Milk’s Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black told The Observer that he was opposed to President Obama’s recent declaration of support for same-sex marriage. “Well, because I think marriage is between a man and a woman, I was incredibly upset,” Mr. Black said, biting a nail. He was joking, though in a quiet, grave tone–the premiere Read More
Monday: The Painted Veil
File this under movies not enough people went to see: 2006’s The Painted Veil is a haunting drama, based on the (excellent) W. Somerset Maugham novel. The film stars Edward Norton and Naomi Watts as a British couple in the midst of marital strife, who go to a Read More
Another drawback to the long and cold winter, besides all the obvious complaints: a total lack of DVD releases. In recent weeks our Netflix queue has been a desolate wasteland of old classics and new crap. When we get emails telling us What Just Happened? has shipped, and we’re actually kind of excited, the situation Read More
Okay, yeaaah, the Oscars! It’s going to take us at least a few more days to really be able to digest all the absolute batsh*t craziness that went down during Sunday night’s telecast. Can we all just start by agreeing that that show was truly bonkersville? We know there will be plenty of ink shed Read More
The best part about the 81st annual Academy Awards on Sunday night—y’know, besides Zac Efron, OMG!—is that once it’s over, we’ll never have to think about Slumdog Millionaire again. Not to join the obvious chorus of backlashers, but a warmed-over Dickensian fable dressed up to look like a prestige version of a Tony Scott Read More
BEST PICTURE
The Reader
My choice for Best Picture would be The Reader. I think it’s a magnificent film about little people with big experiences. It’s a movie that, at a time when movies are not about much of anything, is a very important Read More
The National Arts Club was filled with balloon animals and art-world notables last night for the club’s Gold Medal of Honor awards presentation to artist Jeff Koons.
We asked about future plans for his work.
“I am always wanting to prove myself to myself,” he said, smiling. He wore a somewhat understated suit with a Read More
We’ve always had a thing for cinematographers. To us, they are the true rock stars of moviemaking, forever turning mundane imagery into something spectacularly visual. So consider our disappointment at the finalists in the feature film category for the 23rd annual American Society of Cinematographers awards competition. The selections are certainly respectable—Claudio Miranda for Read More
It suddenly occurred to me just before I started grinding out my year-end summaries and 10-best lists that I have been engaged in this activity for a very long time. If my increasingly faulty memory is correct, this marks the 50th anniversary of my published 10-best lists, dating back to Jonas Mekas’ Movie Journal in Read More
While receiving a nomination from the Producers Guild of America is a very good sign for a film hoping to land in one of the five Best Picture slots at the Academy Awards, it doesn’t necessarily mean all of the nominees announced yesterday should get too comfortable. The last time the PGA nailed the Read More
