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...

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...

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...