Cinema and Popcorn

AFTERSUN It is a character study. More than a movie, it is a memory put on celluloid and it feels deeply personal. In fact, Aftersun is not a movie to watch, it is a movie to inhabit, because it plays in its own form, in its own voice, without any worries about what audiences might think. It is also beautiful thanks to a beautifully crafted cinematography work by Gregory Oke that assures you always feel you are scoping a very private moment from one (or both) leading characters here. As for the acting, Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio are both tremendous! Mescal proves he is one of the best actors of his generation here - his is an amazing sensibility and self-awareness that allow him to be this emotionally naked and raw on-screen. He embodies the tragedy and the inner sadness and chaos of Calum and deliver it in cinematic magic form! As for Frankie Corio, she delivers one of the best child-performances you'll ever see in years - she is able to match Mescal in what I would call "...

  GOLDEN GLOBES 2023 NOMINATIONS The absence of  Women Talking  in Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Director and in the acting categories was a major shock for me, alongside the snub of the supporting men of The Fabelmans. I was expecting the HFPA to go for a more diverse and gender-equality friendly picks, but I was wrong. Still can't believe they still picked Brad Pitt ( Babylon ) despite the domestic abuse allegations these days. About the selection of Ana de Armas ( Blonde ) and Olivia Colman ( Empire of Light ) despite their movies flopped - well, I would be fine with them but their inclusion meant Danielle Deadwyler to be snubed by her astonishing performance in  Till  (and that was simply criminal). Sad for no  Cha Cha Real Smooth  here, but pleased to see some love for  The Menu  and Dolly De Leon ( Triangle of Sadness ), although I didn't like Triange of Sadness (she was the best thing about the movie, by far). So, no big shocks he...

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE The most open Oscar races of the year seem to be the supporting acting ones. The category placement of Michelle Williams as a lead for The Fabelmans opened a huge gap in the Best Supporting Actress predictions and... God!... How exciting it really is! Sarah Polley's Women Talking has been collecting rave reviews since the day it first hit fall film festival circuit, with both Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley receiving some of the best reviews of their careers and the movie's MVPs status. Since Foy got THAT ATROCIOUS SNUB for First Man (2018) despite being in a career's sweet spot thanks to the acclaim (and popularity and awards love) of The Crown TV series, then an Academy Award nomination would not only be a recognition for her performance, but also an apology from the AMPAS. As for Jessie Buckley, she can benefit from some career hit: an impressive breakthrough performance in Beast (2017), followed by an Oscar worthy (but snubed) turn ...

BEST DIRECTOR Steven Spielberg is back in the Oscar race for the second year in a row... and now he's eyeing his 9th Academy Award nomination for Best Director! A 2 time winner already, Spielberg has met critical acclaim once again thanks to The Fabelmans , which is a tale of his own childhood and pursue of cinematic dreams - and considering it won the People's Choice Award at TIFF, The Fabelmans is both a critics darling and a crowd-pleaser! The Academy loves when directors put their own memories on the big screen (Cuarón won Best Director for Roma and Branagh won Best Original Screenplay for Belfast , recently) and Spielberg's career has been asking for a 3rd Best Director win lately! Then, there's Sarah Polley with one of the most acclaimed movies of the Fall film festival circuit: Women Talking . Critics highlight her sensivity while handling the heavy dramatic material about a group of women who deals with sexual assault by the community's men (it's far...

In the previous posts, it was all about the sound categories. Today it's all about the "visual" categories: editing, cinematography, production design, costume design, makeup & hair and visual effects. Epic productions fare well in these races (usually), but there's no way to deny a spot to smaller or even international productions with widespread critical acclaim. Big players in these fields usually translate to Best Picture love (like Dune , most recently, for example), but this year feels a bit overcrowded with big quality productions - Avatar: The Way of Water , Black Panther: Wakanda Forever , Babylon , Elvis ,  Top Gun: Maverick , The Fabelmans and The Batman . Still, I feel Netflix's All Quiet On the Western Front might have a nice show here: war movies tend to do good in these categories and since Netflix lost its biggest Oscar horses due to less enthusiastic buzz-killing (non-enthusiastic) critical receptions for Bardo , White Noise and Blonde , I ...

We (re)start with the sound categories: Best Original Score, Best Original Song and Best Sound. These fields are often associated with bigger productions and (in Best Original Song, specially) animated features. So, there's no surprise to predict Top Gun: Maverick as the top contender in two categories: the box-office smash hit features the best sound work of the year so far, with exquisite editing and mixing of all the sounds in the action flick. Plus, it also features the super balad " Hold My Hand " by Lady Gaga , who seems to be determined to become a two-times Oscar winner. But there are also other big names here: John Williams is back scoring another Spielberg flick ( The Fabelmans ) and reviews praise his work (as always); Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connor (both fresh from their Oscar win for " No Time to Die " song) are back with two tunes for Pixar's Turning Red ; Taylor Swift wrote and sang " Carolina " for Where the Crawdads Sin...