It’s Oscar night on Sunday — a.k.a. Hollywood’s annual orgy of self congratulation. For 2020, there are nine nominees up for Best Picture with Little Women trying not to wipe out in an avalanche of movies about white dudes in crisis (see: Joker, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Ford v Ferrari, …
Read More »The Joy and Heartbreak of 'Cheer'
Cheer, the six-part Netflix docuseries about an elite collegiate cheerleading squad, has a winning formula that’s made it TV’s first breakout hit of 2020: small-town athletics, Texas kitsch, and beautiful young girls in pain. In the three weeks since it premiered, coverage of the show has blanketed the internet and …
Read More »'The Good Place' Recap: The Beginning of the End
A review of the penultimate episode of The Good Place, “Patty,” coming up just as soon as I sign like a middle-school girl with a crush on Zac Efron… What happens when you die? Of all the Big Questions humanity has been asking going back to the caveman days, that …
Read More »Adam Sandler and Safdie Brothers Team Up for New Short
Adam Sandler and Uncut Gems filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie have reunited for a new short film, Goldman v Silverman, about a turf war between two street performers. The six-minute project recaptures some of the gritty, frenetic New York aesthetic that defined Uncut Gems, although here it’s used in a …
Read More »Ellen DeGeneres Praises Carol Burnett in Moving Golden Globes Speech
Ellen DeGeneres praised Carol Burnett’s “larger than life” presence while accepting an award named after the comedy icon at the 2020 Golden Globes. “I felt like I knew her,” DeGeneres said during her speech for the Carol Burnett Award. “I felt like she showed us who she was every week. …
Read More »Anthony Daniels: 'My Life as C-3PO Is Far From Over'
A telephone conversation with Anthony Daniels can be unnerving, particularly when a crackly connection lends his already familiar voice a slight mechanical quality, making it all feel impossibly close to an actual chat with C-3PO. Daniels, 77, has played that droid since 1977 in movies, cartoons, video games, and various …
Read More »'The Aeronauts': Ballooning Biopic Goes Up, Up and Away From the Facts
What do you say about a 19th-century ballooning movie that looks great in the air but doesn’t stick the emotional landing? That’s the problem with The Aeronauts, one of those “based on a true story” undertakings that are only partly true. The film reunites Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, who …
Read More »'Servant' Twists Itself Into Knots
While many genres lend themselves as well to television as film, horror has generally seemed better suited to the big screen. There’s something fundamental to the nature of horror stories that demands the spell they cast over the audience not last very long — especially because their plots often require …
Read More »'Ford v Ferrari' Review: Damon, Bale and the Need for Speed
Vroom! You can feel the power thrumming under James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari — and that’s a shock because this thunderously exciting true story is based on a stuffy business proposition. Back in the 1960s, Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) determined to beat Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) at his own …
Read More »'We Wrote the Last Scene First': David Simon on 'The Deuce' Epilogue
This article contains full spoilers for the series finale of The Deuce, which we reviewed here. Though their subjects and locales are different, every David Simon show has certain common themes about individuals being crushed by the weight of American institutions. And every David Simon show ends more or less …
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