Watch at Home: 1985, Roma, A Simple Favor

What's newly available for home viewing this week? Herewith a very quick survey of new releases and/or great deals

DVD/Blu-Ray
• All About Nina -Festival critics loved it (and Mary Elizabeth Winstead's performance) but it was lost in theaters. Can it find a second life now? 
• Fahrenheit 11/9 -Michael Moore didn't make the doc finalist list this year but his new doc is now on DVD
• A Simple Favor -Paul Feig and two terrific actresses, perfectly cast, delivered one of the year's best comic surprises
• Venom - The Spider-Man spinoff that was so successful we're sure to get loads of other villain spinoffs of superhero movies. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to threaten you.

New iTunes 99¢ Deals
I do not know what possessed them but they have a TON of great films for 99¢ this week (there's usually just a couple of must-sees). That's a price point we can get behind for streaming especially since otherwise you're at the whim of Netflix and Prime's extremely limited movie menus. You might want to check out 1985, Austin based filmmaker Yen Tan's latest LGBT drama. This one is in black and white and about a young man (Cory Michael Smith) who returns home to his parents in Texas (Michael Chiklis and an excellent Virginia Madsen) to say goodbye during the AIDS epidemic.

SO MANY FAMOUS FILMS FOR 99¢ THIS WEEK: Airplane, Annie Hall, Beetlejuice, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Birdcage, Black Hawk Down, The Black Stallion, Blue Velvet, Boyhood, Capote, A Clockwork Orange, Eat Drink Man Woman, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Gravity, Gremlins, Hairspray, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Heat, Kung Fu Hustle, Inherent Vice, Leave No Trace, Leaving Las Vegas, Lenny, The Madness of King George, The Magnificent Seven, Manhattan, Marty, Memento, Midnight Cowboy, Moonstruck, Moulin Rouge!, My Cousin Vinny, Mystic Pizza, Point Break, Raging Bull, Rainman, Spy, Sweeney Todd, Terminator 2, and Under the Skin.

This feels like my village. It's drier there but it feels like it.

Brand New Streaming
• Roma - Netflix's Best Picture hopeful is now streaming. Turn off your phone and all the lights. Then turn the sound way up. In other words treat it like a true cinematic experience if you're watching it at home. After Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Gravity (among others) we think it's safe to say that Alfonso Cuarón has earned the world's full attention. 

Boston Society (and Other Film Critics Awards)

After the jump, let's catch up on "The ROMA Show" AKA "what's been going down in regional critics awards" for those who are interested in the infinite amount of groups that do this sort of thing. Winners lists after the jump from Utah, Boston, Dallas, Kansas City, Indiana, Atlanta, and Las Vegas.

Utah Film Critics Association
A refreshingly original take on the best of the year with Roma only winning 3 prizes and not even Best Film. Into the Spider-Verse and Eighth Grade slightly dominated and some cool curveballs like Annihilation for Best Score. Okay then. I'll give it a listen.

Film: Into the Spider-Verse
Director: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Actress: Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade
Actor: Ethan Hawke, First Reformed...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: Critics Awards, Capernaum, Vox Lux

Nathaniel R, Murtada Elfadl, and Nick Davis to talk new films and awards madness

Index (68 minutes)
00:01 Top ten lists mania. And what makes a screener gay?
04:42 Vox Lux. What is going on there with Brady Corbet's messaging and Natalie Portman's ACTING?
16:01 Celebrity Cameos: Boots Riley, Julia Roberts, and pre-SAG silliness
22:16 LAFCA prizes and critical consensus especially around Roma
36:00 Ethan Hawke vs Bradley Cooper for Best Actor
41:22 Nadine Labaki's amazing Oscar submission Capernaum
49:20 Foreign Film Contenders. We don't like Girl
56:45 "Narratives" Glenn Close, Regina King, Amy Adams, Emily Blunt
63:30 Category Fraud Giggles and Carol Throwbacks
66:50 Ask us some questions, bitches!

Further Reading / References
• Boots Riley's Twitter account
• Foreign Film Race
• Nick's take on Girl
• LAFCA Awards
• ...oh and this is Christopher the cat, who was present for the recording

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? 

Critics Awards, Vox Lux, Capernaum, and More...

LAFCA Winners (and other critics organizations)

The Los Angeles Film Critics Organization is presumably the most crucial in terms of Academy Awards influence since they're the hometown critics of Hollywood and the industry actually hears what they think on a regular basis. This year, like virtually every organization, they threw their weight behind Alfonso Cuarón's Mexican memoir drama Roma. They got idiosyncratic (but smart) in only one category this year, Supporting actor, where they honored Steven Yeun who is remarkable in Burning. Otherwise they underlined actors who are already in the thick of the Oscar discussion. Sadly, two women who really needed their endorsement (Toni Collette and Elizabeth Debicki) were left in "runner up" position, a nice nod in their direction, but not helpful to their causes. 

The full list of winners and lists from LAFCA and three other critics orgs who voted today are after the jump. It was a very good day for Olivia Colman, Steven Yeun and Burning, and Roma...

Click to read more ...

Tweetweek: Endgame

RELATABLE CONTENT! 

this is the moment in the ten-best-list-making process when elation about the number of excellent movies released this year turns into despair about the number of excellent movies released this year.

— 32 across (@aoscott) November 29, 2018

if glenn close and amy adams both win oscars this year the only thing i'll be able to talk about in therapy will be my fear of intimacy!! ugh

— Ben, doing festive for EYES WIDE SHUT season (@RealToddHaynes) November 26, 2018

LOL. 

After the jump more curated short-attention-span amusements for you weekly skimming pleasure. Social media is fun if you take it in small doses (and not too seriously). Tweets follow featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rock Hudson,  Roma jokes, suggestions to replace Kevin Hart at the Oscars, and selected reactions to the Avengers: Infinity War teaser and the Globe nominations...

Click to read more ...