"Da 5 Bloods" leads the Online Film Critics Society nominations... but fails to win

The Online Film Critics Society, founded in 1997 back when there was still a noticeable divide between print and web (there's zero difference anymore... it's only size and reputation of outlets since everything is online) have announced their nominations for the film year. They'll announce their winners on January 25th at which point we'll update this post. But for now the nominations and a few comments...

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Year in Review: Best Onscreen Chemistry of 2020

by Team Experience

Chemistry may be something you can predict in a lab but in showbiz it's always been volatile, elevating some projects to unpredictable heights and dooming others with its absence or withholding or misdirections. Strong onscreen chemistry may be far less rare than capturing lightning in a bottle but it can feel just as miraculous. In the studio system they'd seize on any great example and repurpose it by ordering additional pairings of the stars involved. Modern Hollywood executive (and the stars themselves to some degree) have been notoriously dumb about capitalizing on incredible partnerships. This has made great onscreen chemistry basically a one & done phenomenon for the most part for decades... and thus all the more ephemeral and precious. So let's celebrate it.

We polled Team Experience on "best screen chemistry of 2020" and pooled the results. Sound off with your own in the comments... 

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NYFCC loves "Da 5 Bloods" and "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"

by Nathaniel R

The New York Film Critics Circle have spoken, delivering their verdict on the Best of 2020. The only films which scored multiple awards were Da 5 Bloods and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. But the top prize went to First Cow (which is the only prize it won). This year featured the most female directors they've ever honored simultaneously with female-helmed films winning Best Film, Best First Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (all four of them different films, too!). Their honors for 2020 go like so...

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Chadwick Boseman (1976-2020)

by Cláudio Alves

pic.twitter.com/aZ2JzDf5ai

— Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) August 29, 2020

Death comes to us all. It doesn't choose and it doesn't spare or take pity on anyone. Even if the temporariness is a necessity of life, loss can take us all by surprise. It also hurts, so much. Often, we don't even need to know a person to grieve their departure, to feel that the world became smaller without them, that there's now a void where a bright star used to shine. Chadwick Boseman was such a star... 

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Review: Da 5 Bloods

by Lynn Lee

Perfectly timed.  The right voice for this precise moment.  Spike Lee’s never been more necessary than he is now. 

If you’ve read one variation of the “timeliness” reaction to Spike Lee’s latest joint by way of Netflix, Da 5 Bloods, you’ve read them all.  It’s a truth so self-evident it practically amounts to a truism.  Except the fact is that Spike Lee never went anywhere – he’s been here the last 30 plus years, educating us on the ugly persistence of systemic racism in the U.S.  His movies have always been timely; it’s our fault if we’ve failed to heed their underlying admonitions or give them the sustained attention they deserve.  It makes little sense, then, to accord his newest release any extra expectations that it will “speak to the moment.”  Still, given that it's Spike Lee, it does speak to the moment, if less directly – or less crisply – than some of his previous films...

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