Cinema and Popcorn

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Marriage Story ’s essence is all about the script, it’s all about Baumbach’s words and silences – the actors even admitted it was all on paper – and it’s brilliant! The movie offers a raw approach to divorce and the end of a love story, which recalls its auteur own life – Baumbach is a safe bet for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. And Quentin Tarantino enters the Best Original Screenplay race again, this time with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ! Tarantino’s latest channels Hollywood and the late 60’s beautifully, plus the dialogue is top-notch and the third act is as hilarious as it is surprising: and the AMPAS loves Tarantino as the screenwriter, so, no big deal! A daring movie, with a dynamite social satire, Parasite is a big Oscar contender across the board and Best Original Screenplay is no exception. The late awards season surprise Knives Out became a much bigger Oscar contender than most people were expecting! Best Picture is on the tab...

The Best Supporting Actress feels a little volatile this year: the only sure thing seems to be Laura Dern for Marriage Story , with all the other spots with no rock solid contenders besides Margot Robbie for Bombshell (maybe!). But why is Laura Dern such a solid contender? Well: first, Marriage Story is a Best Picture contender and it has the giant Netflix backing its award campaign... and since Best Supporting Actress (and Best Supporting Actor) are closely related with Best Picture, things sound good for her; second, she has the rave reviews, the Golden Globe win and the critics prizes, for a truly supporting review (not my favorite performance from her, but predicting it's not only about "me"); third and last, she's a member of the Board of Governors in the Actors Branch, which means she's part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (really, she's a Governor!). Plus, she's living a sweet moment in her career and there's a lot of good...

Well, it was a Golden Globes edition full of surprises. From the Missing Link win over the Disney giants Toy Story 4  and Frozen II to the win of 1917 over The Irishman , Marriage Story or Joker . Pleased to see the HFPA didn't go for Jennifer Lopez ( Hustlers ), but for Laura Dern ( Marriage Story ) instead - not that I don't like JLo's performance, but it would be too cliché! The Irishman was completely defeated and it went home empty handed. Even Marriage Story underperformed here! This edition made one thing clearer: Best Picture is anyone's race and Laura Dern & Brad Pitt seem to have an Oscar win waiting for them (they're having the biggest sweeps of the season between the Globes and the critics prizes). I just got a 43% prediction accuracy this Golden Globes, which is extremely low when compared to other ye ars, but I really didn't see 1917 winning Best Drama and Best Director coming. But 3 of my predicted spoilers made the win, so...! Well...

As you know (or as “you should know” at least), Best Picture category is a special one: it’s all about the #1 votes of each member of the AMPAS! So, how does it affect the choosing of the nominees?  Well, people tend to go for movies they love rather for movies they “just” respect unless they recognize the movie they respect is undeniably good: and that’s why I have Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman in first place for a Best Picture nomination. It’s a movie some might not fall in love with, but it is a movie no one seems able to say “it’s bad” and it also benefits from the all-star names involved in the project: Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino or Joe Pesci… I know it is a Netflix movie, but I can’t picture a scenario where The Irishman is left out of Best Picture nominees shortlist.   The other movie I feel pretty confident about is Parasite – the international foreign language phenomenon, Bong Joon-ho’s latest movie is one of the most critically acclaimed movie i...

BEST PICTURE: Parasite ; Runner-up : The Irishman BEST DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho , Parasite ; Runner-up : Martin Scorsese , The Irishman BEST SCREENPLAY: Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story ; Runner-up: Bong Joon-ho & Han Jun-won, Parasite BEST ACTRESS: Mary Kay Place , Diane ; Runner-up : Lupita Nyong'o , Us BEST ACTOR: Antonio Banderas , Pain and Glory ; Runner-up : Adam Driver , Marriage Story BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Lopez , Hustlers ; Runner-up : Zhao Shuzhen , The Farewell BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Song Kang-ho , Parasite ; Runner-up : Joe Pesci , The Irishman BEST EDITING: Todd Douglas Miller,  Apollo 11 ; Runner-up : Ronald Bronstein & Bennie Safdie, Uncut Gems BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN:  Barbara Ling,  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ; Runner-up : Ha Jun Lee,  Parasite BEST DOCUMENTARY/NON-FICTION FILM: American Factory ; Runner-up : Apollo 11 BEST ANIMATION: I Lost My Body ; Runner-up : Toy Story 4 BEST SCORE: I Lost My Body , Dan Levy; R...

The American Film Institute (AFI) has just named their picks for the Best Motion Pictures of the Year - 2019. It's a major achievement for Netflix ( The Irishman and Marriage Story ), Sony ( Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood and Little Women ) and Warner Bros. ( Joker and Richard Jewell ) with each one scoring 2 mentions in the list. Pay special attention to Bong Joon-ho 's Parasite , which managed to get a Special Award out of the top 10 honoured movies. And the AFI's Motion Pictures of the Year are: 1917 (Universal) The Farewell (A24) The Irishman (Netflix) Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight) Joker (Warner Bros) Knives Out (Lionsgate) Little Women (Sony) Marriage Story (Netflix) Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Sony) Richard Jewell (Warner Bros) Special Award Parasite (Neon)

THE FAREWELL Led by a surprising effective dramatic performance from Awkwafina (an actress you can't help but to link to comedic genre), The Farewell is a heartfelt tale of preparation for grief and a study about cultural shock: it's the East v. West, it's Old China v. New China. The ensemble acting is strong, but it's Zhao Shuzhen who stands-out as Nai Nai - she's the heart and joy of the whole movie, making you fall in love for her. In fact, Zhao Shuzhen delivers one of the year's best performances with her comedic timing, subtles moves and warm smile - it's a breakthrough performance in Hollywood that only a veteran actor could deliver. You can see director's Lulu Wang sensitive approach of a personal journey and how much love and tenderness she pulls from the actors in every scene. The wedding scenes are both funny and bittersweet - you feel people saying goodbye to Nai Nai without saying anything and it just breaks your heart. And that last ...

The Gotham Awards might not be the most reliable Oscar precursor, since it only takes a different small committee of film critics (5 or 6 I guess) for each category, so its nominees choices don't come from a lot critics. But it is said it takes a wider committee to pick the winners (different from the nominees committee). Correct if I'm wrong, but it was what I understood. So, people pay a lot of attention to Gotham Awards, not because it is a big prestigious award, but because it is the very first award of the season. Personally, the nominees are fun and it is always a delight to see some non-buzzy but great performances and movies in the nominees shortlist, but they aren't that relevant when it comes to predicting the Oscars. The winners - it is a different story! Since the winners come from a wider board of people working in the industry, which shows their preferences, and the winners are announced a few days away of major critics awards announcements and the G...