recent posts
- Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent: A Cool Brazilian Gets an Oscar Nod
- Now on Oscar’s Short List: Holding Liat, a Documentary about the Harrowing Wait for a Hostage Freed from Gaza
- Paul Thomas Anderson’s Best Film at the 91st NYFCC at TAO Downtown
- Mariska Hargitay, Ken Burns, Alan Berliner: Non-Fiction Filmmakers Award Season
- David Amram: The First 95 Years at Dizzy’s Club
Category: Fim Festivals
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It would be a mistake to think George Clooney plays himself in Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly—a smart take on a man who, in a late career epiphany, learns the meaning of life. Cliches aside, and one-upped: Yes, he’s a movie star! A big one. And the movie plays with all the stereotypes including a heroic…
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Hollywood sent a message at this year’s Oscars. Winning Best Actor for his role in THE BRUTALIST, his second for this prize, Adrien Brody hoped for a healthier, happier, more inclusive world: “Don’t let hate go unchecked.” That’s not a small ask. From his first win for THE PIANIST in 2002, the actor whose mother,…
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The New York Film Critics Circle celebrated its 90th year this week, at TAO Downtown. Member Rex Reed celebrated his 50th year with the group. Many spoke of the fires in LA. Adrien Brody, reflecting on TAO’s décor with its giant statue mistaken for Buddha, pointed out, that’s Shiva the destroyer before becoming emotional, and…
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Old Hollywood likes their leading men handsome and debonair—think Cary Grant, Rock Hudson—but with this year’s Gotham selection of A DIFFERENT MAN for the top prize, Best Feature, a new look grabs at your attention. You have to love an awards season that starts with a celebration of –well, difference. A hit at the New…
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Documentary filmmakers Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck had a shoutout of praise for their 2022 film, THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS –from Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks. These veteran filmmakers, the FORREST GUMP team, are not the only fans. For their latest doc, GAUCHO GAUCHO, about Argentinian cowboys, making the rounds of film festivals to great acclaim,…
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Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton led the list of producers of Zurawski v Texas, a documentary by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault. After screening in the five states where abortion is on the ballot, this essential documentary is now in a theater near you, following an impassioned event at the recent Hamptons International Film Festival.…
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“Do not fuck with a woman from NYC,” exclaimed comedian/actress Alex Bornstein, accepting her award for The Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment Made in NY Award at this year’s NYWFT Muse Awards. The “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star reminded 700 guests seated for a sumptuous steak dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street this week, she was…
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After Oscar nominations, pundits weigh in on the snubs. What exactly does it mean? In the case of BARBIE, the highest grossing film of the year: laughing all the way to the proverbial, eh, literal, bank. Team BARBIE has a prominent place at the party, with nods for Best Picture, Original Song, Production Design, Costume…
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One pleasure of the swank New York Film Critics Circle dinner at Tao Downtown: the awards are announced well ahead of the early January date. This means that speeches are prepared; presenters get to, well, speak critically—and, at length. When MAY DECEMBER director Todd Haynes awarded scriptwriter Samy Burch, he went far to explain her…
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A sure path to a hit documentary is a subject as brilliant, dynamic and charismatic as musician extraordinaire, Jon Batiste. Filmmaker Matthew Heineman, accepting the Pennebaker Career Achievement Award at Hamptons DocFest this week, told a rapt audience in Sag Harbor how he made his latest film, AMERICAN SYMPHONY, about Batiste on a musical, emotional…
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If you ask Robert De Niro to speak, be prepared for his tirade on the former president who seeks office again. That omission seemed odd to the guests seated at Cipriani Wall Street this week for the annual Gotham Awards. Then, the actor paused realizing the words he was reading from the teleprompter were not…
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As the DOCNYC festival illustrated, the genre of non-fiction films remains a vibrant frontier. Asmae El Moudir’s THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES, awarded Best Documentary in Cannes and Morocco’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar, tells a hidden history through clay figurines. The “Bread Wars” in Morocco in the early 1980’s garnered little attention…
