This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
FRONTRUNNERS:
1917 (Universal)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Sony)
The Irishman (Netflix)
Marriage Story (Netflix)
The Two Popes (Netflix)
The Farewell (A24)
Parasite (Neon)
Joker (Warner Bros.)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Sony)
Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight)
Little Women (Sony)
1) South Korea – Parasite
2) Spain – Pain and Glory
3) France – Les Misérables
4) Poland — Corpus Christi
5) North Macedonia — Honeyland
This looks like an atrociously bland year for Hollywood (in terms of Oscar contenders). Tarantino, Scorsese, Soderbergh and then what? Do people seriously think yet another version of "Little Women" (courtesy of Greta Gerwig) will turn out to be an artful surprise? A new film by Kasi Lemmons sounds interesting on paper. Maybe the Safdies can sneak into the race with their Adam Sandler heist picture Uncut Gems,” but they are a little too radical for the Academy’s tastes. Looks like another year where the best movies will be foreign and mostly come from Cannes and Venice (Bong Joon-ho, Almodovar, Dardenne, Larrain, Puiu, Kore-eda, Hansen-Løve). Fine by me. My top ten lists have become more foreign-oriented the last few years, the American studio system is all but dead with Netflix now in charge of mid-budget dramas.
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Cue in the outrage police. Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” might set back the Oscars by a few years when and if it wins Best Picture at the 91st Academy Awards tonight. All the “progress” that happened with “Moonlight",” “12 Years A Slave,” and “Shape of Water” winning might be destroyed, according to wokers, of course. No diss intended to Farrelly’s lovely film, but the amount of hate it has garnered throughout awards season is enough to send Twitter into outrage-overdrive when Peter “I flashed Cameron Diaz" Farrelly and Nick “Muslims celebrated on 9/11” Vallelonga get on-stage to accept their award at around midnight EST (Yes, that’s when the Oscars will likely finish broadcast).
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