Ten months into the year, it’s hard out here for an Oscar contender. Being worthy of remembering, or being watched by Academy members, demands a warm film-festival reception, rave reviews, effective marketing and distribution, strong theater attendance, and word of mouth. Check out this curated (alphabetical) selection of long-shot performers who are worthy of Oscar consideration, but may see their movies get lost in the intense competitive awards shuffle.
1. Bryan Cranston
Category: Best Actor
Awards: Nominated for Best Actor by SAG and the Oscars for “Trumbo,” Cranston won three Best Actor in a Drama Emmys for playing Walter White in “Breaking Bad” and won SAG Best Actor in TV movie as Lbj in “All the Way.”
Last Hit: “Why Him?” ($60 million domestic)
Title: “Last Flag Flying” (Amazon Studios)
Bottom Line: This layered New York Film Festival opener stars Cranston in one of his signature large, colorful, entertaining performances as Sal,...
1. Bryan Cranston
Category: Best Actor
Awards: Nominated for Best Actor by SAG and the Oscars for “Trumbo,” Cranston won three Best Actor in a Drama Emmys for playing Walter White in “Breaking Bad” and won SAG Best Actor in TV movie as Lbj in “All the Way.”
Last Hit: “Why Him?” ($60 million domestic)
Title: “Last Flag Flying” (Amazon Studios)
Bottom Line: This layered New York Film Festival opener stars Cranston in one of his signature large, colorful, entertaining performances as Sal,...
- 10/16/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Ten months into the year, it’s hard out here for an Oscar contender. Being worthy of remembering, or being watched by Academy members, demands a warm film-festival reception, rave reviews, effective marketing and distribution, strong theater attendance, and word of mouth. Check out this curated (alphabetical) selection of long-shot performers who are worthy of Oscar consideration, but may see their movies get lost in the intense competitive awards shuffle.
1. Bryan Cranston
Category: Best Actor
Awards: Nominated for Best Actor by SAG and the Oscars for “Trumbo,” Cranston won three Best Actor in a Drama Emmys for playing Walter White in “Breaking Bad” and won SAG Best Actor in TV movie as Lbj in “All the Way.”
Last Hit: “Why Him?” ($60 million domestic)
Title: “Last Flag Flying” (Amazon Studios)
Bottom Line: This layered New York Film Festival opener stars Cranston in one of his signature large, colorful, entertaining performances as Sal,...
1. Bryan Cranston
Category: Best Actor
Awards: Nominated for Best Actor by SAG and the Oscars for “Trumbo,” Cranston won three Best Actor in a Drama Emmys for playing Walter White in “Breaking Bad” and won SAG Best Actor in TV movie as Lbj in “All the Way.”
Last Hit: “Why Him?” ($60 million domestic)
Title: “Last Flag Flying” (Amazon Studios)
Bottom Line: This layered New York Film Festival opener stars Cranston in one of his signature large, colorful, entertaining performances as Sal,...
- 10/16/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Italian-American actor-director John Turturro, who stars in Richard Price and Steve Zaillian’s widely hailed limited series “The Night Of” (HBO).
Bottom Line: For 37 years, versatile New York actor John Turturro has delivered memorable characters who can be incredibly smart (“Quiz Show”) or insanely stupid (bowler Jesus Quintano in “The Big Lebowski”), lovable (“Fading Gigolo”) or menacing (the pool hustler in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color Of Money”). He’s a go-to player for both the Coens and Spike Lee as well as a reliable character actor for Hollywood tentpoles such as “The Transformers.”
Career Peaks: After winning a scholarship to the Yale Drama School and performing Ibsen, Ionesco, and John Patrick Shanley off-Broadway, Turturro got stuck playing violent killers in films like “Five Corners...
Bottom Line: For 37 years, versatile New York actor John Turturro has delivered memorable characters who can be incredibly smart (“Quiz Show”) or insanely stupid (bowler Jesus Quintano in “The Big Lebowski”), lovable (“Fading Gigolo”) or menacing (the pool hustler in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color Of Money”). He’s a go-to player for both the Coens and Spike Lee as well as a reliable character actor for Hollywood tentpoles such as “The Transformers.”
Career Peaks: After winning a scholarship to the Yale Drama School and performing Ibsen, Ionesco, and John Patrick Shanley off-Broadway, Turturro got stuck playing violent killers in films like “Five Corners...
- 7/31/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Italian-American actor-director John Turturro, who stars in Richard Price and Steve Zaillian’s widely hailed limited series “The Night Of” (HBO).
Bottom Line: For 37 years, versatile New York actor John Turturro has delivered memorable characters who can be incredibly smart (“Quiz Show”) or insanely stupid (bowler Jesus Quintano in “The Big Lebowski”), lovable (“Fading Gigolo”) or menacing (the pool hustler in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color Of Money”). He’s a go-to player for both the Coens and Spike Lee as well as a reliable character actor for Hollywood tentpoles such as “The Transformers.”
Career Peaks: After winning a scholarship to the Yale Drama School and performing Ibsen, Ionesco, and John Patrick Shanley off-Broadway, Turturro got stuck playing violent killers in films like “Five Corners...
Bottom Line: For 37 years, versatile New York actor John Turturro has delivered memorable characters who can be incredibly smart (“Quiz Show”) or insanely stupid (bowler Jesus Quintano in “The Big Lebowski”), lovable (“Fading Gigolo”) or menacing (the pool hustler in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color Of Money”). He’s a go-to player for both the Coens and Spike Lee as well as a reliable character actor for Hollywood tentpoles such as “The Transformers.”
Career Peaks: After winning a scholarship to the Yale Drama School and performing Ibsen, Ionesco, and John Patrick Shanley off-Broadway, Turturro got stuck playing violent killers in films like “Five Corners...
- 7/31/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This July will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces
What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).
Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*
Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces
What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).
Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*
Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...
- 6/26/2017
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
I honestly can’t remember a show that squanders a talented cast as thoroughly as Netflix’s new comedy Friends From College does. It’s borderline criminal.
There’s no question the show (releasing Friday, July 14) is blessed with an all-star team of comedy actors: Keegan-Michael Key! Cobie Smulders! Fred Savage! Billy Eichner! Nat Faxon! Heck, you could just put these guys in a room together and film them joking around without a script, and it’d be worth watching. But here, they’re saddled with unlikable characters, a distasteful infidelity plot and an erratic tone that never quite finds itself.
There’s no question the show (releasing Friday, July 14) is blessed with an all-star team of comedy actors: Keegan-Michael Key! Cobie Smulders! Fred Savage! Billy Eichner! Nat Faxon! Heck, you could just put these guys in a room together and film them joking around without a script, and it’d be worth watching. But here, they’re saddled with unlikable characters, a distasteful infidelity plot and an erratic tone that never quite finds itself.
- 6/25/2017
- TVLine.com
He’s not throwing away his shot at a little intrigue and espionage: Current Hamilton lead Javier Muñoz will appear in an upcoming episode of Quantico.
RelatedHamilton Star Lands Spike Lee Role in She’s Gotta Have It Netflix Series
Muñoz, who plays Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway hit and who filled in for creator Lin-Manuel Miranda onstage before Miranda left the musical, tweeted the news late Monday.
Now that its done I can share that I was hella nervous today!!
Thanks for the warm welcome; the pleasure was mine. https://t.co/T3bXnLFCwI
— Javier Muñoz (@JMunozActor) November 1, 2016
Per...
RelatedHamilton Star Lands Spike Lee Role in She’s Gotta Have It Netflix Series
Muñoz, who plays Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway hit and who filled in for creator Lin-Manuel Miranda onstage before Miranda left the musical, tweeted the news late Monday.
Now that its done I can share that I was hella nervous today!!
Thanks for the warm welcome; the pleasure was mine. https://t.co/T3bXnLFCwI
— Javier Muñoz (@JMunozActor) November 1, 2016
Per...
- 11/1/2016
- TVLine.com
Keep up with the always-hopping film festival world with our weekly Film Festival Roundup column.
– Beloved genre festival Fantasia has completed announcing its very, very full final lineup for its twentieth edition. Highlights include Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe,” the Mel Gibson-starring thriller “Blood Father,” the world premiere of “The Top Secret: Murder in Mind,” Billy O’Brien’s “I Am Not a Serial Killer,” a screening of “Train to Busan,” a heart-stopping series of documentaries (“Beware The Slenderman”!), an action-centric series that includes the world premiere of “Kickboxer: Vengeance” and so very much more. (Seriously, this is just a very small taste of the wild goodies on offer.) Check out the full lineup at the festival’s official website. The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal July 14 – August 2.
– New York City’s own Rooftop Films is partnering with the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa...
– Beloved genre festival Fantasia has completed announcing its very, very full final lineup for its twentieth edition. Highlights include Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe,” the Mel Gibson-starring thriller “Blood Father,” the world premiere of “The Top Secret: Murder in Mind,” Billy O’Brien’s “I Am Not a Serial Killer,” a screening of “Train to Busan,” a heart-stopping series of documentaries (“Beware The Slenderman”!), an action-centric series that includes the world premiere of “Kickboxer: Vengeance” and so very much more. (Seriously, this is just a very small taste of the wild goodies on offer.) Check out the full lineup at the festival’s official website. The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal July 14 – August 2.
– New York City’s own Rooftop Films is partnering with the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (Idfa...
- 7/7/2016
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Fourteen films have been competing in iber.film.america, the first-ever Latin American film festival online, organized by VoD platform filmotech.com. “The aim is to bring Hispanic cinema closer to Latin American communities from both continents, America and Europe, through new distribution channels,” said festival and platform director Juan Alía. “Internet is the ideal venue for the general public to have access to these types of films, that are of great quality but have not been released either in cinemas or as DVDs.” Until April 16, the platform’s Latin American visitors will be able to see the films for free, with up to 10,000 viewings possible for each film. The selected films, produced in Latin American countries between 2009 and 2011, will vie for the Critics Award, decided on by a jury made up of five journalists and with a prize of $3,000, and for the Audience Award. Fifteen countries, from Argentina to Mexico via Spain, Nicaragua, and Colombia, are represented in a selection that includes:
Ticket to Paradise (Isa: Icaic) by Gerardo Chijona Valdés
Undertow (Isa: Greenburg Taurig) by Javier Fuentes León
Des-autorizados by Elia Schneider
García (Isa: Bogeydom Liscensing) by José Luis Rugeles
Guest (Isa: Roxbury) by José Luis Guerín
Jean Gentil (Isa: Aurora Dominicana) by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas
The Colors of the Mountain (Isa: Urban Distribution Int.) by Carlos César Arbeláez
La mala verdad (lit. “The bad truth”) by Miguel Ángel Rocca
Half of Oscar (Isa: FiGa FIlms) by Manuel Martín Cuenca
La Yuma (Isa: All Rights Ent.) by Florence Jauguey
Medianeras by Gustavo Taretto
Norberto’s Deadline (Isa: Outsider Pictures) by Daniel Hendler
Pescador (Isa: Latinofusion) (lit. “Fisherman”) by Sebastián Cordero
Transeúnte by Eryck Rocha
iber.film.america is supported by the Icaa, the Latin American Federation of Cinema and Audiovisual Producers (Fipca), and the Cervantes Institute.
Ticket to Paradise (Isa: Icaic) by Gerardo Chijona Valdés
Undertow (Isa: Greenburg Taurig) by Javier Fuentes León
Des-autorizados by Elia Schneider
García (Isa: Bogeydom Liscensing) by José Luis Rugeles
Guest (Isa: Roxbury) by José Luis Guerín
Jean Gentil (Isa: Aurora Dominicana) by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas
The Colors of the Mountain (Isa: Urban Distribution Int.) by Carlos César Arbeláez
La mala verdad (lit. “The bad truth”) by Miguel Ángel Rocca
Half of Oscar (Isa: FiGa FIlms) by Manuel Martín Cuenca
La Yuma (Isa: All Rights Ent.) by Florence Jauguey
Medianeras by Gustavo Taretto
Norberto’s Deadline (Isa: Outsider Pictures) by Daniel Hendler
Pescador (Isa: Latinofusion) (lit. “Fisherman”) by Sebastián Cordero
Transeúnte by Eryck Rocha
iber.film.america is supported by the Icaa, the Latin American Federation of Cinema and Audiovisual Producers (Fipca), and the Cervantes Institute.
- 5/23/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Similar to the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, or the Visions and Vanguard programmes at Tiff, Venice has their own special sidebar for the more experimental folk on the cinema stage, called Orizzonti (Horizons). Last year saw some pretty heavy titles in this section, including Catherine Breillat's dream fable Sleeping Beauty, José Luis Guerín's local colour doc Guest, Hong Sang-soo's quadrant-structured Oki's Movie, and Patrick Keiller's continuation of his heady essay films with Robinson in Ruins. The full announcement for this year's edition will be dropping in the coming weeks, but today saw the unveiling of the jury, as well as their opening film, which will be Iranian filmmaker Amir Nedari's Cut. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose masterful and lethargic Syndromes and Century played in the 2006 main competition, had already been crowned jury prez some four weeks ago, but has been forced to drop out for unspecified reasons (let's hope...
- 7/13/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
“I am not an ideologue,” José Luis Guerín says matter-of-factly. “I need characters.” Judging by the lukewarm response that has greeted his latest film, Guest, it’s a dicey stance for a director of art house cinema to take these days. Early reviewers have praised Guerín’s images but questioned the structure of the film, which often finds him wandering through Third World cities and inviting conversations about hot-button topics like immigration, colonialism, and religion. That he does so without any pretense of deep sociopolitical analysis makes Guest something of an anachronism: it’s a politically-interested film in an observational mode, more humble and curious than didactic.
In 2006, after premiering his previous film, In the City of Sylvia, Guerín decided to spend a year traveling the world by accepting every festival invitation he was offered. He carried a consumer-grade Dv camera with him wherever he went and very gradually built...
In 2006, after premiering his previous film, In the City of Sylvia, Guerín decided to spend a year traveling the world by accepting every festival invitation he was offered. He carried a consumer-grade Dv camera with him wherever he went and very gradually built...
- 12/15/2010
- MUBI
"In the year from September 2007 until September 2008, I challenged myself by accepting without any exclusions all of the film festivals and events inviting me as a guest [for my film En la ciudad de Sylvia (In the City of Sylvia, 2007)]. It made no difference whether I had any fondness for the place, nor the importance of the event: I would go to all of them; and I would try to see something at each one, leaving a trace of that fleeting visit like a quick sketch, captured in just a stroke. I arrive in an unknown city and wander about the streets, camera in hand, without any direction or preconceived idea in mind beyond the predisposition to be open to all encounters, to the latent revelation in the fortuitous. During this year of hotel rooms, I would frequently wake up to find a festival pass on the bedside table where the word Guest could be read next to the passport-sized photo identifying me.
- 10/15/2010
- Screen Anarchy
"Hitting the film festival circuit for a year with In the City of Sylvia, José Luis Guerín wanders the streets to catch glances of human bustle in a variety of locations," writes Fernando F Croce, reviewing Guest at the House Next Door. "The trouble with Guerín's evocative two-hour diary is that, attempting to convey a feeling of life continuously swarming away from the confines of festivals, it reveals a dearth of concern for specific subjects that turns the faces and places into an amorphous mass. Touching without exploring, it still showcases enough of Guerín's warm touch to make one wish more visiting filmmakers would stray from their hotel rooms, camera in hand." More from Jonathan Holland (Variety), Daniel Kasman (The Daily Notebook), Karina Longworth (Voice) and Eugenio Renzi (Independencia, 4.3).
- 9/24/2010
- MUBI
0845 Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark, China)
In marked contrast to Takashi Miike’s staunchly assignment-like, termite-filled genre epic 13 Assassins, Tsui Hark shows the other side of the coin, a once-maverick, now-regular filmmaker whose flourishes are as inspired as always but whose cinema profoundly misses the hunger, the perspicacity, the preciousness, the by-any-means-necessary sense of attack energy of his youth. Fine. Detective Dee runs on its genre engine well enough nevertheless—an imprisoned Andy Lau is taken out of jail by the soon to be the first female empress of China to solve, as the title so honestly puts forth, the mystery of people spontaneously, hideously, and in great computer generated cindery detail, bursting into flames and burning to death. Tsui centers the beginning and the end on a mammoth Buddha skyscraper built in the Forbidden Palace’s backyard (circa 650 A.D.), which obtains a conceptual grandeur and abstract,...
In marked contrast to Takashi Miike’s staunchly assignment-like, termite-filled genre epic 13 Assassins, Tsui Hark shows the other side of the coin, a once-maverick, now-regular filmmaker whose flourishes are as inspired as always but whose cinema profoundly misses the hunger, the perspicacity, the preciousness, the by-any-means-necessary sense of attack energy of his youth. Fine. Detective Dee runs on its genre engine well enough nevertheless—an imprisoned Andy Lau is taken out of jail by the soon to be the first female empress of China to solve, as the title so honestly puts forth, the mystery of people spontaneously, hideously, and in great computer generated cindery detail, bursting into flames and burning to death. Tsui centers the beginning and the end on a mammoth Buddha skyscraper built in the Forbidden Palace’s backyard (circa 650 A.D.), which obtains a conceptual grandeur and abstract,...
- 9/18/2010
- MUBI
In every major city in the world there are squares much like the one in José Luis Guerín‘s Guest. Like Union Square in New York City, Yonge-Dundas Square is an area where you’ll find hippies, 9/11 “truthers,” performance artists and those allied to whatever cause is worth calling attention to at the time. Guest, following in a video diary sensibility pioneered by Jonas Mekas and stolen by American ad agencies to sell us Coca-Cola, calls attention to the fringe focusing his lens away from what we commonly associate with the film festival world.
Subjectivity is traded for formalism, as it should be in a video diary. It is impossible to achieve the realism of a Fredrick Wiseman film even in a Fredrick Wiseman film: decisions must be made. Guerin’s film is beautifully shot in black and white mini-dv, a perfect medium for self-exploration. Often times Guerin presents a...
Subjectivity is traded for formalism, as it should be in a video diary. It is impossible to achieve the realism of a Fredrick Wiseman film even in a Fredrick Wiseman film: decisions must be made. Guerin’s film is beautifully shot in black and white mini-dv, a perfect medium for self-exploration. Often times Guerin presents a...
- 9/16/2010
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
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