Cinema and Popcorn

In a year where I feel there's no clear frontrunner and that every frontrunner feels like a fragile one, it seems the Best Picture winner will be a "vanilla win". Everything seems to point (unclearly) to Anora 's win at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood (a Palme d'Or plus a strong combo of PGA/DGA/WGA wins suggest it is the strongest contender of the bunch), which is threatened by Conclave 's late ascension with the BAFTA win for Best Film and the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast in a Motion Picture.  Interesting fact is how Best International Film will play since the "Karla Gate" (the Karla Sofia Gáscon 's revealed past tweets with controversial views on sensitive subjects) hurt Emilia Pérez 's Oscar chances. Will it win Best International Film? Will it prevent Zoe Saldaña from winning Best Supporting Actress despite her clean sweep of precursors? Or will it generate an anti-cancellation movement and generate a...

The award season has started with the NBR and AFI naming their best movies of the year, two of the trifeca (NYFCC and LAFCA), the Golden Globe nominations and the Critics' Choice Awards nominations (the later being the one I consider the least relevant predict-wise, since it seems mostly based on the GoldDerby pundits predictions as an attempt to get a strong correlation with the final Oscar nominations) - so, it's time to publish my new Oscar nominations predictions for the 97th edition of the Academy Awards BEFORE the Golden Globes ceremony and the SAG Award and BAFTA Award nominees are announced! The big distributors have already selected their "champions", the ones they will campaign aiming for the cinematic gold, which is an important element to have in mind, since it's extremely unlikely for a film to pop at the Oscars without a proper "behind the scene" promotion games. And there's the "Oscar type", a concept that has been changing l...

Genre: Horror; Drama; Comedy Director: Coralie Fargeat Writer: Coralie Fargeat Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid As a non-fan of horror flicks, I consider 2024 to be one of the most interesting years for the genre. For me, The Substance represents the genre peaking both in its style and in its utility: a movie that's both spellbiding but also makes you look away from its visual narrative; and a movie that comments society's obsession with beauty and perfection but also mocks it and offers a view of the ugly side of the coin. For its style and substance, The Substance might well be one of the most daring, smart and interesting movies I've seen in years! The movie starts with the star of Elizabeth Sparkle in Hollywood Walk of Fame, from its very beginning and going through time, losing interest from those who pass by, starting to crack and being covered in ketchup. It all plays like a brief summary of The Substance 's narrative and it's inte...

Awards season is ready to start and distributors are already lining their contenders. After the indie Winter & Spring and a lackluster Summer seasonl, it seems there aren't many contenders that had their releases outside of a film festival this year. Sure Thanksgiving and Christmas season always have a word to say concerning the Oscar potential of more commercial cinematic ventures, but I consider the biggest players have already screened in Cannes, Venice, Telluride and TIFF.  To understand the Oscar game, we have to have some points in mind: #1 - it kinda plays like a presidential election in the way your party (AKA distributor) needs to champion the movie and land a FYC campaign; #2 - Best Picture nominees are chosen through a preferential balloting system, which means the love towards a movie plays a big part in the game while not liking the movie does not (you can't "unvote" a movie or block the AMPAS members of picking it);  #3 - the first critics' award...

Genre: Romance; Comedy. Director: Greg Berlanti Writer: Rose Gilroy Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Ray Romano, Anna Garcia, Jim Rash and Woody Harrelson The rom-com genre isn't properly alive these days, specially during Summer season considering the amount of sci-fi/adventure, squels, animated and super-hero movies that usually get released at this time of the year, but Fly Me to the Moon cracks the blockbuster-busy schedule at movie theatres. But Fly Me to the Moon is movie with a big production budget that was meant to streaming service, but... is it any good? The answer is: yes, it is very good and I am glad Apple decided to give it a theatrical run! It's pure entertainment, elevated by an interesting premise and graced by a charismatic performance by Scarlett Johansson. The movie starts with the ups and downs (mostly the downs) of the Apollo 11 pre-mission in the aftermath of a series of unsuccessful previous atempts to reach the Moon - it's meant to...

Genre: Comedy; Action; Romance. Director: Richard Linklater Writers: Richard Linklater & Glen Powell Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio & Retta Audiences who go watch it expecting a grand cinematic experience might feel it as a bit of a letdown, but if they're open to embrace Hit Man 's small scaled filmmaking with a spicy (and quite funny) touch, then they will have one of the most rewarding time at the movies of the last couple of years. Hit Man is a delicious film, not perfect, but quite audience-friendly. It's pretty mainstream, but it's pretty good also! Richard Linklater is better known for audience-friendly movies like Dazed and Confused (1993) or School of Rock (2003), but also for some quite prestigious titles like the Before trilogy, Tape (2001) or Boyhood (2014). With Hit Man , Linklater seems to find the perfect combo between his two "categories" of works of his filmography. His latest title might draw some similarities...

Genre: Drama; Sci-fi. Director: Denis Villeneuve Writer: Denis Villeneuve & Jon Spaihts Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Souheila Yacoub, Christopher Walken, Stellan Skarsgård,  Charlotte Rampling and Léa Seydoux Dune (2021) was a very good movie, which featured fantastic visual and technical aspects - a movie meant to be admired rather than fully lived mostly because of the "half plotline" from the source material - but then you understand it was all about setting the plot foundations for the cinematic spectacle of Dune: Part Two . It's a movie that will please both fans and non-fans of the first film. In fact, I'm grateful I live in the same time it was made because it allowed me to experience it on a theatre. I was immersed, astonished and utterly marveled with this one! Dune: Part Two starts at the exact same place and time where it left us in 2021's film an...