Cinema and Popcorn

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Marriage Story ’s essence is all about the script, it’s all about Baumbach’s words and silences – the actors even admitted it was all on paper – and it’s brilliant! The movie offers a raw approach to divorce and the end of a love story, which recalls its auteur own life – Baumbach is a safe bet for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. And Quentin Tarantino enters the Best Original Screenplay race again, this time with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ! Tarantino’s latest channels Hollywood and the late 60’s beautifully, plus the dialogue is top-notch and the third act is as hilarious as it is surprising: and the AMPAS loves Tarantino as the screenwriter, so, no big deal! A daring movie, with a dynamite social satire, Parasite is a big Oscar contender across the board and Best Original Screenplay is no exception. The late awards season surprise Knives Out became a much bigger Oscar contender than most people were expecting! Best Picture is on the tab...

As you know (or as “you should know” at least), Best Picture category is a special one: it’s all about the #1 votes of each member of the AMPAS! So, how does it affect the choosing of the nominees?  Well, people tend to go for movies they love rather for movies they “just” respect unless they recognize the movie they respect is undeniably good: and that’s why I have Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman in first place for a Best Picture nomination. It’s a movie some might not fall in love with, but it is a movie no one seems able to say “it’s bad” and it also benefits from the all-star names involved in the project: Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino or Joe Pesci… I know it is a Netflix movie, but I can’t picture a scenario where The Irishman is left out of Best Picture nominees shortlist.   The other movie I feel pretty confident about is Parasite – the international foreign language phenomenon, Bong Joon-ho’s latest movie is one of the most critically acclaimed movie i...

The American Film Institute (AFI) has just named their picks for the Best Motion Pictures of the Year - 2019. It's a major achievement for Netflix ( The Irishman and Marriage Story ), Sony ( Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood and Little Women ) and Warner Bros. ( Joker and Richard Jewell ) with each one scoring 2 mentions in the list. Pay special attention to Bong Joon-ho 's Parasite , which managed to get a Special Award out of the top 10 honoured movies. And the AFI's Motion Pictures of the Year are: 1917 (Universal) The Farewell (A24) The Irishman (Netflix) Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight) Joker (Warner Bros) Knives Out (Lionsgate) Little Women (Sony) Marriage Story (Netflix) Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Sony) Richard Jewell (Warner Bros) Special Award Parasite (Neon)