Cinema and Popcorn

Last sunday, the Oscars took place in a ceremony with no big surprises, no big thrills and no huge iconic moments... but it got some all timers as winners: Cillian Murphy 's win for Oppenheimer still amazes me (such an internal and subtle performance getting the gold), The Zone of Interest in Best Sound (chilling and perfectly balanced work), Poor Things in Best Costume Design and Best Production Design and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar for Best Live Action Short Film (marking Wes Anderson 's first Oscar win of his career). On the other hand, I felt sad for Lily Gladstone not winning Best Actress for Killers of the Flower Moon (such a soulful devastating performance), but Emma Stone was also a very worthy winner for playing the charismatic Bella Baxter in Poor Things . In a night Oppenheimer won big (and its Summer "nemesis" Barbie only took Best Original Song, turning Billie Eilish  into the youngest double Oscar winner in history), there were few films tha...

Genre:  Comedy; Drama; Sci-fi. Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Writer: Tony McNamara Starring: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott and Kathryn Hunter Yorgos Lanthimos has made some of the most weird and brilliant (and unconventional) comedies of the last decade ( The Lobster and The Favourite ), but he reaches his peak as one of the greatest cinematic geniuses with Poor Things - a social comment on the role of women and their objectification and the search for liberation disguised as a comedic journey of an incredible woman connecting with the world. In fact, Poor Things is a lot of things, but it manages to be always entertaining, funny and even tragic sometimes. It's the best 2023 film I've seen! The movie starts by presenting us a woman who we later discover to be named Bella, who was brough back to life by a scientist, Dr. Godwin Baxter, who was a product of his father's experiments himself. Bella starts developing as a child trapped...

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 ...

I'm still having a look back at the past decade of movies, which means... more lists! It's not always about delivering the best performance in order to be considered one of the greatest actors of a decade - it also takes the ability to open a big production movie, to turn a small indie into a box-office hit or work with some of the most prestigious directors/auteurs these days. That's how I made this list: performances + prestige movies + box-office numbers! And we've got our last decade's biggest female movie stars: