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

Personally, I think 2023 was a year for the cinema history books. Overall, there were a LOT of good movies. It was a year of many great directors' comeback - Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Greta Gerwig, Todd Haynes, Alexander Payne, Yorgos Lanthimos, Hayao Miyazaki, Jonathan Glazer or Ava DuVernay - and each one have presented us some of their best works so far. Still, there were a lot of less estabilished names that also brought some unique pieces of cinema - from Celine Song to A.V. Rockwell and Chloe Domont, just to name a few - wich made 2023 even more interesting.  From big names in the industry to bright new voices in cinema, here I am to present you those I consider to be the 10 Best Movies of 2023. Special mention to Chloe Domont's Fair Play, which I dropped from #10 after watching Society of the Snow - I loved the whole movie and its subject has stayed with me since the first watch that I feel "unthankful" not having it making my personal T

The awards season has begun with the first award bodies announcing their respective nominees/winners. New York Film Critics Awards are one of the most prestigious prizes of the season - and the oldest critics association's prize in the U.S. - and they often put some early contenders right in the front of the awards race or they can start some strong buzz around a specific (overlooked) film or individual achievement in film. This year, NYFCC just boosted the early predictions regarding a Killers of the Flower Moon & Oppenheimer triumph, while the NBR and AFI made very clear which films are "a thing" this season. Only Barbie , The Holdovers , Killers of the Flower Moon , Maestro , Oppenheimer , Past Lives and Poor Things have made both NBR Top 10 and AFI Motion Pictures of the Year lists, which makes a solid case for Oscar prospects for these. Here are the lists: NEW YORK FILM CRITICS WINNERS Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon gets a huge boost here as

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

Just like Best Actress, the Best Actor race also feels like anyone's game considering all the viable (and quite baity) possibilities. From Best Picture competitive vehicles, to traditional biopics, to highly original narratives, it seems Best Actor race has it all this year, which makes predicting it even more tricky. Of course Best Picture players and biopics make for the most obvious choices, specially if they have a big distributor campaigning for it, but the AMPAS is getting edgier than ever and I could see some "surprise" nominees in the final nominees shortlist like Barry Keoghan ( Saltburn ) or Andrew Scott ( All of Us Strangers ). The first spot goes to the current Best Picture frontrunner's star - Cillian Murphy , for Christopher Nolan's  Oppenheimer - since his amazing turn (very internal, yet so potent!) in one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year (and the highest-grossing biopic of all time from a director who's overdue for some Os

The "supporting" categories are extremely co-related with the Best Picture race in the way "supporting players" tend to coattail with the movie's campaign for that category, but this year there are many buzzy acting turns that are buzzy on their own. Oscar trivia shows the most usual number of Best Supporting Actress nominees from a Best Picture contender is... 3! But sometimes they are only 2 (88th Oscars), sometimes they can even be 5 (89th Oscars)! So, with the end of the strikes on sight, we should start seeing the actors and actresses doing some press and attending some events and it will give us a better perspective about the campaign that are set to start. Still, a big question mark still is The Color Purple - will it be good? The trailer seems to put on a big show and the Broadway musical was pretty successful, but will it be a good cinematic adaptation? I feel people still have a lot of love for Spielberg's adaptation starring Whoopi Goldberg and I

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

Genre: Drama Director: Christopher Nolan Writer: Christopher Nolan Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh and Benny Safdie Oppenheimer is good... in fact it is quite good! I believe it is the most assured movie Christopher Nolan has ever made in his career. It doesn't mean it is my favorite movie of his, but here you feel he is in full control of every dimension of his movie at the same time: narrative, style, acting and technical aspects. Technically, this movie seems perfect - everything is in perfect harmony with everything - but there's a lot of information going on-screen and it is a movie that demands you to be focused. The movie switches from a narrative line to another: the central storyline, which tells the story of Oppenheimer and how his personal and professional life have led him to the creation of the atomic bom; then there's Lewis Strauss' public hearing (the black and white par

With the announcement of the TIFF lineup, I believe it's time to look at the current state of the race according to what each big distributor has on its plate. Of course there will be movies without a distributor that will be picked during Fall film festival season that are not being considered here (like Elliot Page's starring vehicle Close to You, Kristin Scott Thomas directorial debut North Star or Michel Franco's Memory) and they might actually shake the Oscar predictions of Oscar predictions folks. The thing is... with the recent WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, I believe this year's early releases might actually benefit from the lack of promotional campaigns (specially from actors, which always boost the movies' profiles). Let's not forget this is a war against the billion-dollar studio-system and not against the independent/auteur films A24 Past Lives :  After winning rave reviews in Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival (where it was in