Cinema and Popcorn

I know these categories come a bit late, but to be honest nothing has changed that much since I first drawed these charts. In fact, the awards race seems like the pundits consensus in these fields, with some titles eyeing a surprise ascension at this point of the race. Funny how so many Cannes-titles have managed to enter the awards race: Anatomy of a Fall ( Anatomie d'une chute ), The Zone of Interest , The Taste of Things ( La passion de Dodin Bouffant ), Asteroid City , May December , Perfect Days or, from a certain perspective, Killers of the Flower Moon . Also, the Summer titles Oppenheimer and Barbie also managed to live-up their critical and box-office successes and their studios are campaigning them successfully. I don't remember a season with so many early titles under the consideration for the top categories, recently. It amazes me and it defies the concept of "Oscar-baity release date" - it shows that if a film is good, then it will stand the test of Su...

THE HOLDOVERS A movie that took its time in order to take over to emotional heights. The first half might feel a bit dry overall, with nothing much quite happening and no big details about Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), Angus (Dominic Sessa) or Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). Still, I started to feel the movie's beating heart right before the events that took place in the Christmas' Eve - that's when the relationship between Paul and Angus starts to develop with the complexity it requires, making for an exquisite character study of these two unloved solitary souls wandering the Barton's room during Holiday season. It features Paul Giamatti's best performance of his career (one he balances his comedy chops with an ability to generate empathy as a grinchy and lonely teacher who has never been happy) and an impressive acting debut from the young Dominic Sessa. As for Randolph... she gets an underwritten character the director only uses to give a glimpse of a grievi...

The awards season has begun with the first award bodies announcing their respective nominees/winners. New York Film Critics Awards are one of the most prestigious prizes of the season - and the oldest critics association's prize in the U.S. - and they often put some early contenders right in the front of the awards race or they can start some strong buzz around a specific (overlooked) film or individual achievement in film. This year, NYFCC just boosted the early predictions regarding a Killers of the Flower Moon & Oppenheimer triumph, while the NBR and AFI made very clear which films are "a thing" this season. Only Barbie , The Holdovers , Killers of the Flower Moon , Maestro , Oppenheimer , Past Lives and Poor Things have made both NBR Top 10 and AFI Motion Pictures of the Year lists, which makes a solid case for Oscar prospects for these. Here are the lists: NEW YORK FILM CRITICS WINNERS Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon gets a huge boost here as...

Genre: Drama; Comedy Director: Todd Haynes Writer: Samy Burch Starring: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton Todd Haynes has already presented the world some of the most exquisite pieces of cinema in recent history from cult films like Velvet Goldmine or I'm Not There to brilliant gems like Far From Heaven and Carol , but these great films might be difficult to appeal general audiences... With May December , Haynes not only offers one of the most disturbing narratives of his career but also the most acessible one. Led by a wonderful trio of performances, May December is the rare melodrama done right without falling into the soap opera realm. It's a movie full of metaphors and symbolisms: from Joe's (Charles Melton) character arc being linked to a butterfly's cycle to the cunning nature of Gracie (Julianne Moore) being represented by a fox she refuses to shoot somewhere in the film, while Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) is often mirroring Gracie and playing...

The  Best Supporting Actor race seems strangely predictable at this point, which makes me doubt my own predictions. It's seems like a category made for estabilished white actors who feel overdue for a (first) win, with the exception of maybe Robert De Niro ( Killers of the Flower Moon ). Robert Downey Jr. feels like the frontrunner to me thanks to Oppenheimer 's global success both critically and the fact he's a hugely popular actor going back to great movies now that his MCU duties are done. The performance sure is showy enough and the fact he plays a charismatic political shark gives him a hand full of "Oscar clips", perfect for campaigning purposes. Next, I think Downey Jr.'s MCU scene partner Mark Ruffalo has estabilished himself as one of the early frontrunners for his performance in the Golden Lion-winning Poor Things - it's said to be a high wire comedic performance and let's not forget Ruffalo has already been nominated three times in this cat...

Genre: Drama Director: Martin Scorsese Writer: Eric Roth & Martin Scorsese Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert DeNiro, Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser, Tantoo Cardinal and Cara Jade Myers Some might argue that Killers of the Flower Moon is too long and that might hurt the audiences' ability to appreciate its quality - they are not wrong, but I found Scorsese's latest a truly fascinating tale of greed and grief. The director works around the most interesting central subject he has ever handled since The Departed and I got completely engaged in the movie's narrative. Plus, Killers of the Flower Moon is exquisitely crafted and amazingly acted, making it an extremely satisfying cinematic experience at the movies. The movie starts by presenting the greatness of the Osage people and how they got insanely rich by accident and it shows how good their lives were back in the day. Then the white men arrive and things start getting as dirty as the oil the Osage...

Just like Best Actress, the Best Actor race also feels like anyone's game considering all the viable (and quite baity) possibilities. From Best Picture competitive vehicles, to traditional biopics, to highly original narratives, it seems Best Actor race has it all this year, which makes predicting it even more tricky. Of course Best Picture players and biopics make for the most obvious choices, specially if they have a big distributor campaigning for it, but the AMPAS is getting edgier than ever and I could see some "surprise" nominees in the final nominees shortlist like Barry Keoghan ( Saltburn ) or Andrew Scott ( All of Us Strangers ). The first spot goes to the current Best Picture frontrunner's star - Cillian Murphy , for Christopher Nolan's  Oppenheimer - since his amazing turn (very internal, yet so potent!) in one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year (and the highest-grossing biopic of all time from a director who's overdue for some Os...

The "supporting" categories are extremely co-related with the Best Picture race in the way "supporting players" tend to coattail with the movie's campaign for that category, but this year there are many buzzy acting turns that are buzzy on their own. Oscar trivia shows the most usual number of Best Supporting Actress nominees from a Best Picture contender is... 3! But sometimes they are only 2 (88th Oscars), sometimes they can even be 5 (89th Oscars)! So, with the end of the strikes on sight, we should start seeing the actors and actresses doing some press and attending some events and it will give us a better perspective about the campaign that are set to start. Still, a big question mark still is The Color Purple - will it be good? The trailer seems to put on a big show and the Broadway musical was pretty successful, but will it be a good cinematic adaptation? I feel people still have a lot of love for Spielberg's adaptation starring Whoopi Goldberg and I...

I took a lot of time putting some thoughts about Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress races, because I feel they are extremely competitive this year, specially in the leading actress field. There's also the case of Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, which I feel that might flip category, but the first promotional material suggest they will push her in Best Supporting Actress race, despite her being a central character AKA co-lead in the movie's narrative. Still, while I believe Gladstone would have no problem getting in Best Actress, she received the kind of reviews that elevate her to "potential Oscar winner" category and, in this way, Best Supporting Actress feels safer for Apple's search of gold. Still, I have to accept category fraud does exist and it's likely Gladstone will be one of those cases. UPDATE : Lily Gladstone will be campaigned in Best Leading Actress! Directly from the Best Supporting Actress category, Lily Gladstone entered ...

Venice International Film Festival has always been one of the most prestigious cinematic events of the year, but it has become the very first stop for the pre-awards season. Ever since 2017, when Del Toro's The Shape of Water won the Golden Lion for Best Film that the festival's top prize winner has been a major Oscar player: 2018's Roma , 2019's Joker and 2020's Nomadland ended-up getting a Best Picture nom (with the last one winning); 2021's The Happening didn't get major award love in the US (mostly because it didn't get a major distributor able to handle an awards campaign); and 2022's All the Beauty and the Bloodshed ended-up nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. So... the Jury for the main competition named Yorgos Lanthimos ' Poor Things the Best Film of the festival, while Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist (the director of Drive My Car ) took home the Grand Jury Prize. A note about Cailee Spaeny ( Priscill...

With the delay of Dune: Part II release, I had to re-do my Oscar predictions in all categories. The thing is: I wasn't able to re-think and re-write that fast and I failed my personal deadline (before Fall film festival season) and one thing that I noted was how influenced my last predictions changes were because of the reactions coming from Venice and Telluride. TIFF remains the biggest test for most Fall Oscar hopefuls since it's the biggest festival happening in American/Canadian soil, which means it will be attended by many critics from critics associations in US, the ones who are actually responsible for the start of the awards season (and for the Oscar buzz-creation process). Personally, I consider Oscar predictions folks tend to overestimate the Fall film festival buzz - we are in that time of the year where EVERYTHING is crowned an "Oscar player", but if we recall the recent previous years, early releases can do really good in the awards trail (and even bett...