A week ago, a test-screening reaction for Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” was posted here. I was told by Searchlight to take it down, which I did, but not without a message from del Toro himself. The film, he said, is still three weeks away from completion.

In a piece titled “What's Going On With Blonde , Netflix's Marilyn Monroe Biopic?,” Vogue writer Hayley Maitland basically reaffirms what we’ve been saying all along about Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe biopic: Netflix is frightened by the film.

This is the fifth instalment in our evolving series of 2022 Oscar predictions. We’ve already tackled the Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best International Film categories. Today, it’s Best Director.

UPDATE: “Eternals” is now officially the worst-reviewed Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever. What a disaster for Chloe Zhao, whose intentions were no doubt admirable, but who got sucked into the Marvel/Disney vacuum with this one.

I am doing backflips over Jeff Nichols quitting “A Quiet Plave: Part III.” Deadline had reported a few months back that Paramount hired Nichols to write and direct the third film in the “A Quiet Place” franchise. Actor-filmmaker John Krasinski helmed the first two.

One thing some detractors of “The Souvenir” films may not get, or maybe they do and just don’t care, is that they purposely meander.

Back in September, I had written a piece about Will Smith’s potential Oscar dilemma. By now, you all must know that “King Richard” is a major Best Picture frontrunner, and, more importantly, that Smith is destined to win the Best Actor statuette.

Yesterday, as I was emailing around, asking critics from major trades if they had seen PTA’s “Licorice Pizza” (none had), one of them replied to my message this way:

Kristen Stewart has been campaigning like a madwoman the last few months, hungry for that Best Actress statuette (which she might get for “Spencer”).

It was almost inevitable that the “Dune” sequel would happen, especially with its global total of $223 million far surpassing the $165 million budget.

I’ve been asking around to see if anyone has actually seen Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza,” after all, Variety’s Clayton Davis subtly mentioned in an Oscar piece, a week or so ago, that it had been screened for a select few critics and journalists.

Warner Bros. were kind enough to let me screen Marcus Reinaldo Green’s “King Richard” last night.

The Best International Feature Film category will again be very competitive this year. About a dozen or so countries submitted their official picks these last few days

If “Baby Driver,” Edgar Wright’s kinetic, bullet-riddled live-action jukebox stunt, saw the director riffing on the cinema of Walter Hill and Michael Mann in his own inimitable key, then “Last Night in Soho” has the British director tipping his proverbial cap to Dario Argento and the Giallo genre.

Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev is out of a medically-induced coma, according to the chairman of AFK Sistema’s board of directors. Zvyagintsev is in Germany undergoing treatment for a severe case of COVID-19.

Oscar winner and master filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón was a guest at the 16th annual Rome Film Festival.