Ehh ‘La La’: Damien Chazelle’s Sun-Soaked Ode To A City of Stars

Los Angeles is a city paradoxically known for two things: its sun and its stars. Most of La La Land‘s musical moments revolve around one or the other. For months now, the follow-up from the writer/director of Whiplash has been positioned as the front-runner for Best Picture, with plenty of precedent — 2002’s Chicago was […]

Bear-Man, Or The Expected Tragedies Of Awards Season: ‘Son Of Saul’ & ‘The Revenant’

(Plenty of spoilers in this review… though you’ve probably heard most of them already.) Here’s a fun game of “Would You Rather?”:

History Boys: The Brilliant British Lads Of ‘Theory,’ ‘Pride’ & ‘Imitation’

It happens every year. That handsomely produced movie, often British, usually a period piece. It’s a perfectly fine film — unchallenging, uncomplicated, more or less forgettable. It has the right stars, the right tone, the right credentials, the right subject matter, and most importantly, the right budget for an awards campaign. (It helps if the […]

‘Django’ Fuck Yourself: Oscar’s Also-Rans

Well, I finally saw Django Unchained, and where to begin? I avoided it for quite some time because it seemed most everyone had already seen it, and a Tarantino film is not a thing I like to embark on alone. For one, I’d heard about the over-the-top violence, which seemed like a thing best taken […]

In What World Is ‘Argo’ A Better Movie Than ‘Zero Dark Thirty’?

In what world is Argo a better movie than Zero Dark Thirty? This isn’t a response to Ben Affleck’s Golden Globes win for Best Director and Argo’s triumph as Best Drama. The Globes are the Globes, and they can only be taken so seriously. Avatar, The Descendants, Babel, and plenty of other films have proven […]

This Is ‘Thirty’: A Bittersweet End To The Darkest Tale Of Our Times

Kathryn Bigelow has been directing for a few decades now, but it took a long time for us to really notice her. That happened with The Hurt Locker, 2009’s Oscar-winner for Best Picture and, historically, for Best Director. There are multiple angles with which to approach her win — one, that she deserved it. And […]

Silence Is Golden: Why It’s Okay If ‘The Artist’ Wins Best Picture

(Yes, yes. The “if” in that title should almost certainly be “when.”) From the moment the Oscar nominations were announced last month, it was already a foregone conclusion: The Artist is the year’s Best Picture winner. It has been since mid-December, before it was even released in most major American cities. Some seasons, the Academy […]