Oscar Volley: Is there space for supporting actors in the Best Supporting Actor race?

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves to discuss Best Supporting Actor...

Stellan Skarsgård in SENTIMENTAL VALUE | © Neon

ERIC: Hi, Cláudio. I'm very excited to tackle this year's Best Supporting Actor race with you! This is often the most boring acting category, but am I naive to think this year might be different? There are a lot of really fantastic performances that are not only nomination-worthy but win-worthy in my opinion. Are we to be disappointed that once the precursors start naming nominees, things will narrow too small too quickly? 

For the moment, it's an open book. I would love to discuss with you the two performances that do seem like locks even at this early stage: Sean Penn for One Battle After Another and Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value…

Click to read more ...

Review: P.T. Anderson's Glorious "One Battle After Another"

by Eric Blume

If you’re a regular site reader, you’ve probably been following all the film blogs discussing the new Paul Thomas Anderson epic, One Battle After Another.  So we don’t need to discuss plot or beat around the bush…the question is:  Does it really deliver like everyone has been saying? I remember being so excited before seeing Licorice Pizza -- it too was heralded by early viewers -- only to find it contrived and uninvolving in the cinema. My vote, this time, is an unqualified yes!  PTA is a great filmmaker:  ideologically ambitious, profoundly humanistic, and daringly assured technically.  Anderson delivers with depth and panache here in this new contemporary, highly political film... 

Click to read more ...

Linko

• Vulture Jackson McHenry surveys the current scam artists on TV dramas
• The Grio Ruth E Carter to be honored with an NAACP "Vanguard" Award
• BuzzFeed Reliving the Lizzo vs Melissa MCCarthy Little Mermaid casting drama, now with fresh quotes
• Vox Emily VanDerWerff on the rise of art about evangelicals from Midnight Mass to The Righteous Gemstones to current novels, too

More after the jump including Jessica Chastain, The Northman, Sean Penn, Peter Sarsgaard, and the shirtless dancers from Euphoria...

Click to read more ...

Posterized: Sean Penn as director

by Nathaniel R

Dylan and Sean Penn earlier this summer at Cannes.

Former movie star Sean Penn celebrated his 61st birthday just two days ago and now welcomes his sixth directorial effort, Flag Day, into US theaters. Though Penn's name was once intoned with a kind of reverence by fellow actors and critics his film career has been curiously uneventful for a decade now (with his supporting role in The Tree of Life, 2011, his last real prestigious success... and mostly by association at that). One suspects the fading film career is more from a shift in his own interest and priorities given his political activism than a lack of opportunities but it's always hard to know given the fickle nature of Hollywood and stardom in general.

Can Flag Day serve as a kind of jumpstart for a comeback in the next few years? Does he even want that? He has two films (as an actor) in preproduction now, a drama with Dakota Johnson and a drama with Tye Sheridan.  How many of his six directorial efforts have you seen? The posters are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Cannes Diary #5: Road trips through cinema

Do you know "Raul"? I don't and I never cease to be fascinated by this bizzarre Cannes Festival tradition. Sometimes, just before a press screening, someone screams "Raouuul!". No one seems to know why or when this phenomenon started, but the most seasoned journalists I know told me that the Raoul tradition started many, many years ago. Maybe I can just google it and find an answer but every person I ask about it has a different theory, so I'm enjoying the mystery. Anyway, on to today's three films...

Mariner of the Mountains  (Karim Aïnouz)
SPECIAL SCREENINGS

I took the ticket for the latest by the Brazilian director on a whim, because I woke up early that day and I really liked his previous feature, Invisible Life. I had read nothing about this one since sometimes I like to go in blindfolded. At first I was so confused by the form, a kind of infinite collage of short videos recorded with a smartphone and photos taken by Aïnouz himself during his first journey to Algeria...

Click to read more ...