The Playlist

Viola Davis Joins 'Ender's Game' & Is One Of Warner Bros. 'Beautiful Creatures'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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February 2, 2012 6:04 PM
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8 Comments

News

Things are looking good for Viola Davis. Having snagged the SAG Award for her turn in "The Help," barring a late arrival from the Meryl Streep Train, in a few weeks, the actress will land her first Oscar win. At least that's what we hope. But while we wait to see how that plays out, Davis is using her awards season bank a couple of movies and they are both as different as it gets.

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The Amazing Race: Taking The Temperature Of The Race After The Oscar Nominations & Guild Awards

By Oliver Lyttelton
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January 30, 2012 2:55 PM
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9 Comments

Awards

Finally, the Oscar nominations were announced last Tuesday. Furthermore, three of the four big guilds -- the Producers, the Director's and the Screen Actors -- have given out their awards over the last couple of weekends, with only the Writers still to hand out any statuettes. So at last, months and months down the line, we can stop talking about what's going to be be nominated, and start talking about what's going to win. Or at least who's leading the field at this point.

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'Pariah' Director Dee Rees Writing A New Script Called 'Large Print' & Working On An HBO Series With Viola Davis

By Benjamin Wright
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January 26, 2012 8:58 AM
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0 Comments

News

While Spike Lee may be making headlines at the Sundance Film Festival for both his fiery rants and his latest effort “Red Hook Summer,” he took some time out to help boost the profile of a rising filmmaker who is already earning acclaim. Lee appeared alongside Dee Rees of “Pariah” fame (he executive produced the film), and the pair had an extended conversation with New York Times writer David Carr that’s well worth the watch (it's in full below).

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'The Artist' Continues Awards Sweep With Four Wins At The Critic's Choice Awards; George Clooney & Viola Davis Take Best Actor/Actress

By Oliver Lyttelton
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January 13, 2012 9:10 AM
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4 Comments

Awards

We've still got about six weeks to go in the awards season, but we're all but done with the nomination process (bar the Oscars, of course), and moving into the stage where people actually get to start filling up their trophy cabinet. The Golden Globes are on Sunday, but last night saw the first televised ceremonies of 2012, the Broadcast Film Critic's Association Critic's Choice Awards.

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Review: 'Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close' Is Often Moving But Insufficiently Effective

By Gabe Toro
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December 18, 2011 5:30 PM
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1 Comment

Reviews

Oskar Schell, the protagonist of "Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close," isn’t like other boys. Sure, he likes laughing and junk food and having a good time like the other kids. But this overly precocious ten year old is more of an Encyclopedia Brown in training. With the guidance of his father, he pieces together the mysteries of history, breaking down everyday life into a puzzle. The unspoken tragedy of this is that Oskar doesn’t have a life. What makes up his existence is the notion of an interconnected web attaching his life experiences as if they all influenced another, domino-style. He’s a ten year old boy who doesn’t appear to have many friends, aside from his overactive father.

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Watch: 5 New Clips From 'Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close' To Make You Cry At Your Desk

By Drew Taylor
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December 14, 2011 4:06 PM
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2 Comments

News

We haven't seen Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" yet but from what we understand it will make you cry your fucking eyes out. Yahoo Movies has just debuted five new clips from the movie, and while they certainly aren't the most emotional clips they could have chosen, you'll still probably want to grab the Kleenex just in case.

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'The Help' & 'The Artist' Lead The Field At Screen Actors Guild Awards Nominations

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 14, 2011 9:36 AM
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8 Comments

Awards

In the seventeen years that they've been running for, the annual Screen Actors' Guild Awards have proven to be a pretty reliable precursor for the acting categories at the Academy Awards. And why shouldn't they? With the actors who nominate their peers for the Oscars overwhelmingly being SAG members, there's always going to be a natural link, and certainly by the time the guild award their prizes, it's a good time to make a bet. In the last few years, they've only missed Penelope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Marion Cotillard in "La Vie En Rose" and Alan Arkin in "Little Miss Sunshine" as winners, while the nominees tend to match up heavily -- last year, seventeen out of twenty in the acting categories were the same, while all five nominees in the Outstanding Cast category won Oscar nominations.

2011's Potential Oscar Nominees For Acting, Directing & Writing Get Together To Talk At THR's Awards Roundtable

By Ryan Sartor
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December 9, 2011 2:33 PM
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9 Comments

News

One of the necessities for any Oscar candidate is to do a lot of smiling, gladhanding interviews where they answer the same questions over and over again. An antidote to this madness is the annual Hollywood Reporter Roundtable Interviews. They’re awesome. You take six leading Oscar potentials in the categories of writers, directors, actresses and actors, put them in a room for an hour and see how they interact.

The Amazing Race: Will The Best Actress Category Be A Battle Of The Biographies?

By Oliver Lyttelton
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September 30, 2011 4:59 AM
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2 Comments

If the Best Actor category, which we examined last week, is competitive, Best Actress is even more so -- as has been the case in the last few years, in fact. While there are plenty of thankless girlfriend and love interest roles most of the year, people are writing good roles for women, thank god, and there's a plethora of great actors, both veterans and newcomers, capable of taking the role and knocking them out of the park.

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Viola Davis To Investigate 'The Personal History Of Rachel DuPree'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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August 12, 2011 6:44 AM
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7 Comments

First, before we get this bit of news, we'll just address "The Help" for a moment. There have been quiet a few bloggers/writers/critics this week decrying the movie for being "racist" and frankly, that's the laziest most reactionary term you could throw at "The Help" or any movie really. It's a term that is so loaded that in this context is almost meaningless, but it's great way for a bunch of people to furrow their brows and pretend to be concerned while the rest of the year they easily overlook far more egregious depictions of race (or lack thereof) in mainstream films. Yes, "The Help" has its issues, but "racist"? Give it a rest.

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