Author: Jules
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New Episode of the Academy Anonymous Podcast!
A new episode of the Academy Anonymous podcast is now LIVE and available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and anywhere else you like to listen. On this episode, we dig into all the revelations from the announcement of this year’s Academy Award nominees! Which films and performances surprised and which stalled or fizzled out completely?…
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TIFF 2025: Who’s The Real Favorite? TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, Its New International Rival, and Our Predictions
The winner of the coveted TIFF People’s Choice Award will be announced tomorrow. I say “coveted” because TIFF and the pundit class like to position the recipients of this prize as a bellwether for Academy Awards success. But how true is that, really? The first People’s Choice Award was handed out in 1978—two years after…
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TIFF 2025 Round-up: The Hits, Misses, and Surprises
The 50th annual Toronto Film Festival is winding down, so here’s a rundown of the chatter surrounding the buzziest premieres, alongside fresh reactions to films that first screened at Cannes, Venice, and Telluride. Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman drew praise for Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst’s grounded performances and authentic chemistry, as well as its quirky warmth,…
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Venice Film Festival 2025: Contested Winners and a Divided Jury
The winners of the 82nd Venice Film Festival were announced on Saturday, September 6th. As expected, critics and attendees were underwhelmed by some of the jury’s choices in the main competition, while others were outraged that some of the brightest films at the Lido were completely shut out—particularly Park Chan-wook’s widely acclaimed No Other Choice.…
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Final Venice Predictions
The winners of the 82nd Venice Film Festival will be announced this Saturday, so here are our final predictions for which films might take home a prize. Recently, Ildikó Enyedi’s competition entry SILENT FRIEND received a very warm reception — great news, as she remains one of our most prominent surreal humanist filmmakers, a true expert at…
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Venice Day Seven HOT TAKES: The Return of Kathryn Bigelow, The Sealing Of A Best Picture Nominee
The biggest news out of today’s Venice Film Festival screenings was loud and clear: Kathryn Bigelow’s first film in eight years (her last being the under-seen Detroit in 2017) was unanimously adored by critics, earning an impressive 88 on Metacritic and 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. Joseph and I predicted this outcome on our last podcast,…
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Venice Day Six HOT TAKES: Acting Contenders Emerge in Dwayne Johnson, Amanda Seyfried, and Emily Blunt
The two biggest premieres on Day 6 of the 82nd Venice Film Festival were without question Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine—his first feature without his brother Josh—and Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee, which arrives on the heels of her Oscar nomination last year for co-writing The Brutalist. Both films landed strongly with critics,…
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Telluride Film Festival RECAP: Get Ready For HAMNET
The 52nd Telluride Film Festival (which always takes place over Labor Day weekend) wraps up tomorrow, with most of the heavy hitters now unveiled. Among the standouts already seen at Cannes (and by yours truly) were Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident, The Mastermind, Nouvelle Vague, The History of Sound, and…
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Venice Day Five HOT TAKES: Jim Jarmusch’s latest adored by critics; WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN and Ann Lee receive polarizing reactions
The biggest premieres of day 5 of the Venice Film Festival were the Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother, Olivier Assayas’s The Wizard of the Kremlin, and first peek at Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Anne Lee. Jim Jarmusch’s minimalist style, wry humor, and poetic portraits of outsiders have made him a pioneer of independent…
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Venice Day Four HOT TAKES: Guillermo del Toro’s FRANKENSTEIN is Alive!!
Guillermo del Toro’s dream project was finally unveiled tonight at the Venice Film Festival. What seems like a perfect melding of artist and subject, his take on Frankenstein certainly drew it’s ardent admirers—many who were in awe of the film’s craftsmanship, and del Toro’s success in crafting a transcendent, romantic, emotionally complex melodrama—as well as…
