One aspect of the documentary films I’ve seen this year at Hot Docs and Inside Out Festival, is the use of musical score to add drive and liveliness to the overall storytelling. While feature films are turning to cheaper synth style music for their scores, there are a few documentary films that manage to use […]
In my lifetime, I don’t think I can remember a bigger Bollywood news story than Padmaavat. And that’s not just because I don’t care for the majority of the Indian film industry. From production day one to critical reception after release, this movie got attention to a level that rivaled the 2016 American presidential election. […]
We’re less than a month away from the 90th Academy Awards ceremony and, somewhat surprisingly, the race is just about anybody’s game. Well, not anybody. There are a select number of proper contenders and a few films that need to practice their “It was an honor just to be nominated!” reactions. But unlike in years […]
It’s been a very uncomfortable week for me as an Asian-American media consumer. It started Tuesday, with the new Doctor Strange trailer, continued Thursday as stills of Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell emerged, and concluded Saturday, when I had to stop my Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt binge after the unbearably self-satisfied episode, “Kimmy Goes […]
[Editor’s Note: I shouldn’t need to warn you about language and “adult themes” in an editorial about The Hateful Eight but… yeah] When Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene with Reservoir Dogs, it was clear the trajectory of his career was going to be built off scintillating dialogue, violence, and an underlying theme of men […]
There is a tent set up in Brooklyn, in an empty lot between the water and downtown. It is accessible only by rusty chain-link gates, guarded by men in black shirts with plastic wires coming out of their ears. We arrive in a bus with poor legroom, packed with close to a hundred Indians, Palestinians, […]
We’re excited to be at our first San Diego Comic Con! We’ll be bringing you news on some of the most anticipated new movies, TV shows and of course, comics, including nightly wrap-up podcasts. For special Deadpool coverage head to @DeadpoolChats. Check back here for our complete coverage of the event. And make sure to follow […]
For the first time in many years, the Oscar race is pretty hard to predict. Sure Best Picture has had some surprising results, Crash over Brokeback Mountain, or Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan, but this year it almost feels as though you could toss a coin and have better results. This is not […]
Last year’s piece about diversity and the Academy Awards contained some cold hard facts from the LA Times about the break of the gender, race and age of Oscar voters. Over the past couple years the Academy has been attempting to stay relevant, and clean up their bad press with regard with these statistics, they […]
I started this last year, keeping a list of every movie I see all year (just the new releases) in order to form a definitive set of personal rankings come the following January. My 2014 list started on February 9th when I saw That Awkward Moment starring Zac Efron, Miles Teller and Michael B Jordan […]
Well that happened! To say that this year’s Oscar nominees are a disappointment is a bit of an understatement. Let’s start with the first announcement, which was done by J.J. Abrams and Alfonse Cuaron. Two of the biggest locks for nominations were shut out, The Lego Movie in Best Animated Feature, and Life Itself in […]
There are a few obvious trends in the stories that dominated (and continue to dominate as the awards roll in) the 2014 cinematic season. Sociopaths had a big year (Gone Girl, Nightcrawler), as did women who walked really far (Tracks, Wild) and people who found healing through music (Rudderless, Begin Again, Frank). There was also a […]
Now that most of the critics groups have had their say, through awards and top ten lists, and the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), and Golden Globe Nominations have been announced, its time to get in some updated Oscar predictions before the end of the year. I’m working off a moderately outdated list, because the last […]
A cast of some of TV’s most wonderful people populates About Alex, the debut feature from Parenthood writer Jesse Zwick. A dramedy about college friends reunited by tragic, awkward circumstances, this ensemble dramedy dives into everything- listlessness, love (requited, unrequited, unspoken, overwrought), depression, anxiety, jealousy, pretension, ambition- only rarely losing its honesty and light touch. […]
It was the snub heard round the world. Angelina Jolie was not nominated for a single Golden Globe yesterday. Jolie was a contender for Producer/ Director on Unbroken, and in the Lead Actress in Comedy/Musical for Maleficent; she did not reap a single nomination. It will be hard for this film to rebound from this, […]
Somewhere in a high tower I imagine Harvey Weinstein is looking into a cauldron, and cackling. The Weinstein Company did exceptionally well today, their film The Imitation Game has 3, including Best Ensemble, Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Supporting Actress (Keira Knightly). I make this joke because Harvey just has a way of making these types […]
Over the next couple months, you will probably hear the phrase “Well Boyhood dominated…” or “Boyhood sweeps ‘insert critics group or award show’.” Rightfully, so! Yesterday the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) anointed Boyhood with 3 wins, Best Film, Best Director-Richard Linklater, and Best Supporting Actress-Patricia Arquette. The only other film to win multiple […]
Steve James’ documentary about Roger Ebert- filmed in the last few weeks of his life and release after his death- moved me more than any other movie in 2014 so far. The scenes shot in the hospital are harrowing, the unbelievable strength of Roger’s wife Chaz is inspiring, and the film’s dedication to portraying the […]
I know what you are thinking, yes its only September, but with festival circuit in full swing, Telluride, Venice, and Toronto, it’s time to start talking about and predicting this year’s Oscar contenders. I have held back as long as I can. The earliest “serious” contender came from the Cannes Film Festival, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher […]
The statistic all over the Internet, troubling studio executives and producers of the world, is the domestic summer box office was down 14.6 percent from last year. Some films found footing in this drought, especially good movies. I think there are lessons to be learned that could help change things, but will anyone listen? Make […]
Girls with glasses sure would be beautiful if they didn’t wear glasses, huh? That’s what the movies would have you believe, anyway. You all know what I’m talking about. It’s a classic movie trope: the bookish, plain-looking girl with glasses is picked on by everyone because she wears glasses and she’s so boring. But one […]
I thought a lot about the lighter side of male privilege while watching Obvious Child. As a woman obsessed with social justice (especially the particular form of social justice that populates opinion pieces on sites like Jezebel and HuffPost), I spend a lot of time thinking about privilege and it’s dark implications. This is not […]
“Choose the form of the Destructor!” So spake Gozer the Gozerian during the climactic scene of Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters found themselves atop Dana Barrett’s apartment building, prepared for an epic battle with supernatural forces, and poor Ray Stantz couldn’t help himself. He was only thinking of the most innocuous memory from his childhood—the Stay Puft […]
A lot of think pieces have been written about the declining necessity of movie theaters. They make my blood boil a little bit. I love the movie theater. Basically, every time I sit down in a movie theater feels like the goofy, pre-AMC-movie video where the kids are transported into a magical world while still […]