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...

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...