to anything Haigh delivers. But this story of a boy escaping home with the horse he tends to seems like an interesting narrative progression for the writer/director, and his keen emotional insights seem to be perfectly calibrated to study a troubled teen. And he looks to deliver some of his most gorgeous visuals

With this and The Rider, Chloe Zhao's horse-centric festival darling and Indie Spirit nominee, it looks to be a big spring for horses on the indie scene. Insert your "Andrew Hayyyyy" joke here. What do you think of this first trailer?

Rob's Got Whosits & Whatsits Galore

by Jason Adams

I'm still traumatized (yes I know that's a strong word, but I need a strong word to get across the scope of the trauma) by the fact that we won't be getting Sofia Coppola's version of The Little Mermaid, so perhaps I'm not the best person to report this news, but here we are. Rob Marshall, the man who inflicted Nine upon the world, has according to Deadline been offered the gig of updating the Beloved Disney Classic to live-action. They say he will make up his mind over the holidays...

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Blueprints: "Juno"

This week Juno celebrated its tenth anniversary, so Jorge takes a look at how Diablo Cody’s iconic dialogue was inflicted with meaning by the cast.

Juno first hit theaters ten years ago as a low budget indie hopeful. It ended its run as a major box office hit and Oscar favorite. It was the movie that put Ellen Page on the map, boosted Jason Reitman’s career, and gave us arguably the definitive Jennifer Garner performance. 

Screenwriter Diablo Cody won the Oscar for her debut screenplay, and she instantly became a recognizable name, the way many directors but few writers are. And not without merit. One of Juno’s biggest legacy is its quick-witted, snarky dialogue that, many times since then, has tried to be replicated...

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"Shape of Water" way way out front at the Critics Choice Awards

by Nathaniel R

As always, full disclosure: I am a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association. So this award announcement is always filled with anxiety for me because I want to be heard. We all want to be heard. Nevertheless most of the longer shots I rallied for didn't make it, he said, pushing away a single tear. The Shape of Water led with 14 nominations... and it was so far out front it nearly doubled the nominations afforded to its nearest rivals (a clump of them jammed together with 8 nominations each:  Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, Dunkirk, and The Post).

As ever I'm disappointed that the nominations double so heavily as "general Oscar pundit predictiveness" but here they are in their fullness with very immediate and perhaps too impulsive commentary after the jump.

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