After Monday’s Oscar nominations, we got a better picture of the leading contenders in almost every category. And yet, the Best Picture race still felt like an enigma to most. As many as six of the nominated movies were being touted as front-runners with “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” the de facto frontrunner with the Gold Derby pundits. Of course, I stuck by my hunch, a hunch I had even before it won Best Picture at the Golden Globes, that “1917” was the actual frontrunner. After all, Sam Mendes’ WWI picture has all the earmarks of the Best Picture winner (highly stylized direction and photography, historical context, not to mention, an accessible narrative).

“Bad Boys for Life” hasn’t even completed its full opening weekend yet, but that hasn’t stopped Sony from plotting the fourth installment in the 25-year franchise. “Bad Boys for Life” screenwriter Chris Bremner, who co-wrote the script with Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan, is said to be returning as a writer for the fourth installment. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are expected to return.

Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. No matter the medium—from laserdisc to DVD and Blu-ray to streaming—Criterion has maintained its pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it seen, in state-of-the-art restorations with special features designed to encourage repeated watching and deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.

I haven't watched The Simpsons since, oh gosh I don't know, Season 11, I think? It's now entered  its 25th season, but, goddammit if that stretch they had between 1990-2000 wasn't one of the finest in TV history, right up there with "Seinfeld," "The Sopranos," and "Breaking Bad."

According to AMC, as we await Season 5’s February premiere, “Better Call Saul” has now indeed been renewed for a sixth and final season. The 13-episode final season will have ‘Saul’ end its successful and unusual run on AMC, one which came off the heels of five masterful seasons of“Breaking Bad”, but, somehow, found fascinating ways to enhance Vince Gilligan’s New-Mexico world-building from ‘Bad.’

David O. Russell’s last film was the 2015 movie, “Joy,” starring Jennifer Lawrence. Although considered a major disappointment for the standards e set, as it failed to receive receive the acclaim of his last three movies (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), all of which were Best Picture nominated at the Oscars, it still managed to be a compulsively watchable affair and continued to prove that the Russell was an elite filmmaker.

I've was hesitantly following HBO's "Watchmen" series, unsure of whether it would amount to anything, but I want to comment on this episode, "This Extraordinary Being," because it's some of the best TV I've seen in a while. It's a shame, really, that something this cinematically self-reflective can’t be counted as a “movie”, but this is the so-called current "golden age of television" we live in. Regardless, the episode’s 61 minutes contain unusually smart superhero genre scenes, all shot in a sumptuously desaturated (35mm?) black-and-white look.

So, exactly how many A-list directors have slammed Marvel and shown an unwillingness to ever work within the superhero genre? Too many to count. Scorsese, Coppola, Loach, Almodovar, Cronenberg, Scott, Boyle, De Palma, Stone, etc.

Although “Lovebirds” reunites director Michael Showalter with his “The Big Sick” star-screenwriter Kumail Nanjiani, this latest indie rom-com seems to have shades of genre cinema more than the deft humane handling of their previous effort.

It does look as though David Fincher’s ‘Netflix series ‘Mindhunter’ may be done for good. The cast options for Fincher’s brilliant serial-killer show seem to have expired., with Deadline seemingly confirming late last night that shooting the series exhausted Fincher to no ends and that it may very well be over. `

Nick Kroll is known these days as the creative mind behind Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” an animated sitcom about middle schoolers going through puberty. The critical acclaim and success of that show seems to have given Kroll the opportunity to screenwrite “Olympic Dreams.” Writing and starring in the indie film, Kroll plays a dentist volunteering in the Olympic village, during the 2018 South Korean Olympics, who falls for athlete skier Penelope (Alexi Pappas)

Will I be attending the upcoming 2020 SXSW Film Festival in March? Who knows, but today it was revealed that the Opening Night selection will be Judd Apatow’s first film in over five years — “The King of Staten Island,” starring Pete Davidson.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, splitting Best Director into gendered categories does a major disservice to women, it basically says “hey, we’ve given up in getting nominated with all the male talent out there, let’s just save us the inevitable yearly backlash and split the category into two.” Now, doesn’t that sound preposterous? It’s what “Honey Boy” director Alma Har’el has been suggesting ever since she and her female cohorts got snubbed from a Golden Globe and Academy Award directing nod.

I spoke to Hollywood-Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells about Jessica Crispin’s Guardian piece, which tackled the epidemic of virtue-signalling Kool-Aid critics (MP3), and (b) why exactly Todd Phillips‘ film isn’t being considered a leading Best Picture nominee by pundits? (MP3 )

I had been working on a write-up about this exact topic when The Guardian’s Jessa Crispin had her write-up go live last night. Titled The piece is called “Is politics getting in the way of assessing which films are actually good?” the gist of Crispin’s thesis, if you will, is that critics have now become so political-minded by virtue-signaling that they’re not only against telling the truth about films but are pretty much incapable of doing so. Yikes.