Monday: The Painted Veil
File this under movies not enough people went to see: 2006’s The Painted Veil is a haunting drama, based on the (excellent) W. Somerset Maugham novel. The film stars Edward Norton and Naomi Watts as a British couple in the midst of marital strife, who go to a small Read More
Another drawback to the long and cold winter, besides all the obvious complaints: a total lack of DVD releases. In recent weeks our Netflix queue has been a desolate wasteland of old classics and new crap. When we get emails telling us What Just Happened? has shipped, and we’re actually kind of excited, the situation Read More
Okay, yeaaah, the Oscars! It’s going to take us at least a few more days to really be able to digest all the absolute batsh*t craziness that went down during Sunday night’s telecast. Can we all just start by agreeing that that show was truly bonkersville? We know there will be plenty of ink shed Read More
The best part about the 81st annual Academy Awards on Sunday night—y'know, besides Zac Efron, OMG!—is that once it's over, we'll never have to think about Slumdog Millionaire again. Not to join the obvious chorus of backlashers, but a warmed-over Dickensian fable dressed up to look like a prestige version of a Tony Scott Read More
The Reader
My choice for Best Picture would be The Reader. I think it’s a magnificent film about little people with big experiences. It’s a movie that, at a time when movies are not about much of anything, is a very important Read More
The National Arts Club was filled with balloon animals and art-world notables last night for the club’s Gold Medal of Honor awards presentation to artist Jeff Koons.
We asked about future plans for his work.
“I am always wanting to prove myself to myself,” he said, smiling. He wore a somewhat understated suit with a glossy black Read More
We've always had a thing for cinematographers. To us, they are the true rock stars of moviemaking, forever turning mundane imagery into something spectacularly visual. So consider our disappointment at the finalists in the feature film category for the 23rd annual American Society of Cinematographers awards competition. The selections are certainly respectable—Claudio Miranda for Read More
It suddenly occurred to me just before I started grinding out my year-end summaries and 10-best lists that I have been engaged in this activity for a very long time. If my increasingly faulty memory is correct, this marks the 50th anniversary of my published 10-best lists, dating back to Jonas Mekas’ Movie Journal in Read More
While receiving a nomination from the Producers Guild of America is a very good sign for a film hoping to land in one of the five Best Picture slots at the Academy Awards, it doesn't necessarily mean all of the nominees announced yesterday should get too comfortable. The last time the PGA nailed the Read More
It’s the end of the year as we know it, which can only mean one thing: top 10 lists! Now, we can’t lie—we haven’t seen absolutely everything. (We’re still waiting on Gran Torino, Seven Pounds, and a few others. Also, we will never watch Wall-E. Never!) But we did see an awful (awful) lot in Read More
We always consider the Golden Globe awards ceremony to be a silly/fun excuse for the Hollywood elite to celebrate themselves and get drunk. Who knew that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association treats the nominating process the same way? As the motley crew of Rainn Wilson, Brooke Shields, Terrence Howard (still looking pissed at being left Read More
The Independent Spirit Awards – or Film Independent's Spirit Awards, whatever title they're going by now – always brings a smile to our face. That's probably because the producers have figured out what the producers of the Oscars are still trying to realize: taking an awards show seriously is a waste of time. So instead Read More
Critics are falling all over themselves to laud Gus Van Sant's Milk. Some seem to love one scene in particular:
A.O. Scott, The New York Times:
One of the first scenes in 'Milk' is of a pick-up in a New York subway station. It’s 1970, and an insurance executive in a suit and tie Read More
If you think roughly three-quarters of Hollywood's output arrives between now and Christmas day, that's probably because it does. Or at least it seems like it does. Thanksgiving marks the official kick-off of the holiday season, and there's something at the box office for everyone in your family. Here's a handy guide to the Thanksgiving Read More
Gus Van Sant’s Milk, from a screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, is certainly as timely as ever, inasmuch as amid all the euphoria over the election of Barack Obama, the Read More
