Who will be nominated for Production Design?

by Nathaniel R

As we did with Costume Design, let's look at the most likely Oscar contenders in its sister Eye Candy category (i.e. the "Moulin Rouge!" categories), Best Production Design. The following nine films are not ranked but grouped in 'types'-- in fact I don't think the last two have much of a prayer but in a just world, they would! Oscar voters vote solely on the category achievement itself (as they should) but on all sorts of things first and foremost being whether they like the film itself. It also helps to belong to the right genre and, in the case of craft categories, to have a showy "Most" feeling... 

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Middleburg Day 3 Finale: 'Banshees of Inisherin', 'Glass Onion' and our annual Oscar panel

by Nathaniel R

Brendan Gleeson & Colin Farrell promoting their movie for ET. They also appeared onscreen before the Middleburg showing to introduce the film.

Safely ensconced back in NYC... or Brooklyn, rather (I've moved). Here's a quick take of the last day and a half of the festival. Middleburg is a four day festival but our flight times Sunday prevented us from staying for the Terence Blanchard concert on Sunday night (*weeping*). It was a low key day given the time constraints so my boyfriend and I hit the stables very briefly at the Salamander Resort & Spa to see the horses (I always make time for that though I've only actually ridden one in my first year there) and we squeezed in one final film before heading to the airport. And what a movie it was! The US Ambassador to Ireland was on hand to introduce the film and she explained what banshees were "female spirits who warn of impending death" but followed that quickly with "but I promise it's fun!" eliciting a big laugh from the eager sold out house. Promise kept as The Banshees of Inisherin is a banger...

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10th Anniversary Middleburg Film Festival tickets now on sale!

by Nathaniel R

the Opening Night, Centerpiece, and Spotlight films

Has it really been ten years? We've been going to Middleburg for years now for this intimate weekend festival in scenic Virginia. Three years ago your host here (that's me) launched an ongoing early morning Oscar panel "Coffee & Contenders" with Clayton Davis and Jazz Tangcay (who have both since joined Variety). It's a treat to see famiiar faces from the Washington DC area each year and if any readers come to the festival make sure to say hello. Festivals start to feel like reunion parties if you go enough times!

The year they'll have films like White Noise, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Somewhere in Queens, and The Whale (and more to be announced). Receiving tributes and awards this year are actors Stephanie Hsu and Brendan Fraser, writer/director Noah Baumbach, editor Bob Ducsay, and composer Michael Abels.  Passes and ticket passages are now on sale. Full press release after the jump...

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Abe’s ‘Jury of One’ from TIFF 2022

Brendan Fraser in The Whale

By Abe Friedtanzer 

I had always heard from other journalists at festivals like Sundance and SXSW that TIFF was the best one. I’m thrilled that I had the chance to attend my first in-person edition after covering remotely last year. I’m certainly exhausted – I saw 37 films at screenings and another six at home. Fortunately, almost all of what I saw was very good, and even better for you readers, the overwhelming majority is also slated for release. Of course, the crazy thing about these festivals is that, no matter how much you see, you’ll still somehow not get what others think was best (Baby Clyde’s top two films are among the six from his 25 that I didn’t see). But there’s plenty to celebrate, and without further ado, here are my ‘jury of one’ awards with release dates, if applicable, in parentheses, and some personal prizes…

The Swimmers 

Top Ten Films 

1. The Whale (Dec 9^th, theaters)
2. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Dec 23^rd, Netflix)

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Yes No Maybe So: "The Fabelmans" and "Glass Onion"

by Nathaniel R

It's hard to keep up in September with festival premieres, Oscar news, and fresh trailers arriving daily. The strangest thing about September though is how future-oriented everything is. It's not about what people have access to now (theaters start crawling out of their current wasteland Friday) but what they might be talking about in December and January. Which makes September feel like foreplay without pleasure. But October is just around the corner and things get significantly more in-the-moment the further into the last quarter we get. Still trailers have their own kind of anticipatory pleasure. So today let's talk The Fabelmans which is getting raves from the first responders at TIFF...

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