Cinema and Popcorn

Genre: Drama; Sci-fi. Director: Denis Villeneuve Writer: Denis Villeneuve & Jon Spaihts Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Souheila Yacoub, Christopher Walken, Stellan Skarsgård,  Charlotte Rampling and Léa Seydoux Dune (2021) was a very good movie, which featured fantastic visual and technical aspects - a movie meant to be admired rather than fully lived mostly because of the "half plotline" from the source material - but then you understand it was all about setting the plot foundations for the cinematic spectacle of Dune: Part Two . It's a movie that will please both fans and non-fans of the first film. In fact, I'm grateful I live in the same time it was made because it allowed me to experience it on a theatre. I was immersed, astonished and utterly marveled with this one! Dune: Part Two starts at the exact same place and time where it left us in 2021's film an...

Some people might say the guild awards don't always translate to excelence and that they are an awards vehicle for Americanized productions...! Well, that's kinda true, but they are useful precursor in what comes to Oscar predictions, specially Best Picture (and each's guild respective categories). The AMPAS is divided in multiple branches - each branch votes a certain (or more than one) specific category, but all branches' members vote for Best Picture! This means, overall guild awards support often translates to Best Picture love! Of course there are always a couple of critics' pushes that pops-up in the Oscars shortlist, but most spots in each category were previously "predicted" by the guilds. So, let's have a look at all the guilds nominations (I am not going to include SAG Awards here, since SAG was "explored" in the previous post): PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA (PGA) AWARDS Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Mot...

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The most fun about Best Original Score category is that it doesn't have a direct connection with Best Picture, like Best Editing, for example. Of course the branch has its darlings like Alexandre Desplat and Hans Zimmer who can pull nod after nod (no surprise, because both are amazing!) - and I am predicting them to be back to the race this year with The French Dispatch and Dune , respectively. After his first nomination for Phantom Thread , will Jonny Greenwood be able to nab TWO Oscar nominations? The hype sure is all around his work in The Power of the Dog and Spencer , but I feel the latter is the weakest of the two (since Campion's film has all the Best Picture buzz, which elevates it). And could Aaron and Bryce Dessner land a first Oscar nomination? The buzz around Cyrano is on the rise and the score is simply beautiful! It's a musical with an original score... no adaptation or whatever! An original musical like this is rare these days, so I be...

Now that the 2021's editions of Venice Film Festival and TIFF have announced their winners and there are the first reviews of NY Film Festival's major award hopefuls releases, I believe it's safe to start predicting which titles will compete for some major Oscar gold. A note about The Power of the Dog and Belfast which got the audiences' recognition at TIFF (with the later taking the People's Choice and The Power of the Dog received the Silver Lion at Venice). King Richard also got a lot of love at Telluride Film Festival and The Tragedy of Macbeth is getting rave reviews at New York Film Festival the moment we talk. A note to Sundance hit Sian Heder's CODA - which took home the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic - and Asghar Farhadi's A Hero , which got lots of love during Cannes Film Festival and won the film festival's Grand Prix (but since it is a foreign language film, will it get stuck in Best International Film category? I believe and I hope not). D...