Best Picture in Monochrome

by Cláudio Alves

The trend of rereleasing critical darlings in black and white is apparently here to stay. After George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road and James Mangold’s Logan, it’s time for Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite to be revisited in sharp monochrome. The artistic value of such exercises is dubious, but they do offer a chance to reflect upon a film’s visual idiom and aesthetic construction. After all, do these works gain something by being in color? Is that an intrinsic part of their form or simply a consequence of convention? Would they be better, at least better looking, in black and white?

Those answers will have to remain unanswered, but as a fun exercise here are some from this year’s Best Picture nominees. They’ve been drained of color for your pleasure…

Click to read more ...

So many awards this weekend!

Designers, makeup artists, and personal stylists must be logging looooong hours this month. There's so many awards galas happening crammed in before Oscar night. We already covered the DGA and the Annies but that wasn't all that happened this weekend (and the Grammys are still to come tonight!). After the jump, a list of other prizes handd out this weekend to luminaries like Greta Gerwig and Roger Deakins.

USC Scripter Awards
Greta Gerwig won this prize along with the posthumous Louisa May Alcott and gave this lovely acceptance speech...

Click to read more ...

A Best Picture think... what if there were only five?

by Nathaniel R

 

Consensus is taking clear shape with film critics and awards bodies. They're finding Parasite the very best film of 2019 fairly regularly now. In terms of both critics and larger more 'industry' organizations Martin Scorsese's elegaic The Irishman is leading the English language films in nomination counts and prizes. Noah Baumbach's impressive superbly-acted dramedy Marriage Story and Tarantino's shape-shifting gorgeously executed 1969 homage Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are not far behind in the collective love sweepstakes. That could mean that any of those four will be vying for the Best Picture win at the Oscars in February. With the preferential ballot it helps to have passion votes and all of them have that. It also helps to be everyone's second or third favourite and each of those films could theoretically score high on virtually any voter's ballot.

But what's in fifth place?

Since 2011 rules have been in place to deliver between 5 to 10 Best Picture nominees depending on percentages of votes. To date, though, this system has only produced years with either 8 or 9 nominees for the top prize. But a though exercize today. Which of the remaining films would make it in a year with only 5 films in play...

Click to read more ...

What did you see over the long Thanksgiving weekend?

What did you see over the weekend? General audiences were singing along to Frozen II in big numbers while Knives Out exceeded expectations with a strong opening weekend. After the jump everything still in wide release plus their counterparts at the moment in the world of platform titles...

Weekend Box Office November 29th-December 1st (ACTUALS) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1  FROZEN II  $85.9 (cum. $288.8) REVIEW	1  JOJO RABBIT $1.2 on 730 screens (cum. $18.3) TIFF WIN, PODCAST ★

2 🔺 KNIVES OUT $26.7 (cum. $41.4) REVIEW, WHODUNNITS ★	2 PARASITE  $1.0 on 382 screens (cum. $18.2) PODCAST, CLASS, BONG ★

Click to read more ...

Podcast: Ford v Ferrari, Honey Boy, and Marriage Story

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (59 minutes)

• 00:01 Ford v Ferrari, Christian Bale, impressive crafts, and Oscar talk
• 19:06 Marriage Story, the opening scene, comparisons to Kramer vs Kramer, and more. Plus a lot of love for the actors including Alan Alda.
• 36:05 Honey Boy a Shia Labeouf's confessional with a great Noah Jupe directed by Alma Har'el. But, we confess we have Lucas Hedges fatigue.
• 47:10 Best Costume Design. We're rooting for extreme longshot Hustlers but we survey the whole field.

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Ford v Ferrari