https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5sd_wn2ztg FilmStruck is dead. Long live The Criterion Channel. In the wake of last fall's shocking demise of FilmStruck (the now-defunct streaming service collaboration between Turner Classic Movies and The Criterion Collection, which was shut down in a total blindside to subscribers when the new conglomerate Warner Media was formed), The Criterion Collection wasted no [...]
Steven Spielberg hasn’t even addressed the Academy yet, but Film Twitter isn't waiting to render its own verdict. Things have gotten so heated, it's even garnered its own trending hashtag: #SpielbergVSNetflix. Ever since it was reported that the iconic director of enduring blockbusters and Oscar-winning classics was going to speak to the Academy board about [...]
Streaming is TV. You can distill Steven Spielberg's opposition to Netflix competing for Academy Awards down to those three words. (Full disclosure: I'm #TeamSpielberg on this one.) Spielberg is about to make an official argument to the board of the Academy, the film industry org that produces the Oscars, that rules of eligibility should change. [...]
The biggest winner of the night? The Academy. (The list of actual winners can be seen at the bottom of this in-depth Oscar night analysis.) After a toxic awards season that was often completely outside of the Academy's control but was then further complicated by the Academy and its constant mishandling of how it was producing the [...]
After over forty years, the Skywalker Saga has finally been told. Now, the final chapter just needs to be put together. Writer/Director J.J. Abrams tweeted this image from the final day of shooting for Star Wars: Episode IX, when production finally wrapped. The new trilogy trio -- Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac -- [...]
First The Rider, then this, and now this?! That trinity of indie glory may anoint Chloé Zhao as the filmmaker I'm most fascinated by right now. The Rider, which I ranked #4 on my Top Ten List for 2018, was a moving breakthrough of small indepedent cinema on multiple levels, not the least of which is [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=213&v=B6uuIHpFkuo Pixar's new endeavor makes two bold statements with its debut. The first is the endeavor itself: SparkShorts, a new animated division from the legendary studio that allows for (as they describe it in the video below) "indie filmmaking inside of Pixar." With a limited time and budget, animators within their team will be allowed [...]
A lot of people can't wait to see Avengers: Endgame. What they wouldn't give to see an early cut of Star Wars: Episode IX. For me, this is the movie I want to see right now. As first reported by Deadline, lauded indie filmmaker Chloé Zhao is writing and directing a biopic about Bass Reeves, [...]
Big surprises and big snubs, all in really big categories. That's what defined the nominations for the 91st annual Academy Awards. Leading the pack with 10 nominations was (unsurprisingly) the period piece / acting showcase / dark satire The Favourite and director Alfonso Cuarón's personal passion project Roma. To get to 10, Cuarón's Mexican-language film set in [...]
And Film Twitter just lost its ever-flippin' mind. In the year of Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, and If Beale Street Could Talk, the Producers Guild of America - the Hollywood union that's an annual precursor for Best Picture contenders and winners - chose the year's most controversial film, Green Book, as the best. The PGA presented [...]