Category Archives: The Grab Bag

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 27, 2020)

April 27, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites: Redux #25: Favorite Stanley Kubrick Films

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Awards Coverage

The Friday Face-Off Round Two #1

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Poll: Remaking Best Supporting Actress, 2013

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Essays

Insidious: In praise of a perfect jump scare

Rob Daniel @ Electric Shadows

Excerpt: Enforced isolation can find you doing funny things. If you’re anything like me you find yourself watching the trailer for Tom Hanks’ upcoming World War 2 actioner Greyhound on continuous loop.

Tuesdays with Oscar: An American in Paris (1951)

Jerry Roberts @ Over-Thinking Oscar

Excerpt: Musicals are no strangers to The Academy Awards, but in weighting the quality, you can’t give them points for diversity.

The Unnominated: The Farewell (2019)

Jerry Roberts @ Over-Thinking Oscar

Excerpt: The Farewell is about life, and culture, and family, and humor. It’s about the inevitability of death but also the great truths of this thing called life.

Video Essays, Video Reviews, Vlogs & More

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 27, 2020) →

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 20, 2020)

April 20, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites Redux #24: Original Stage Musical Adaptations

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Tributes

Luis Rainer: Oscar’s Beloved Outcast

Jerry Roberts @ Over-Thinking Oscar

Excerpt: In practical terms, you have to wonder if Rainer’s career would have been remembered so fondly if she hadn’t been such an oddity in Oscar’s scrapbook. To date, she remains the only actress in history to win two back to back Best Actress awards and she was the oldest living Oscar recipient.

Awards Coverage

Poll: Remaking Best Supporting Actres, 2012

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Essays

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 20, 2020) →

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 13, 2020)

April 13, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites Redux #23: Favorite Stage Adaptations

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

The Best Films of 2020 (So Far)

Candice Frederick @ Harper’s Bazaar

Interviews

Advocates for Democracy: Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance on “Slay the Dragon”

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

Excerpt: In an interview with RogerEbert.com the directors talked about being “advocates for democracy,” the power of social media in pushing back against dark money, and making the arcane, data-heavy story of gerrymandering accessible and cinematic.

After 60 Years in Hollywood, Glynn Turman Is Still Trying New Things

Candice Frederick @ Shondaland

Interview with Eliza Hittman about Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Nell Minow @ Alliance of Women Film Journalists

Excerpt: I think stories about teenagers are very universal. They can speak to a young audience, but it’s also very easy for an adult audience to watch them and look back and reflect and identify. So, I think that the films that I make specifically speak to young people, but also to an adult audience.

This Incredible, Unusual, Really Unique Sort of Hook: George Nolfi on The Banker

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

Excerpt: And we were both so amazed at what these guys accomplished, and we also felt like there was this incredible, unusual, really unique sort of hook where you reverse all the stereotypes and you have these two amazing African-American men, despite all the racism around them, My Fair Lady-ing, as it were, a white guy to be their front.

Awards Coverage

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 13, 2020) →

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Apr. 6, 2020)

April 6, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites Redux #22: Favorite Sci-Fi Films

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Interviews

The Banker

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

Excerpt: we were both so amazed at what these guys accomplished, and we also felt like there was this incredible, unusual, really unique sort of hook where you reverse all the stereotypes and you have these two amazing African-American men, despite all the racism around them, My Fair Lady-ing, as it were, a white guy to be their front.

Awards Coverage

Essays

Who Killed the World: Automotive Ecstasy and Apocalyptic Despair in Action Cinema

Andrew Wyatt @ The Common Reader

Excerpt: In ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, *how* exactly the world was killed might be a mystery, but the *who* seems all-too-obvious: men. Men and their consuming hunger for more power and more speed.

Video Essays, Video Reviews, Vlogs & More

The Road to Murder in Love and War: Three Films from Claude Chabrol

Michael Barrett @ PopMatters

From Our Members’ Desks (Mar. 30, 2020)

March 30, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites Redux #21: Comfort Films

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

You Finally Have Time for Ingmar Bergman!

Kyle Anderson @ Nerdist

Excerpt: Like many a Nordic drama of today, Bergman’s cinema depicts people living in remote locations. Often they live in fear of the world around them. Perfect for these angsty COVID-19 days.

Festivals: Individual Reviews

Determined: The Story of Holocaust Survivor Avraham Perlmutter

Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Excerpt: The world premiere of this powerful documentary was set for March 29 at the 18th annual Garden State Film Festival where the film won “Best Orchestration from a Documentary.” This festival is now virtual. The Story of Holocaust Survivor Avraham Perlmutter was set for March 29 (2020) at the 18th annual Garden State Film Festival where the film won “Best Orchestration from a Documentary.” This festival is now virtual

Awards Coverage

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Mar. 30, 2020) →

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Mar. 23, 2020)

March 23, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites Redux #20: Post-Apocalypse Films

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Interviews

This Movie Is Streaming Only. Should We Lower Our Expectations?

Candice Frederick @ New York Times

Werner Herzog sobre Family Romance, LLC: “Já não sabemos o que é realidade, mentira ou fake news’

Paulo Portugal @ [Portuguese]

Festivals: General Coverage

Berlinale: 70 anos celebrados por uma competição de nomes de culto

Paulo Portugal @ [Portuguese]

Festivals: Individual Reviews

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Mar. 23, 2020) →

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Mar. 16, 2020)

March 16, 2020 Governing Committee Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

5 Favorites Redux #19: The Best of Guy Pearce

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Interviews

Just in the Minuscule Things That Happen in a Day: Kelly Reichardt on “First Cow”

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

Excerpt: I was taking an Indian cinema class and the Satyajit Ray films had the same sort of thing where they somehow told stories, big picture stories, but all about family, and just in the minuscule things that happen in a day.

Premature Is A Coming-Of-Age Love Story That Never Undermines Its Heroine

Candice Frederick @ Elle

We Want to Tell Personal Stories; Pixar’s Kelsey Mann on Onward

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

Excerpt: There’s something so appealing about watching these two incredible actresses in the car together. We really liked the balance between the two boys doing their thing and these two incredible women doing their thing as the B story.