COMING SOON

Following "Isle of Dogs", his whimsical stop-motion animated feature about a young Japanese boy in search of his beloved dog sent off to a quarantined island due to canine flu, writer/director Wes Anderson is back with a live-action feature. As to be expected, "The French Dispatch" is another fanciful and outlandish tale and has been described by the filmmaker as "a love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city". Inspired by Anderson's love of The New Yorker, there are three storylines he has created which features characters and events that are based on real-life equivalents from the magazine. The film also has an impressive cast with long-time collaborators (Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson) and first-time appearances (Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, Henry Winkler, Elizabeth Moss, Liev Schreiber) working with Anderson.

"The French Dispatch" is due in U.S. theaters on July 24, 2020 October 16, 2020 October 22, 2021

2020 BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

Despite the fear of the coronavirus which has caused a major disruption in travel with some cancelling attendance, the 2020 Berlin Film Festival still plans on moving forward on February 20th and running through March 1st. The 70th edition of the fest, with newly appointed director, Carlo Chatrian taking over, will open with the world premiere of "My Salinger Year" from writer/director, Philippe Falardeau. This drama, based on the novel by Joanna Rakoff, tells the story of a college graduate (Margaret Qualley) who begins a job as an assistant to the literary agent (Sigourney Weaver) of the reclusive writer, J.D. Salinger.

Jeremy Irons, the Oscar-winning British actor, will be this year's jury president. French actress, Bérénice Bejo, American playwright/filmmaker, Kenneth Lonergan, German producer, Bettina Brokemper, Palestine director, Annemarie Jacir, Italian actor, Luca Marinelli and Kleber Mendonça Filho, a film critic and director from Brazil, make up the rest of the International jurors who will decide on which competing films will win prizes. However, one award, the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize which honors new perspectives on cinematic art, has been dropped due to the recent controversy over Bauer (a founding director of the fest) allegedly collaborating with the Nazis during the war. Some of the films in competition will include new works from celebrated filmmakers, Sally Potter ("The Roads Not Taken"), Kelly Reichardt ("First Cow"), Christian Petzold ("Undine"), Eliza Hittman ("Never Rarely Sometimes Always"), Philippe Garrel ("le sel des larmes (The Salt of Tears)") and Abel Ferrara ("Siberia").







Special screenings will include the docuseries, "Hillary" which focuses on the life of the polarizing former First Lady, Secretary of State and Presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton and a two episode premiere of the Netflix series, "The Eddy", a Paris-set musical drama by Oscar-winning director, Daniel Chazelle. The Berlinale classics line-up will feature screenings of the 1988 cult comedy, "A Fish Called Wanda", Fellini's "Il bidone (The Swindle)" and the 1963 Jerry Lewis comedy classic, "The Nutty Professor".





And Helen Mirren will receive an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement with the fest screening some of her amazing cinematic performances in "The Long Good Friday", "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover", "The Queen" (which she won the 2007 Best Actress Oscar) and her most recent film, "The Good Liar" with Ian McKellen.

THE 92ND ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

"Parasite", the dark and twisted social commentary on the class struggle between wealthy and poor families from South Korea, made Oscar history during the 92nd annual Academy Awards. Not only did the film win Best International Film, which was highly expected, but Bong Joon Ho surprised many by taking Best Director, shared the Best Original Screenplay with Han Jin-won and the top prize of Best Picture, making "Parasite" the first non-English language film to ever win this honor. The rest of the awards were spread around with most of this year's Best Picture nominees receiving at least one award (with "The Irishman" being the surprising exception).

Actress and musician, Janelle Monae kicked off the show with a performance that began subtly with her rendition of Fred Rogers' "Won't You be My Neighbor?" which honored the nominated biopic, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" before launching in to an energetic melody of tunes, joined by Billy Porter and back-up dancers dressed like characters from a few great films neglected by the Academy including "Midsommar", "Us", "Rocketman" and "Queen & Slim". It was all a little messy and chaotic yet Monae still managed to effectively bring attention to her being a queer artist, the lack of female director nominees, the importance of diversity and celebrating Black History Month.

Without a host for a second year, that meant that the show had to rely on the presenters to provide entertaining moments before the awards were given out. It's no surprise that comedians fared best with the inspired coupling of Steve Martin and Chris Rock, both former hosts of the show, to open up the event. While they were a bit stiff together, each provided several humorous digs at the Academy, the stars in the audience and Amazon's, Jeff Bezos.

Other amusing pairings included Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who were also able to promote "Downhill", their upcoming remake of the 2014 Swedish film, "Force Majeure"), James Cordon and Rebel Wilson dressed as the characters they played in the disastrous movie of the musical, "Cats" (which all I kept thinking was how less disturbing they looked here than in the film) and my favorite, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig. These former "SNL" players and co-stars of "Bridesmaids" first did some hilarious "acting" auditions for the directors in the crowd before announcing the Best Production Design winner then provided a crazy musical mash-up that included "Vogue", "U Got The Look", and "The Thong Song" right before handing out Best Costume Design. Perhaps they were auditioning for the Oscar hosting gig for next year? I say hire them.

All of the Best Original Song nominees were performed and they were respectable yet lacking in excitement. I'm not sure if the problem was the staging of the performances or the songs themselves. Billie Eilish, the current pop sensation of the moment, provided a sleepy version of "Yesterday" during the In Memoriam segment. But the biggest head-scratcher of the evening was the unannounced appearance by Eminem who performed his 2003 Oscar-winning Best Original Song, "Lose Yourself" after declining to do so on the program when nominated. I didn't get the point of this presentation seventeen years after the fact with the crowd appearing to either enjoy or be very confused by the performance.

This seems to highlight that the Oscars still can't get a handle on how to balance between the long history and tradition of the show and finding a way to be relevant and fit in to this modern world. With the ratings for the show down once again, the question that begins to emerge is will there still be anyone around wanting to watch the 100th Academy Awards? I'm certain there's still an audience yet now is the time to stop just talking about diversity and actually have that represented with the nominees and the winners of the awards. "Parasite" winning Best Picture is certainly a step in the right direction but more needs to be done to make the Oscars truly inclusive and represent the best of cinema.

Here the complete list of winners from the 92nd annual Academy Awards:

Best Picture: "Parasite"
Best Director: Bong Joon Ho, "Parasite"
Best Original Screenplay: Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin-won, "Parasite"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Taika Waititi, "Jojo Rabbit"
Best Actress: Renée Zellweger, "Judy"
Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, "Joker"
Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern, "Marriage Story"
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood"
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, "1917"
Best Film Editing: Andrew Buckland and Michael McCusker, "Ford v Ferrari"
Best International Feature: "Parasite" (South Korea)
Best Documentary Feature: "American Factory"
Best Documentary Short: "Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)"
Best Live Action Short: "The Neighbors’ Window"
Best Animated Feature: "Toy Story 4"
Best Animated Short: "Hair Love"
Best Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran, "Little Women"
Best Production Design: Barbara Ling (production design); Nancy Haigh (set decoration), "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood"
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan and Vivian Baker, "Bombshell"
Best Original Score: Hildur Gudnadóttir, "Joker"
Best Original Song: "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" from "Rocketman"; music by Elton John; lyrics by Bernie Taupin
Best Sound Mixing: Mark Taylor and Stuart Wilson, "1917"
Best Sound Editing: Donald Sylvester, "Ford v Ferrari"
Best Visual Effects: Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler and Dominic Tuohy, "1917"

WINNERS OF THE 2020 FILM INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS

"The Farewell" received the Best Feature award at the 35th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards. Lulu Wang's family comedy-drama loosely based on her life experience also took Best Supporting Female prize for Zhao Shuzhen's amazing performance as the beloved matriarch who is dying but her family decides to keep this information from her. The other big winners were some more films that were overlooked and should have been recognized by the Academy this year which includes Benny and Josh Safdie winning Best Director for their crime-thriller, "Uncut Gems" and Adam Sandler, who did some unexpectedly sublime work in this film, won Best Male Lead. Actress, Olivia Wilde received the Best First Feature award for her debut as a director with "Booksmart", a hilarious female high-school buddy comedy. But Renee Zellweger, Best Female Lead for "Judy", and Best International Film, "Parasite" from Bong Joon Ho, will most likely repeat their wins at the Oscars tonight.

Here is the complete list of the winners of the 2020 Independent Spirit Awards:

Best Feature: "The Farewell"
Best Director: Benny and Josh Safdie, "Uncut Gems"
Best Screenplay: Noah Baumbach, "Marriage Story"
Best First Feature: "Booksmart"
Best First Screenplay: Fredrica Bailey and Stefon Bristol, "See You Yesterday"
Best Female Lead: Renee Zellweger, Judy Best Male Lead: Adam Sandler, "Uncut Gems"
Best Supporting Female: Zhao Shuzhen, "The Farewell"
Best Supporting Male: Willem Dafoe, "The Lighthouse"
Best Documentary: "American Factory"
Best International Film: "Parasite"
Best Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke, "The Lighthouse"
Best Editing: Benny Safdie and Ronald Bronstein, "Uncut Gems"

OSCAR MADNESS

If it seems too soon for the winners of this year's Academy Awards to be announced - well - it actually is. In effort to combat a feeling that the Oscars have become "anti-climatic" due to so many awards given out prior to the telecast, the Academy decided last year to move up the show by two weeks. However, all the date change did was force all of the other awards to move up the date of their ceremonies with the Oscars still being the last awards given out. Hopefully the Academy will come to their senses and push the show back to it's usual time next year to allow people more time to try and watch all of the nominated films. In the meantime, here is a bit of interesting Oscar news to keep you entertained until the big show this Sunday:

Since viewership has been declining over the last few years, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have been actively trying to reverse this trend by making "improvements" to the Oscars telecast. Some of these plans have not seen the light of day (remember the widely derided "Best Popular Film" category?) or have been difficult to actually make happen (like completing the show in three hours). But one notable idea that did happen was to expand the Best Picture nominees from five selections to up to ten. As an Oscars purist, I was initially appalled by this plan but have come to embrace this decision. While there still will only be one winner, this prestigious nomination will bring attention (and in some cases, much needed) to these movies and help keep the selections far more diverse. Kyle Buchanan of the New York Times has examined this move ten years after it went in to effect and how it has improved the Best Picture category.

Click below to read the article:

10 Years Later: An Oscar Experiment That Worked

Vulture has decided to give the Academy a hand by helping them select the scene of each of the Best Picture nominees that should be shown during the telecast which best represent the spirit of the film and give viewers (who may not have seen the movie) a true idea of what this selected movie is really all about.

Click below to read the article:

The Best Scenes from the 2020 Best Picture Nominees

And finally, we all know that today's Best Picture winner might become in twenty years a "What were they thinking??" Best Picture casualty. 24/7 Tempo has identified some popular and beloved movies that should have received an Oscar. As you go through this list, you will see that most of these popular films did actually receive plenty of nominations ("The Color Purple", "Taxi Driver", "American Hustle", "Do The Right Thing", "The Shawshank Redemption") yet failed to take home any awards. Some of these classics (Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" and Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil") shockingly did not even get a single Oscar nomination. We are also reminded of the films that actually won the award instead of some of these clearly more deserving movies.

Click below to read the article:

The Greatest Movies That Should have Won an Oscar

KIRK DOUGLAS (1916 - 2020)

Kirk Douglas, a movie screen legend and one of the last surviving stars from the golden age of Hollywood, passed away on February 6th at the age of 103 from natural causes. With his distinctive cleft chin and commanding physical presence, this ruggedly handsome actor brought a dynamic intensity and emotional weight with every film performance.

He was born Issur Danielovitch Demsky in Amsterdam, NY, the only son of six children to Russian Jewish immigrants. The family struggled financially and he worked a variety of odd jobs throughout his childhood to help them out. Once he was a teenager, Issur decided he wanted to become an actor. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York to study acting after high school. He changed his name to "Kirk Douglas" before he joined the army during WWII. After he was medically discharged in 1944, Douglas returned to New York and found work as an actor doing commercials, radio and theater.

Lauren Bacall, who was a fellow classmate at the American Academy, would later help him get cast in his first film role with "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" in 1946 which starred Barbara Stanwyck. This would begin his remarkable film career and Douglas would appear in over eighty films including "Paths of Glory", "Ace In The Hole", "Detective Story", "Young Man With a Horn", "The Vikings", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" and "Lonely Are the Brave". Douglas was nominated three times for the Best Actor Oscar; the first was in 1950 for the boxing drama, "Champion". Three years later, he was nominated for his work in "The Bad and The Beautiful" and his final nomination was for portraying painter, Vincent Van Gogh in the 1957 biopic, "Lust For Life".

Douglas has been widely credited for helping bring an end to the Hollywood Blacklist which had prevented film professionals who were purported to have Communist sympathies from obtaining work. As he served as star and executive producer of the 1960 epic historical drama, "Spartacus", Douglas insisted that Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted writer, be given screen credit under his actual name for his work on the screenplay.

In 1991, Douglas was badly injured in a near-fatal helicopter crash with a small plane. This experience lead him to search for a deeper meaning in his life and re-embraced Judaism in which he had been raised. Douglas later suffered from a severe stroke in 1996 and had initially lost most of the ability to speak. After extensive therapy, he regained some speech although it was limited. Two months later, Douglas appeared on stage at the Academy Awards to accept an Honorary Oscar for "50 years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community" and gave a moving speech.

He was married twice; Douglas first met Diana Dill when she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts with him and they married in 1943. The couple had two sons, Michael, who went on to have his own highly successful acting and producing career and Joel, a film producer. They divorced in 1951. Douglas met German producer, Anne Buydens during the filming of "Lust For Life" and they soon fell in love, marrying in 1954. They went on to have two sons, Peter, a producer and Eric who passed away in 2004 from a drug overdose. Douglas is survived by the one hundred year old, Anne and the two were married for sixty-five years.

WINNERS OF THE 2020 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival came to a close on Saturday, February 1st and Lee Isaac Chung’s "Minari" was the big winner taking both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic Feature Prize. This drama, loosely based on writer/director, Chung's real life story, follows a Korean-American family making a move from Los Angeles to Arkansas for a better opportunity while in pursuit of the American Dream.

Here is a partial list of winners from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival:

AUDIENCE AWARDS

U.S. Dramatic: "Minari"
U.S. Documentary: "Crip Camp"
World Cinema Dramatic: "Identifying Features (Sin Senas Particulares)"



World Cinema Documentary: "The Reason I Jump"
Next: "I Carry You With Me"

GRAND JURY PRIZES

U.S. Dramatic: "Minari"
U.S. Dramatic Director Prize: Radha Blank, "The 40-Year-Old Version"
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award - U.S. Dramatic: Edson Oda, "Nine Days"
U.S. Documentary: "Boys State"
U.S. Documentary Director Prize: Garrett Bradley, "Time"
World Cinema Dramatic: "Yalda, A Night For Forgiveness"



World Cinema Dramatic Director Prize: Maïmouna Doucouré, "Cuties"
World Cinema Documentary: "The Reason I Jump"
World Cinema Documentary Director Prize: Iryna Tsilyk, "The Earth Is Blue As An Orange"



Next Innovator Prize: "I Carry You With Me"

SPECIAL JURY PRIZES

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast: "Charm City Kings"



U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Auteur Film making: Josephine Decker, "Shirley"
U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award: Neo-Realism: "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"



U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing: Tyler H. Walk, "Welcome to Chechnya"
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Innovation in Non-fiction Storytelling: "Dick Johnson Is Dead"
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker: Arthur Jones, "Feels Good Man"



U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres, "The Fight"
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting: Ben Whishaw, "Surge"
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Visionary Filmmaking; "This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection"
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay: Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero, "Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares)"
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Storytelling: "The Painter And The Thief"
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography: Mircea Topoleanu and Radu Ciorniciuc, "Acasa, My Home"



World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing: Mila Aung-Thwin, Sam Soko and Ryan Mullins, "Softie"