With the Academy Awards being handed out this Sunday, it’s a popular and appropriate time for Oscar predictions. Any number of determining factors can help narrow down the field to an expected choice, and odds-makers all over the world are weighing in.
Nearly every review of Oscar Assayas‘ weird, lovely Clouds of Sils Maria eventually brings up the Swedish master Ingmar Bergman, and I don’t see why this one should be any different.
The Juliette Binoche/Kristen Stewart two-hander often plays like Assayas received some sort of Five Obstructions-like challenge to conjure up something “Bergmanesque” without the benefit of Sven Nyquist or Liv Ullmann.
I don’t want to startle any of my readers, but it turns out I’m a white guy. Watching I Am Not Your Negro, this couldn’t have been clearer.
Perhaps you may have gleaned this fact about me somehow — say, my weird focus on Nicolas Cage or the fact that I genuinely, almost angrily enjoy La La Land.
Movies, as we all know, are too long.
In the past, I’ve tended to roll my eyes at this allegation, chalking it up to the short-attention spans of the philistines who’d rather rewatch an episode of The Office yet again than encounter something new and daring, something incisive and in love with the image, something that has the unmitigated gall to last more than 45 minutes.
In its opening title card, Kirsten Johnson describes her acclaimed documentary Cameraperson as a memoir of her 25 years of filmmaking. Of course, any individual film is itself a memoir of sorts, preserving moments in time when subjects collided and collaborated and performed; it’s the nature of the medium.
Now that Betsy DeVos has been confirmed as our Secretary of Education of Bizarro World, she’s going to have a steep learning curve. This would be true for any newly-confirmed Cabinet member, but it seems particularly urgent in Betsy DeVos’ case, who shows no indication of even baseline competency for the position.
Just last week, I bemoaned the state of Netflix’s streaming options and reoriented this column specifically to account for it. In what I can only assume is a startling indication of this column’s influence and reach, Netflix responded a week later by making the near-entirety of the Pioneers of African-American Cinema collection available.
Choosing a favorite Charlie Chaplin film is a bit like deciding which of your kids you prefer. It feels intrinsically wrong. Still, general critical consensus has elevated City Lights above the rest, routinely placing the 1931 masterpiece on lists of the greatest movies of all time.
A note on this recurring column formerly known as New on Netflix. Due to diminishing new titles of interest, an increased focus on television programming and original productions, and Netflix’s apparent preference for streaming things like Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, we are changing this up a bit.
Of all the gorgeous old-time movie palaces around, San Francisco’s Castro Theater might be my personal favorite. Everything about it feels magical, from the 1920s marquee to the scroffito wall murals that seem carved out of gold. The Castro also plays host to some of the best programming in the Bay Area, including Noir City, which runs through Sunday.