Oscar Rundown, Part II: ARGO, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, and LES MISERABLES

Oscar Rundown, Part II: ARGO, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, and LES MISERABLES
James Franco Dominates New SPRING BREAKERS Red Band Trailer
Hey, Filmmakers! Thailand Wants You!
Meeting The Criterion: THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), Nolan's FOLLOWING, THE QATSI TRILOGY, BRAZIL

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 04:00 PM PST

Previously in this column, I took a comparing/contrasting look at three of this year's Best Picture Oscar nominees, Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained, and Lincoln. Now it's time to continue the process of asking whether or not the nine Best Picture nominees are as much of a topically unrelated jumble as it appears, or are there some connections? The dot connecting continues with this year's current frontrunner: ArgoArgo is in the strange position of becoming the first film in recent memory to take the gold thanks to a snub. The fact that director Ben Affleck (who also stars in the film) was overlooked in the Best Director category seems to actually be doing the trick of elevating Argo over the one-time sure thing, Steven Spielberg's...

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James Franco Dominates New SPRING BREAKERS Red Band Trailer

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST

Spring break is coming and with it comes a new red band trailer for Harmony Korine's over the top evisceration of everyone's favorite week of binge drinking in pursuit of the American Dream, Spring Breakers. Brit, Candy, Cotty, and Faith have been best friends since grade school. They live together in a boring college dorm and are hungry for adventure. All they have to do is save enough money for spring break to get their shot at having some real fun. A serendipitous encounter with rapper "Alien" promises to provide the girls with all the thrill and excitement they could hope for. With the encouragement of their new friend, it soon becomes unclear how far the girls are willing to go to experience a spring...

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Hey, Filmmakers! Thailand Wants You!

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 07:00 AM PST

We don't often promote contests that we're not running ourselves here on Twitch but sometimes, well, sometimes it's just too good to ignore. Like this time.Fancy yourself a filmmaker? Want to go to Thailand? Well, The Amazing Thailand Film Challenge is going to bring a whopping ONE HUNDRED filmmakers to the Asian nation to shoot a short film, all expenses paid. Airfare, four nights of hotel, a roughly $1000 budget for the actual film, production advice and a local assistant all included. Yes, really. For details click here to visit the official website and check out the video below....

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Meeting The Criterion: THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), Nolan's FOLLOWING, THE QATSI TRILOGY, BRAZIL

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 06:00 AM PST

Behold the tale of how I came to dive deep into The Criterion Collection. Almost all of us own the stray Criterion disc or two of our favorite films. Some of us have dozens of Criterion titles but collect far more than we watch, content to let that growing number of numbered spines make us look more cinematically well-rounded than we really are. That was me anyway, Mr. Comfort Zone, happy to pick up The Blob or Godzilla or Carnival of Souls but far less likely to try the experimental films of Stan Brakhage, or the work of people like Godard, Rosselini, Tati, Bergman, Tarkovsky... the list had no end. The list still has no end. Join me on my journey. I hope to use the Criterion...

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