“Much of the media would have you believe that [Christopher Guest‘s] For Your Consideration isn’t as sublime as A Mighty Wind, which three years ago was thought to be not as funny as Best in Show. They’re all brilliant. What the philosopher and literary critic G.K. Chesterton said of Charles Dickens‘ fiction I would say of Guest’s movies: Sit back, relax and savor them, not just as individual movies but as slices of the greater Guest.” — Baltimore Sun critic Michael Sragow writing in the 12.22 L.A. Times.
N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott”s Ten Best of ’06 list has eleven ties for eleventh place, and one of them is the late Fabian Beilinksy‘s The Aura, which I finally saw last summer (a year or so after it was completed) and was pretty much floored by. It’s a seriously unusual psychological crime thriller. IFC will have the DVD out next April.


With one or two exceptions, Tthe Florida Film Critics Circle have delivered a totally non-mind-blowing roster of ’06 superlatives: Best Picture — The Departed; Best Actor — Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland; Best Actress — Helen Mirren, The Queen; Best Supporting Actor — Jack Nicholson, The Departed (a sloppy call — Nicholson’s performance is just another standard high-styler; Best Supporting Actress — Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal (good call); Best Director — Martin Scorsese, The Departed; Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted) — William Monahan, The Departed; Best Cinematography — Guillermo Navarro, Pan’s Labyrinth; Best Foreign-Language Film — Pan’s Labyrinth.
The African American Film Critics Association has named The Last King of Scotland‘s Forrest Whitaker as Best Actor of 2006. I don’t want to leap to conclusions, but I think this falls under the heading of “shocker.” Put it this way — is there any group out there of any half-serious standing ready to stand up for any other Best Actor performance? Dreamgirls‘Jennifer Hudson named Best Supporting Actress, Eddie Murphy as Best Supporting Actor, Bill Condon as Best Director….yup. One good thing: the under-acknowledged Akeelah and the Bee was named the years’s fourth best film .

“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...

The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner's Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg's tastiest and wickedest film -- intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...