Category Confusion '24: LEAD or SUPPORTING – Part Two

by Cláudio Alves

As promised, the debate about category placement shall continue to encompass new releases as we all head into the awards season proper. This year seems especially ripe with category fraud, so there's a lot for us to discuss – there's a world of possibility where no supporting performance gets nominated at the 97th Academy Awards. In any case, let's think back to the first round of voting. Last time, when deciding if a given performance was lead or supporting, you deliberated on various titles that have become more widely available since. So, feel free to go back and cast your vote if you have just now seen such pictures as Emilia Pérez, Blitz, and A Real Pain. I also have some campaign updates from my purview as a Golden Globe voter. It turns out that at least one of these category fraud cases changed to lead…

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TIFF '24: From the Lido to Lake Ontario

by Cláudio Alves

Dea Kulumbegashvili's APRIL won the Special Jury Prize in Venice.

For many critics who don't attend the big European festivals, TIFF marks their first chance to see some of the circuit's most talked-about titles. This year, I spent a good portion of my time in Toronto catching up with Venice films – the two events overlapped as they usually do – and managed to watch a whopping eleven titles from its official competition. Elisa already reviewed many of the big ones, and Abe also shared his take on Kill the Jockey, so I won't bother with those titles past a capsule. However, there's much to say about the yet-unreviewed April and Vermiglio, two Venice prizewinners that rocked my world. Dea Kulumbegashvili did it with a formalist assault, vicious and visceral, while Maura Delpero opted for a pastoral meditation, as peaceful on the surface as the gradual changing of the seasons…

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Venice 2024: Luca Guadagnino's "Queer"

by Elisa Giudici

Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey in QUEER (photo: Yannis Drakoulidis)

Luca Guadagnino's 2024 double feature, early release Challengers and the new premiere Queer, explore the intricate and slow process of calibrating love. In both,love is a delicate balancing act where one person loves intensely, perhaps even desperately, while the other remains more passive, content to be loved without being deeply invested in the relationship. The fundamental difference between the two lies in how they resolve this imbalance...

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Luca Guadagnino has dropped another project

by Cláudio Alves

Back when Luca Guadagnino first announced his plans to remake Suspiria, many were skeptical – me included. Why would we need a new take on the material when Argento's 1977 classic is such a candy-colored masterpiece? It turns out that Guadagnino was idiosyncratic enough to get away with it, proposing such a distinct vision that comparing it to the other movie feels beside the point. Hence, when the director told the world he'd helm a Scarface remake from a Coen Bros. script, the consensus was more hopeful than before. Well, that picture is officially off of Guadagnino's schedule, joining the ranks of many a dropped project…

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