The Not-Oscars 2013

It’s the morning of the Oscar nominations, and I’m not upset. This is weird. All the films I wanted to see nominated for Best Picture are. All the actors I hoped to see receive nominations for this year’s performances were. Compare and contrast to last year’s fatal omission of Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director, or […]

Top Ten Films: 2013

Hollywood is obsessed with money, I say. Duh, you think in response. But hear me out. In 2013, Hollywood was particularly obsessed with money. Not just with making money, but with telling stories about making — and losing — money. In my Top Ten list last year, I named Zero Dark Thirty my favorite film […]

Russell Does The ‘Hustle’: An All-American Ode To Bullshit

Hey, Academy, are you paying attention? But of course you are! Here’s a movie featuring a whole bunch of last year’s Oscar nominees, including several past Oscar winners, made by a guy who’s made two Oscar favorites in the last three years. (And now one more.) Basically, there was no way in hell American Hustle […]

Not-Oscars 2012: The Year’s Best Performances

(Originally published at JustinPlusSeven on January 10, 2013.) You, dear reader, have the honor of reading this in the future, after the Oscar nominations have been announced. But I am writing from this from the near past, before we know which five contenders are fighting it out in each category. Of course, some are shoo-ins; […]

Top Ten Films: 2012

It’s Oscar time! As usual, the Academy Awards are poised to make some very wrong decisions this year. So as usual, I am prematurely correcting them by releasing my Top Ten of the year. That year is 2012, of course — real film critics release such lists at the end of December or beginning of […]

‘Silver’ & Gold: A Kooky Romcom Aims To Woo The Academy

Bradley Cooper first became a household name in The Hangover, and ever since, has almost exclusively played jerks. He’s good at that. I’m not even sure the characters are written as jerks, but somehow, Cooper always manages to play them that way. Cooper first came to my attention, though, as a supporting player on Alias. […]

The 7 Most Anticipated Fall Movies 2012

As a kid, I got excited for summer movie season, because it brought sequels, superheroes, dinosaurs — that kind of thing. But the past few summers haven’t given us more than one or two blockbusters worth getting riled up about. These days, my event movies tend to be much smaller in scale, featuring powerhouse acting […]