Would you rather?

Would you rather...

• grab a hot dog w/ Margo Martindale in Iceland?
• soak in Iceland's geothermal Blue Lagoon w/ Michelle Yeoh?
• feed raccoons w/ Liev Schreiber?
• relax between reps w/ Lupita Nyong'o?
• referee an arm-wrestling match between Brie Larson & Jacob Tremblay?
• accompany Jessica Chastain to the fruit market?
• indulge Charles Melton in Matrix cosplay?
• visit Bulgaria with Maria Bakalova?
• take a swim in Capri, Italy with Eiza González?
• ...or think about Chester on Genera+ions with Justice Smith? (Seriously why aren't you watching that show? It's phenomenal. I'm going to be gutted if HBOMax cancels it)

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide. 

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Oscar Predictions: Will Best Actress be dominated by biopics yet again?

by Nathaniel R

Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in "Respect"

We'd love not to be a broken record but until the Academy isn't, we must sing the same choppy tune: The Academy has a biopic problem. They just can't give them up and nearly always view mimicry (of various degrees) as more of an achievement than character creation from scratch. We'll never understand it exactly but it keeps reasserting its truth. So that's always where you have to begin with predictions. This year's Best Actress category has the potential to be entirely performances based on real people.

Not that it will be. There are (that we know of thus far) seven real life characters as female leading roles this season...

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Yes No Maybe So: The Eyes of Tammy Faye

by Nathaniel R

The Eyes of Tammy Faye was once the title of a popular 2000 documentary and now it's the title of a biopic about the rise and fall of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, with the emphasis being on the more sympathetic Tammy (who is no longer with us, having died of cancer in the Aughts). For you youngsters out there they were VERY famous in the 1980s with their scandal and downfall happening in 1989. The movie is directed by Michael Showalter (The Big Sick, Hello My Name is Doris) and gives plum roles to Oscar nominees Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain as the famous fallen couple. Will it be great, terrible, a mix of both simultaneously or (most dangerously) blandly mediocre? Will it be up for all the Oscars or none of them? Let's give this the full Yes No Maybe So™ treatment after the jump...

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The Tree of Life @ 10: The wonder of the movie theater

by Cláudio Alves

As a Portuguese cinephile, the last few weeks have been a weird mixture of happiness for others and ugly jealousy. Looking on social media, I can see international friends returning to movie theaters, fully vaccinated, while I remain at home, not knowing when such privileges will be accessible. I realize this bitterness is wrong, but I can't help it. I miss going to the movies quite terribly. I miss being engulfed by the images projected on the big screen and feeling a wall of sound crash over my head like a tidal wave. However, unlike other filmgoers, I don't care too much about the communal aspect of the experience (with the exception of film festivals).

As a way of exorcising these demons and explaining the yearning, let me describe one of the most memorable filmgoing experiences I can remember. It happened around a decade ago, upon The Tree of Life's release…

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Supersized "Nomadland"... what will Searchlight do for a follow up?

by Nathaniel R

Click for the full illustrated new poster

The prolongued 2020 Oscar season is going to make 2021 weird, isn't it. Take Nomadland, for instance, which is just a smidge over HALFWAY through its long trek to Oscar night after its September bow). Hopefully the Biden Administration can figure out a way to speed up vaccine distribution and we can all get back to our favourite pasttime -- MOVIEGOING -- by summer 2021 when the new stuff starts arriving. Alas, that's too late to enjoy Nomadland on IMAX screens, beginning January 29th, which frankly sounds like heaven to us after watching it on a bad streaming link with a watermark across it.

Though Nomadland is not my #1 film of the year -- top ten list coming in a few days! -- there isn't a single film from 2020 that I'd rather see on the most gigantic screen possible. Joshua James Richards' cinematography and the beautifully aged resilient face of Frances McDormand deserve it.

After Nomadland's Oscar run, whether or not it wins the biggest prize in Hollywood, here's what Searchlight (now owned by Disney) will be releasing in 2021...

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