movies

There are 206 posts filed in movies (this is page 22 of 26).

Barry Jenkins’s favorite Criterion films

It’s always fascinating to see the films that inspired a brilliant filmmaker. Here are the films Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) chose from the Criterion closet:

  • Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander
  • Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy
  • Andrew Haigh’s Weekend
  • John Cassavetes: Five Films
  • Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog
  • Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine
  • Joel Coen’s Blood Simple
  • Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl
  • Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding
  • Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher
  • David Gordon Green’s George Washington
  • Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon
  • The Essential Jacques Demy
  • The Complete Jacques Tati

Criterion has also compiled a “Best of” Closet Picks video as well.

(hat-tip: Jay Cheel)

Reactions to the 2017 Oscar nominations

The Academy announced their 2017 Oscar Nominations yesterday morning. A few reactions:

  • Meryl Streep getting nominated for an Oscar and NOT Amy Adams for Arrival is some real bullshit.
  • Suicide Squad has more Academy Award nominations than The Handmaiden (which, yes, wasn’t even submitted for consideration). Passengers has more nominations than Silence. Up is down. Left is right. Dogs and cats, sleeping together. Mass hysteria.
  • Hell or High Water surprised me with a few nominations including Best Picture (???) and a Best Supporting for Jeff Bridges (the last one is deserved but I didn’t know if it would happen).
  • Michael Shannon was great in Nocturnal Animals but he was only in the movie for like 15 minutes? I guess if Tommy Lee Jones can win for The Fugitive, anything’s possible…
  • In 2010, Mel Gibson was caught on tape telling Oksana Grigorieva that if she was “raped by a pack of niggers” it would be her own fault. Now he’s been nominated for Best Director and Best Picture via Hacksaw Ridge. THAT’S HOLLYWOOD FOR YA, FOLKS! (for more on this, read Britt Hayes over at ScreenCrush)
  • Pixar totally shut out this year. Not a surprise: All of the Best Animated Film nominations are better than Finding Dory.
  • I hope Moana wins because I freaking love that film, but KUBO winning would also be great because after the tepid box office performance of that film, Laika needs a victory.
  • All your base are belong to La La Land (14 noms). It will destroy all other contenders this year.

Over at /Film, Jacob Hall has a great piece on this year’s biggest snubs and surprises.

The insane camera moves of ‘La La Land’

[Update: All the videos have now been pulled from Robbins’ account. Some are being released separately as exclusives now. I’ve tried to re-embed the videos as they originally appeared here]

Steadicam operator Ari Robbins has worked on dozens of projects over the years, but his work on La La Land is exceptional. We all know La La Land has great camerawork but it wasn’t until I looked at his Instagram that I understood how much manpower went into some of the shots.

Here’s a photo showing the rig they used for the opening number of the film:

A post shared by Ari Robbins SOC (@steadijew) on


I can’t believe these whip-pans were actually done in-camera (I suspected digital trickery might be involved, but nope):

And this shot from the number “Someone in the Crowd” is mindblowing:

A post shared by Ari Robbins SOC (@steadijew) on

The Hollywood Reporter also has footage on how they did the final “Someone in the Crowd” sequence:

Also: Deadline has footage showing how they shot the final sequence of the film.

(Thanks to Steve Ho from the Slackfilmcast for bringing this to my attention)

What it feels like to not love ‘La La Land’

In this week’s SNL, Aziz Ansari stars in a sketch that captures what it feels like to not adore a film that everyone else is on board with. It can be a lonely, lonely place.

(Bonus points for capturing a lot of the best complaints against La La Land and the somewhat unconvincing rebuttals to them, not to mention the weird tension between people who La La Land lovers and Moonlight lovers)

The return of John McTiernan

John McTiernan, the director of Die Hard, has just directed his first video in more than a decade: an ad for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Over at Vulture, Drew Taylor has the incredible story of what McTiernan has been up to:

McTiernan’s inauspicious reemergence leads to a couple of bigger questions: Where, exactly, has he been? And what makes this ad so special?

To answer the first question, you have to go back to 2006, when Anthony Pellicano, a private eye with ties to some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, was arraigned on federal wiretapping charges. It was the conclusion of both a three-year investigation and Pellicano’s 30-day stint in prison for illegally keeping explosives in his West Hollywood office. The resulting trial would eventually embroil some of Hollywood’s biggest executives (Michael Ovitz and Brad Grey) and shiniest stars (Tom Cruise and Chris Rock). At the time, Vanity Fair described the scandal as Hollywood’s Watergate.

But only one member of the Hollywood elite would actually get sent to prison for to his relationship with the notoriously scuzzy Pellicano: John McTiernan.

Like Taylor, I’m rooting for a McTiernan comeback.

How Do People Google the ‘xXx’ Movies?

Tom Philip, writing for GQ:

For the uninitiated, “xXx” is the code name for Xander Cage, Vin Diesel’s protagonist. It also has the added bonus of implying the movie you are about to see will be EXTREME. TOO HOT FOR TV. Etc.

An unfortunate side effect is, pretty obviously, it’s hard to Google this movie without, y’know, finding a bunch of porn. To that end, let’s look at how the xXx series’ SEO stacks up against the internet’s ultimate sweetheart: full-on sex.

Short version: Don’t title your movie or project xXx. (via Craig)

‘xXx: The Return of Xander Cage’ Passes The Bechdel Test

After watching xXx: The Return of Xander cage last night, I tweeted this:

I’ve seen a few people respond to this tweet by saying, “See! The Bechdel Test is meaningless!” Meanwhile, I have the opposite reaction: I’m disappointed that a lot of our greatest, most beloved films don’t have two women ever interact with each other in a meaningful way outside of the context of their relationship with men (if they have two women interacting at all).

The Bechdel Test is not a great test of a movie’s quality, but I think about it a lot and bring it up frequently because it is very difficult to think of a movie that doesn’t pass the inverse version of that test (i.e. two men talk, it’s not about a woman, etc.). The reason the Bechdel Test exists is because a huge percentage of movies we see don’t pass it. When that is no longer the norm, I’ll be happy to stop thinking about the Test.

For more thoughts on xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, see my Periscope with Matt Lynch. (Also, thanks to Lindsey Romain for pointing out that maybe The Two Towers does kinda pass?)

An audience in 1977 reacts to the climax of ‘Star Wars’

YouTube user Homer Thompson has taken a tape recording that YouTube user William Forsche made while watching Star Wars in the theater in 1977 and synced it up with the on-screen action they were observing.

The result is…not too different than what you’d hear from modern day audiences. But there is something pure about it — these people are likely seeing this story for the very first time.