To this introverted writer, there are few prospects scarier than appearing on a stage and trying to make people laugh. Alex Novak, Will Arnett’s newly separated father of two in Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, whose day job, we are told simply, is “finance,” might have shared such trepidation at one time. But when he shuffles onto the stage of a comedy club’s open-mic … [Read more...]
Big box office winners also dominate Oscar nominations
After a year when the Motion Picture Academy scrubbed its bad idea to create an Oscar category for Most Popular Picture, some of the highest-grossing films were nominated for the top statuette of 2019. Black Panther became the first superhero movie to earn a Best Picture nomination, poised to compete against two other mainstream popular high box office films – Bohemian … [Read more...]
Updated ‘Star is Born’ speaks with fresh urgency for new century
“It’s the same story told over and over again,” says Sam Elliott’s character toward the end of Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born. He’s talking about the form of popular music, whose 12 bars inspire endless variations on a shared structure. He could also be talking about A Star is Born itself, Hollywood’s grim, self-critical appraisal of the vagaries of celebrity — first filmed … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2018-19: Fall film
The fall brings a better class of films with it, and particularly so this year with a handful of major directors, like Damien Chazelle, Barry Jenkins and Steve McQueen, checking in with their follow-up releases after such acclaimed efforts as La La Land, Moonlight and 12 Years a Slave. And any season that features a newly completed film by the late Orson Welles has to be … [Read more...]