And you thought this year's Academy Awards were competitive? 2016 is already an intense battle between the two hottest properties at the Sundance Film Festival, and the latest may guarantee that next year's Oscar race won't be so white. It also promises to add a theological dimension to the canon of slavery-themed films. Just days [...]
The first Oscar Contender for 2016 (by virtually all accounts) was just purchased by Amazon for $10 million at the Sundance Film Festival. Manchester by the Sea looks to follow in the footsteps of Brooklyn, the romantic drama that saw its Oscar buzz during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival pay off (it's currently up for 3 Academy Awards including [...]
Welcome to your new Oscar front-runner. Saturday night at the annual Producers Guild Awards, The Big Short was the surprise winner of the 26th annual Darryl F. Zanuck Award for the year's Best Picture, stunning the tongue-tied producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner (fellow producer and co-winner Brad Pitt was not in attendance). Variety reported that Gardener and Kleiner "were [...]
Daniel Radcliffe's latest role is playing a farting corpse. One of the hottest tickets at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival is for Swiss Army Man, a bizarre tale about a man (Paul Dano) who befriends a farting corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) after finding him washed up on a shoreline. Hundreds of eager viewers had to be [...]
Patience, young Jedis. Without citing any reason in particular (although rumors of rewrites are the alleged cause), Variety is reporting that Disney and Lucasfilm announced today that the release date for the still-untitled Star Wars: Episode VIII - written and directed by Rian Johnson - has been pushed back from May 26, 2017 to December 15, [...]
There are always surprises. Despite largely following the script (I predicted 75 of 106 nominees, or 71% correct), there were still a number of gasps when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced their nominees for the Best in Film for 2015. I'll break those down, but first: the headline. Leading all contenders this year [...]
The final piece of the pre-Oscar Nomination puzzle is in place as the Directors Guild of America named their five nominees for Best Director of 2015. Four were expected, but one's a bit of a shocker. The 2015 DGA nominees are: Alejandro G, Iñárritu, The Revenant Tom McCarthy, Spotlight Adam McKay, The Big Short George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road Ridley Scott, [...]
“Star Wars is a specific, gorgeous concoction of George’s.” - J.J. Abrams I have to say that, just a day or so after publishing a defense as to why The Force Awakens wasn’t just lazy fan service but, rather, an intentional, loyal continuation of George Lucas’s original echoing design (click to read and watch), it [...]
The Force is still strong, but The Revenant is the first to challenge it. After a $41.6 million weekend, Star Wars: The Force Awakens becomes the first film in history to cross the $800 million mark in North America, bringing its mounting record domestic haul to $812 million in just its 24th day of release - [...]
For the first time in 18 years, a Star Wars movie sits atop the All-Time Movie Box Office List. But what's truly historic - even shocking - is how fast it got there. By only its 20th day of theatrical release in North America, Star Wars: The Force Awakens tractor-beamed in $764.4 million to become the #1 Movie [...]
I Can't Unsee That Movie: film news and reviews by Jeff Huston 