Each week this column will highlight one winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, progressing chronologically until all winners have been discussed. There will be a brief discussion of the film itself followed by a mention of what we wish won from the nominees in the given year (though in many cases there were…
I’d like to start this list off with some honorable mentions: The Small Axe series: McQueen is one of my favorite filmmakers working today and this series further confirms that, but I chose to leave individual entries off my list to cover as much ground as possible. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: A late contender that…
10. Promising Young Woman (tie) (Emerald Fennell, US) Carey Mulligan’s devastating, desperately barbed performance is at the heart of a thriller that flips the rape revenge genre on its head. Every Saturday night she goes home, fake drunk, with a man, and every night they try to make a move. What results is a messy…
2020 has been, to put it bluntly, the biggest shake-up of the film industry since the end of the Silent Era. As the pandemic shut down movie theaters across the globe and forced everyone to stay isolated in their homes, cinemas went virtual and studios had to think outside of the box for their release…
To say “What a year we’ve had” would not only be an understatement, but an unwanted cue for an unnecessary flashback reminding us of the whole catastrophic chapter we’ve been through. But that’s just it: “we’ve been through.” Riding some massive ups and downs that put any roller coaster in the history of mankind to…
Red, White and Blue is the third film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, which premiered at this year’s New York Film Festival, but it’s actually the final entry in the series. Though the remaining two entries have yet to be seen, Red, White and Blue is an appropriate and effective conclusion to the project,…
Last week, Lovers Rock premiered as the opening night film of this year’s New York Film Festival. It was a perfect opening to the festival, providing a celebratory and communal atmosphere for audiences watching at home on their computer screens, longing for the traditional theatrical experience and festival energy. Though it was the first of…
10. The Tribe The Tribe remains one of the toughest viewing experiences I’ve ever endured. The Ukrainian drama follows a new arrival at a boarding school for deaf teenagers and his induction into a bleak world of crime. Though it unfolds entirely without dialogue and offers no subtitles to translate the sign language used, The…
Honourable Mentions in random order: Gone Girl, The Favourite, Mad Max Fury Road, Tangerine, Paddington 2, Get Out, The Cabin in the Woods, Rango, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , Prometheus, End of Watch , About Time, Ex Machina , Guardians of the Galaxy, The Love Witch , Mother!, The Square, Silence, Under the Silver Lake The 25 25.)…
Cinema Etc. 