my picks for tonight’s 93rd Academy Awards (the Oscars for 2020’s films) (winners indicated)
I correctly guessed 11 out of the 24 23 categories, which is slightly better than last year.
Sacha Baron Cohen
OFCS 2020 awards winners announced
And the winners are…
AWFJ 2020 EDA Awards winners announced
And the winners are…
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm movie review: punching way the hell up
A work of breathtaking audacity. This is as perilous as comedy gets, and it’s very, very funny, often shockingly so. Sacha Baron Cohen’s scathing cultural strikes land like extinction-level asteroids.
Alice Through the Looking Glass movie review: a mirror cracked
Believes six impossible things — like implausible character motivations, or big emotions — because they’re in the script, without bothering to earn them.
Grimsby (aka The Brothers Grimsby) movie review: grim indeed
A soul-crushing experience: lazy, cheap, lurid, and stupid. Painfully unfunny and pointless. Sacha Baron Cohen now panders to those he once rightly mocked.
Les Misérables (review)
There’s an alchemy here that brings together the best of screen and the best of stage…
critic’s minifesto #4: I am biast
It’s astonishing how often I am “accused” of being biased — or “biast,” as a reader once blasted at me — as if there were something extraordinary or unusual or unlikely or uncriticly about this…
question of the day: With so many expensive movies sinking this year, will Hollywood step back from the blockbuster?
Or will the industry double-down and take even bigger gambles with $500 million movies in coming years?
The Dictator (review)
A stunning failure, certainly compared to Borat and Bruno. Sacha Baron Cohen is clearly aware of whom the targets of his satiric ire should be, but he couldn’t figure out how to make it work.
