Cinema and Popcorn

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...

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 ...

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...

TALK TO ME I followed a tip: don’t watch the trailer and just go watch the movie. I did it. And I liked it a lot. While it doesn’t offer the same level of satire as Jordan Peele’s Get Out , Talk to Me is a commentary about Gen Z’s TikTok and social media culture and how things derailed because of the need of being cool, the need of being seen and universally accepted. Sophie Wilde delivers an outstanding breakthrough performance here with an unsympathetic character she approaches with sensibility – even for those who never felt any warm towards Mia, there’s no way to deny her ability to carry the whole movie – and the young Joe Bird excels in some of the most terrifying scenes. As an horror piece, Talk to Me is never too scary, but it is chilling and it features some very graphic visual horror elements that can make you look away for some bits. It is never surprising, but it can cause nail bites. The makeup team’s work should be highlighted and so does the sound department. Consideri...

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...