Tag: Oscars

Hamnet’s Powerful Performances Balance Out a Light Narrative (Middleburg Film Festival)

Director Chloe Zhao returns to the big screen with a tale of love and loss. Hamnet tells the tale of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his early life with his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley). After getting married and…

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Sentimental Value Lives By Its Actors Empathetic Performances (Middleburg Film Festival)

2021’s The Worst Person in the World was a critical darling upon its release and announced writer/director Joachim Trier and actress Renate Reinsve as two talents on the rise in the film world. Their followup film has finally…

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Like Its Leads, Wicked: For Good Is One Half Goodness, One Half Cloudy

Wicked was both a box office hit and a pleasant surprise for this reviewer last year, so the anticipated conclusion of the franchise is quite the curiosity. Can director Jon M. Chu stick the landing? Will stars Cynthia…

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Rental Family: Uncomfortable Lies Exchanged For Comfortable Truths (Middleburg Film Festival)

After 2022’s “Brenaissance” that saw the actor make a triumphant return to Hollywood with his Academy Award winning turn in The Whale, Brendan Fraser hits the big screen for his first starring role since bringing home the Oscar….

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The Smashing Machine Largely Accomplishes What It Meant To Do

The hype surrounding Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s latest film has been substantial. After becoming one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars during an era that has seen movie stars become less important than they’ve ever been, a string of…

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One Battle After Another is a Stunning Achievement

Leonardo DiCaprio. Paul Thomas Anderson. Two titanic names in Hollywood who have established themselves as the best at what they do in town and future legendary figures finally connect on a movie set and bring a sprawling, ambitious…

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Magazine Dreams: A Fitting Portrait of Male Fragility and Redemption (Sundance Film Festival)

Jonathan Majors was on the cusp of stardom and seemed headed for his first Oscar nomination before an incident in the streets of New York City made his persona non grata in mainstream film circles, cost him his Marvel Cinematic…

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Top Performances of 2024

In anticipation of tomorrow’s Oscar nominations announcement, we here at CinemaBabel have compiled our top picks for 2024’s best in film performances both in front of and behind the camera. See how our picks stack up against the…

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I’m Still Here and Quiet Strength

I’m Still Here tells the true story of Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), the wife of a former Brazilian politician Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) who finds himself a target of the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1970s. After Ruben…

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The Brutalist is a Big, Epic Cinematic Swing (Middleburg Film Festival)

I am sure by now if you’re the type to pay attention to film awards or the buzz around fall film releases, you’ve heard the hype surrounding The Brutalist. Because it is a smaller independent film, its release…

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