What's next for the recently Oscar-nominated: Pt 1 - Writer/Directors

With the 95th Academy Awards wrapped, it's time to look to the future. Herewith a quick little series about what's in store for the recently nominated. Let's start with the writer/directors.

EDWARD BERGER
The 52 year old director behind Germany's latest Oscar winner, All Quiet on the Western Front, was surely thisclose to snagging an Oscar nomination for his directing (given how well the film did across the board) but he had to make due with sharing a writing nomination. His credits to date have largely been on German television but he'd already made inroads into Hollywood prior to the World War I Oscar magnet, directing episodes of two Showtime series, Your Honor and Patrick Melrose.

Let's just say he's very busy. He's already shot a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (as a miniseries) starring Benedict Cumbatch. Around the time of the Oscar nomination he was also shooting a religious thriller Conclave...

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Review: "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" Ups the Ante to Glorious Results

by Christopher James

Sometimes, bigger is actually better.

Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2019, Knives Out became a sleeper hit, delivering a perfectly fun and witty whodunnit perfect for all generations. The Netflix sequel, Glass Onion, ups the ante in every way possible. The set is bigger, the cast is starrier, the cameos are plentiful. Despite the excess on screen, none of the magic of the original is lost. In fact, Glass Onion improves on the original, taking a character we know and love and thrusting him into a funnier and more zany mystery. The heart is still there so sign me up for plenty more chapters of Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) solving elaborate mysteries.

For those concerned, never fear. No major spoilers are ahead. The latest Benoit Blanc tale, which just opened in cinemas, deserves to be seen with as fresh of eyes as possible...

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Link vs Link

• The Guardian ranks the best "Vs" movies after the success of Godzilla vs Kong. Really fun list
• /Film You've probably heard by now that Rian Johnson scored a massive deal for his Knives Out sequels. They'll be going to Netflix for um... $400 million. Daniel Craig will be reprising his role for new mysteries.
• AV Club Edward James Olmos talks about his "random roles" in this always engaging series

More after the jump including Lil Nas X, Olivia Colman, Kung Fu, Thandiwe Newton, and new projects from Sam Mendes and Alex Garland...

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2005: The year of Joseph Gordon-Levitt

by Cláudio Alves

Some years can define an actor's career. That may happen because of the quality of their work or the cultural impact of the movies they starred in. Sometimes this can be obvious right as the year's unfolding, while, in other instances, the period gains importance in retrospect. Think of Grace Kelly's 1954 or Jessica Chastain's 2011. For Joseph Gordon-Levitt that seminal year might have been 2005…

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Ana de Armas and the perils of playing a good person

by Cláudio Alves

When looking at the 94 performances which have conquered the Best Actress Oscar, some jump out as weird anomalies. It's not so much a question of the actor's work as it's an issue of character type. Good people are rare. Not those who are idealized icons or martyred by nightmarish cruelty, but the few that are just regular decent folk. That's one of the reasons Emma Thompson's Margaret Schlegel from Howards End seems so out of place, for instance. She's an average person who seems intrinsically decent but whose goodness isn't simplistic sainthood. More importantly, she's all that but isn't boring to watch.

That's a rare feat and few actors can accomplish it. In screenplays, such roles tend to look simplistic and lacking in substance. Just think of how insufferable Cosette tends to be in Les Misérables or how unconvincing Jane can be in Pride & Prejudice adaptations. Tom Hanks is one of those rare performers who can take such a role and play it to perfection, bringing humanity to decency and making ordinary kindness interesting to watch. Emma Thompson is another. And, in a delightful surprise, so is Ana de Armas…

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