Soundtracking: The 2019 Oscar Original Song Bake-Off

by Chris Feil

One of the biggest headlines among the Monday release of Oscar's shortlists among nine categories was a popstar omission from the season's splashiest musical. Yes, it turns out Taylor Swift will have to wait to lift up to Oscar's Heaviside Layer as "Beautiful Ghosts" (the original track she cowrote with Andrew Lloyd Webber from Cats) was left off the list of songs that will advance towards hopeful nominations. But perhaps "Ghosts" is a strong reminder that these days doesn't clear the runway for popstars or new songs for preexisting musicals as easily as we might expect.

But among the lineup of hopefuls are films huge and small, expected names and a few genuine surprises - and it may be a more competitive field than originally expected. Let's run down the fifteen songs that did make the lineup and their chances at a nomination...

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Once Upon a Time ... in more critics prizes!

by Nathaniel R

Pint sized big talent Julia Butters and Quentin Tarantino both won prizes recently for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

In the latest round up of critics prizes we have critics from the SouthEastern US, Las Vegas, Boston (online) and one of the two (or is it three now?) female critics organizations called "Women's Film Critic's Circle". Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Parasite pick up several more prizes as do Portrait of a Lady on Fire and... Harriet? 

Tomorrow one of the historically coolest and most discerning critics groups is naming their winners (Boston Society of Film Critics -- don't fail us!) but until that potentially exciting announcement here are the latest four associations to announce. The winners and a few comments are after the jump...

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Notes on films we haven't talked much about to catch-up...

by Nathaniel R

The year sure got away from us. People are diving into "Best of Decade" lists right and left and we're still waist deep in 2019's offerings. Here are some thoughts on films we didn't properly review for some reason. "Some reason" nearly always means not enough hours in the day and the less flattering but no less true (sigh) lack of self-discipline.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (Marielle Heller)
Non movie-based spoiler alert: This film will be on my top ten list. That's the excuse I kept making when delaying writing a real review. "You'll have to talk about that later anyway, Nathaniel" Still, the silence does this movie a disservice. Everyone should go see it at the first possible opportunity. Heller is one of our greatest working directors...

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Podcast: The Irishman, Terminator Dark Fate, and Oscar Buzz

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (60 minutes)
00:01 Murtada's New Fest jury duty
03:00 Martin Scorsese's The Irishman and why it should have been called I Heard You Paint Houses.  Thoughts on the running time, Thelma Schoonmaker's editing, the de-aging visuals, and the performances of Anna Paquin, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. And a trend in 2019: directors revisiting their favourite themes reflectively this year: Scorsese, Almodóvar, and Tarantino
23:30 The Best Supporting Actor Oscar race: Pacino versus Brad Pitt? Plus tangents about Marriage Story, Ford V Ferrari, Dolemite is My Name, Just Mercy and Honey Boy
43:00 Best Actor and Best Director races and what The Irishman's true competition is
50:00 Terminator Dark Fate  and Harriet
57:45 The Best Actress race - is Cynthia in?

READ: A thoughtful positive review of Harriet from K Austin Collins
SHARE: Two tweets we mention...

Harriet is not my favorite film of the year but if you gave hours of your life to see Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything, you have time for a Harriet Tubman movie.

— Murtada Elfadl (@ME_Says) October 29, 2019

TERMINATOR DARK FATE not giving us an ass shot of Gabriel Luna (the first time traveller not to get one in the franchise) is homophobia. pic.twitter.com/5bR2hgcxGl

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) October 23, 2019

 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? 

I Heard Scorsese Paints Houses

What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office [ESTIMATES] Nov 1st-3rd 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
1 🔺  TERMINATOR DARK FATE  $29 *new*	1 🔺 PARASITE $2.6 on 461 screens (cum. $7.5) PODCAST ★
2 JOKER $13.9 (cum. $299.6) REVIEW	2 🔺 JOJO RABBIT $2.4 on 256 screens (cum. $4.2) TIFF WINNER ★
3 MALEFICENT 2 $12.1 (cum. $84.3)	3  HOUSEFULL 4 $463k on 315 screens (cum. $1.7)
4 🔺 HARRIET  $12 *new*	4 PAIN AND GLORY $348k on 111 screens (cum. $2.1) REVIEW, PODCAST ★
5 ADDAMS FAMILY $8.4 (cum. $85.2)	5 LINDA RONSTADT... $90k on 94 screens (cum. $3.9) REVIEW

The latest in a long line of attempts to keep the Terminator franchise going opened below expectations and will have trouble breaking even given its enormous budget. They shouldn't have messed with the mandatory ass shot! In other news Harriet performed above expectations which bodes well for Cynthia Erivo's Oscar campaign which had been losing some lustre after decent but hardly inspiring reviews for the film. Parasite continues to be a smash hit in limited release and is in a ton of markets now on 461 screens.  It'll be the second highest-grossing subtitled picture this year within a week (with only The Farewell left to conquer)