‘Starred Up’ For What: Jack O’Connell Is The New Tom Hardy

The strong, silent type is a character that goes all the way back to the beginning of cinema… but that’s mostly because those movies were silent. Still, stoic males have been front and center in countless dramas, especially those geared toward men. The grittier the movie, the quieter the antihero at the center of it […]

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 […]

Catching Heat: The Warmest Women Of 2013

(Films discussed in this post: Blue Is The Warmest Color, The Heat, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Drinking Buddies, Enough Said, The Invisible Woman.)Women are so hot right now. Again. Or… still. No matter how many female-driven movies make a splash at the box office, Hollywood never seems to learn its lesson. Sure, the top-grossing […]

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 […]

Boy Meets World Trade Center: Extremely Bad & Incredibly Nominated

(Films discussed in this post: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Rango, Submarine.) This year’s most surprising Best Picture nominee was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Not a total shocker, mind you — it stars previous winners Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, and is directed by Academy-friendly Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader), so it has […]