At the 96th Academy Awards, Diane Warren failed to win Best Original Song for the fifteenth time in fifteen tries. Shockingly, “The Fire Inside,” written for the movie about the guy who did not in fact come up with the idea for hot Cheetos, did not win. On the other hand, I’m willing to wager… Read More The Warren Index: Will They Win a Competitive Oscar Before Diane Warren?
I have been vocally against the extended Oscar season timeline from the first, but if there is one good thing about it from my perspective, it’s that this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever seen all of the Best Picture nominees before the ceremony. Almost by accident, I’ve also written about… Read More 93rd Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees – Hub
Another year of Oscars, another year of “I have a day job and I have to do this after everyone else’s takes have already filled the marketplace of takes.” 1) Several months ago, when I thought AMPAS would keep the 93rd Academy Awards to 2020 releases, I was really excited about what we might get… Read More 93rd Academy Awards: Hastily Scribbled Thoughts
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Stellan Skarsgard All of us can name action movies or thrillers which don’t have all that much perspective to speak of, but have enough of a plot to remain entertaining and effective. This is Se7en, a movie which gets a lot of plot mileage out of punning… Read More The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Gary Oldman, Sam Troughton, Tom Pelphrey Thank God it finally happened. It took until he was near sixty years old to get to this point, but there is no longer any way for us to understand David Fincher as a cool director. There’s a subspecies of movie guy for whom I… Read More Mank (2020)
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond There aren’t any people in this movie, and the clearest statement of how true that is in that final montage that Benjamin (Pitt) narrates over. There are plenty of bodies in the movie, and each of those bodies has had a characteristic ascribed to then.… Read More The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
As any true -holic knows, a little grace goes a long way. As I read through and listened to dozens of Best of the Decade lists, I tried to apply a truth I’d always kept close about list-making: it’s about what’s not on the list as much as it is what’s there. To some extent,… Read More Top 100 Movies of the Decade (2010-2019): The Painful Cuts
Dir. David Fincher. Starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon There must be some contingent of the viewing public that just likes to watch crazy women, and to plaster on the vaguest psychological terminology to explain away why they might do something lurid and shocking, like throw some red wine on their panties and then… Read More Gone Girl (2014)
The following is from my series of Oscar Best Picture rankings, as well as my strongly worded suggestions for what should have won from among the nominees. For an introduction to the project, click here. For a way to vote on some Oscar-related ideas, click here. If I’ve written a review on any of the… Read More Better than the Oscars: 80-76
You can read up on the basis for this series here, and also find links to other posts in the series. Movies I’ve reviewed on this site have a link in the title which you can follow to read my full review. 5) Gangs of New York (2002), directed by Martin Scorsese Ironically, the flaws… Read More 100 Exceptional American Movies in 10 Genres: Period, 5-1
Seeing Things Secondhand 