By Drew Grant 2/24 6:56pm

The 85th Academy Awards

The Best Picture category isn't the only thing that bulked up.

The 85th Annual Academy Awards Live Chat, Hosted by the Dog From Family Guy

Update: Well, now we have an extra hour and a half of the red carpet! Talk amongst yourselves!

What is it about the Academy Awards? Intellectually, it’s hard to muster up that much enthusiasm about who “wore it best” (Ang Lee) or how modest Katniss will be in her acceptance speech, hopefully avoiding a First Wives’ Club reference that sounded like she was hating on Meryl Streep this time. And yet … we still feel compelled to watch. Maybe it’s because secretly, deep down, we still find it fascinating that the guy who does the voice of Stewie looks like the host of a reality game show about finding true love by having a dance-off on a stripper pole.

Or maybe it’s because we’re just suckers, who deep down believe that Beasts of the Southern Wild might still possibly have a chance against Argo or Lincoln.

Come join us, will you, on this the most magical of evenings for producers, people who are married to movie stars, and dress designers? We’ll be hosting a live chat below. Just click the big countdown button and you’re all set. Got it?

Great. Read More

By Drew Grant 2/24 10:59am

Academy Awards

9 Photos

oscar predictions

Leo and Tigers and Ben Affleck, (Arg)O My!: Who Will Be the Sorest Loser at Tonight’s Academy Awards?

Tonight is the 85th Academy Awards, and for all intents and purposes it should be a good one. Look at all those serious films, and the one movie by Quentin Tarantino! And with big snubs for Best Director for both Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, does that mean one of them will be be sweeping up the Best Picture Award as a consolation prize? And most importantly, is it too late to write in a ballot for Javier Bardem in Skyfall? Because he was great. Read More

By Rex Reed 10/30/12 5:23pm

movies

Washington in Flight.

Cruise Control: With Denzel and Zemeckis in the Cockpit, Flight Takes Off and Soars at Full Throttle

Denzel Washington is such a sturdy, reliable actor that his name on the screen has become synonymous with that of hero (with the obvious exception of Training Day). So it’s hard to buy him as a doped-up, alcoholic heel in Flight, an edgy thriller about the responsibility—and inherent culpability—of commercial pilots entrusted with the lives of millions.  I’d place my trust in Denzel in the cockpit any old day while humming “Fly Me to the Moon” at the same time. So it’s not easy to accept him as one of the irresponsible jerks who dangle their passengers in harm’s way. You just sort of trust him to do the right thing, and when he finally does, after more than two hours of soul-searching and moral hand-wringing, you might, like me, have double trouble with plausibility. So I have some minor problems with Flight. But don’t let that deter you. It’s the first film in over a decade by director Robert Zemeckis that guarantees originality, tempo and thrills. You go away satisfied and up to your eyeballs in entertainment.  Read More

By Drew Grant 10/30/12 3:34pm

hurricane sandy

Letterman and Fallon: Braving the storm (NBC, CBS)

David Letterman And Jimmy Fallon: When a Lack of an Audience is a Good Thing (Video)

While Anderson Cooper was learning about his afternoon talk show being cancelled–no, not just for Hurricane Sandy, but forever–two late night hosts made the brave decision to continue their shows at NBC and CBS as if a giant storm wasn’t ranging outside.

The only problem? Neither Jimmy Fallon nor David Letterman had a live audience–a first, in both their histories–to laugh at their jokes. But what could have turned into that creepy David Lynch episode of Louie was actually an amazing bit of performance art as the two jokesters performed to the dead silence of a mostly-empty room. *Yanks collar* “Tough crowd!” Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 10/12/12 8:00am

The Eight-Day Week

Denzel Washington (Getty Images)

To Do Sunday: First Class

And tonight brings one of those big movie premieres that bedeck the red carpet run-up to Oscar season. (Not that we’re complaining—seeing these things a month early makes the popcorn taste all the more savory!) It’s the world premiere of Flight, an increasingly rare live-action Robert Zemeckis film (the Forrest Gump guy has since largely Read More

By Rex Reed 2/14/12 7:56pm

movies

Washington looks back menacingly at this bad decision.

Safe House Experiences Blowback

Movies about covert CIA operatives make their own clichés, and in a violent and pointless waste of time and money called Safe House, they come in twos, like double vision. This movie wouldn’t be worth the effort even if it were about something, which it isn’t. Correction: It’s about how Denzel Washington is not above trashing his reputation when the salary works, even if the movie doesn’t. Read More

By Christopher Rosen 6/14/10 1:17pm

The Tony Awards: Winners, Losers and Green Day

For most of Sunday night’s ceremony, the Tony Awards were brisk, entertaining and accessible to even the non-theater geeks in the audience — the Sunday Times story aside, theater geeks have not inherited the earth just yet. Too bad then that by the end — when the big awards were handed out — the wheels Read More

By Jesse Oxfeld 4/28/10 1:45am

There’s No Business Like a Show About Business

Enron, the hit London import that opened last night at the Broadhurst Theatre, is a surprising and remarkable creation: It’s a two-and-a-half-hour lecture on business history, and it’s utterly thrilling.

Credit for this feat of alchemy goes primarily to second-time playwright Lucy Prebble, and her director, Rupert Goold, artistic director of London’s Headlong Theatre, which Read More