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 [...]
This is Rachel Zegler, the 17-year-old New Jersey high school student that Steven Spielberg just cast as Maria in his upcoming remake of West Side Story. Uh, gurl can *sang*, y'all. Here she is belting out Lady Gaga's "Shallow" for a mic check. (See tweet video below. And yes, she also has a YouTube channel.) [...]
Film has always been, first and foremost, a visual medium, with cinematic language being honed well before sound was finally introduced to the format. Now, to celebrate that legacy, the American Society of Cinematographers -- which was founded on January 8, 1919 -- celebrates its 100th Anniversary as a professional industry guild with the release of [...]
The nominees for the 71st Annual Directors Guild of America awards certainly don't come as a surprise. All five make sense, given the movies and artists we've seen highlighted throughout the awards season so far. Nevertheless, since Director seems to be one of this year's most competitive races there remain a slew of notable omissions. [...]
I Can't Unsee That Movie: film news and reviews by Jeff Huston 