The problem with making a successful documentary – commercial success, critical raves, Academy Award – is eventually, you have to make another one. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Free Solo” is one of the great non-fiction films of recent years, a nail-biting extreme sports chronicle with an intimate personality profile nestled firmly inside, Russian doll-style. Perhaps if its follow-up had gone in an entirely different direction, they could’ve sidestepped comparisons.

Continue reading ‘The Rescue’: A Sturdy Doc From The ‘Free Solo’ Team Suffers A Little In Comparison [Telluride Review] at The Playlist.

We could write something really meaningful about documentaries and how they impacted the decade, changed our lives, made us cry, made us angry, gave us a call to action, or shined a light on something we otherwise might not know about. We could talk about the portraits of people we adored, people we lost, or chronicles of injustice or venality or obscure spotlights on little-known subjects. And we’ll do that, eventually, but right now, it’s Friday, and we just want to sleep and drink and possibly never wake up, so please enjoy our Best Documentaries of The Decade feature, this placeholder we may or may not update when we’re feeling alive, and our genuine thanks and appreciation for all your reading, sharing, clicking, etc.

Continue reading The Best Documentaries Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

The Television Academy handed out the first wave of Emmy Awards this year with Saturday night’s Creative Arts Emmy ceremony in downtown Los Angeles. The winners of 46 awards were announced Saturday with another 49 awards getting their moment tomorrow night. The remaining honors will be announced on Sunday, Sept. 22nd during a primetime telecast on FOX.

READ MORE: A complete list of the 2019 Emmy Awards 

It was a huge night for Netflix and NatGeo as both networks dominated the proceedings.

Continue reading ‘Free Solo,’ ‘Queer Eye’ & ‘SNL’ Rule First Night Of 2019 Creative Arts Emmy Awards at The Playlist.

Directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the documentary “Free Solo” won the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 91st Academy Award ceremony tonight beating out critically-acclaimed competition like “Minding The Gap” and “RBG.” A harrowing, thrilling and sometimes horrifying-to-watch doc portrait, which is visually stunning and intense, “Free Solo” follows singularly-focused mountain climber and daredevil Alex Honnold as he becomes the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite’s 3,000ft high El Capitan Wall.

Continue reading ‘Free Solo’ Wins Best Documentary [Oscars 2019] at The Playlist.

The Cinema Audio Society handed out its 2019 CAS Awards on Saturday night and provided some keen insight on how the Sound Mixing Oscar race might play out.  “Bohemian Rhapsody” took the top prize over major competition from “A Star is Born” and “First Man.”  Whether AMPAS members feel the same way about the Freddie Mercury and Queen biopic in this category remains to be seen.

Continue reading ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Sounds Stellar At 2019 CAS Awards at The Playlist.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts revealed the winners of the 2019 BAFTA Awards on Sunday and it crowned a frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar, “Roma.”  Alfonso Cuaron’s autobiographical drama took Best Film over “The Favourite” which dominated the rest of the proceedings.

“Roma” also won Best Director (Cuaron) as well as Film Not in the English Language (Foreign Language Film) and Best Cinematography.  Along with the DGA honor for Cuaron, it nudges the Netflix release into pole position for Oscar’s top prize.  

Continue reading ‘Roma’ Wins Best Film As ‘The Favourite’ Dominates 2019 BAFTA Awards at The Playlist.

This awards season has featured one surprise after another so perhaps it’s not that shocking that the top prizes at the 69th ACE Eddie Awards for Editing went to two unexpected winners.  The American Cinema Editors chose “The Favourite” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” over some stiff competition in the Feature Film Comedy and Feature Film Dramatic categories respectively.  Both films are nominated for the Best Editing Oscar as well as Best Picture.

Continue reading ‘The Favourite’ & ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Surprise At 2019 ACE Eddie Editing Awards at The Playlist.

It was a happy morning for many Oscar nominees and the reactions slowly came in as the bleary-eyed realized how their lives had just taken an incredible turn.

READ MORE: Complete list of 2019 Oscar nominees 

This post will be updated with more reactions throughout the day.

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“Everyone who worked on this film truly risked putting themselves out there — in the hope that in doing so people will connect and feel something deep and personal — the way films have made me feel since I was a kid.

Continue reading Oscar Nominations Reactions: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Barry Jenkins, Amy Adams at The Playlist.

“Free Solo” isn’t just the biggest hit, but it’s had a ton of support from AMPAS members. “RBG” is also a substantial art-house hit. That and Academy love for its subject, Ruth Badger Ginsberg, could give it an edge, but most voters will see “Solo” as the more cinematic choice and that might be the difference. [Updated Feb. 12]

Predictions
1. “Free Solo” – Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Evan Hayes and Shannon Dill
2.

Continue reading 2019 Best Documentary Feature Oscars Predictions at The Playlist.

There is no rest of the weary this awards season as the post-Golden Globes hangover saw nominations revealed for the WGA, Art Directors Guild and the ACE Eddie Awards.  But, wait, there’s more.  The Directors Guild of America won’t reveal the Film nominees until tomorrow, but this morning those honored for their work in Television, Documentary Film and Commercials were revealed.

This year saw a number of notable first-time nominees including Jason Bateman (“Ozark”), Bill Hader (“Barry”),  Ben Stiller (“Escape at Dannemora”) and Hiro Murai (“Atlanta”).

Continue reading Bill Hader, Ben Stiller, Jason Bateman Earn First DGA Awards Nods For TV at The Playlist.

2018 was a more than a solid year for Hollywood at the box office.  Domestic and global revenues hit record numbers even if individual ticket sales in the U.S. didn’t keep up. Disney was once again the champ for the third year in a row, but there was more than enough love to go around (unless you were Lionsgate who had their worst 12 months this decade).  And considering the increasing use of Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video and Hulu worldwide, the fact so many people are still flocking to the movies is a marvel.

Continue reading Best And Worst Of The 2018 Box Office at The Playlist.

In what has become a rewarding Christmas tradition, the last couple of weeks have been spent, in between shopping, cooking, arguing, eating, boozing and crying jags, catching up on some of the non-fiction releases from the past year. In recent times, the increase in quality documentary filmmaking — more about an increase in availability and profile, perhaps, but a borderline Cambrian explosion nonetheless — has been an incredible bounty, but also a bit of a daunting prospect.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2018 at The Playlist.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the shortlist for the 2019 Documentary Feature Oscar and other related categories, and fans in the documentary branches should be relatively pleased. 15 films made it to the shortlist round including most of the favored and critically-acclaimed movies: Focus Features‘ Mr.Rogers film, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the highest-grossing docu of 2018 so far, National Geographic‘s “Free Solo,” Magnolia‘s Ruth Bader Ginsberg portrait “RBG,” “Minding the Gap,” “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” “Three Identical Strangers” and more.

Continue reading ‘Free Solo,’ ‘RBG’ & ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ Top The Oscar Documentary Feature Shortlist at The Playlist.

Now it’s time to get our action yah-yahs out. 2018 is coming to a close so as is our usual wont to do, we’re running down many of the particulars of the year in cinema; Best Films, Posters, Trailers, Breakthrough Performances, and much more to come. Action is an art, but it’s not always artfully crafted, sometimes placing a premium on noise, loudness, chaos, and all the things Michael Bay values. But the best action sequences we always tend to love always put a focus on staging, crafty editing, tension, and orchestration.

Continue reading The 20 Best Action Movies Of 2018 at The Playlist.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 166 films that have submitted for this year’s documentary Academy Award. A number of films have still not had their required theatrical runs, but are expected to by the deadline.  And, no surprise, major contenders such as “RBG,” “Free Solo,” “Three Identical Strangers” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” are in the mix.

READ MORE: “Free Solo”: A thrilling, astounding mountain-climbing doc [Review]

This year, for the first time, films that have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival or have been submitted in the Foreign Language Film category as their nation’s official selection, are also eligible for the documentary Oscar.

Continue reading ‘RBG,’ ‘Free Solo’ & 164 Other Documentaries Officially Vying For Oscar at The Playlist.

It almost feels like an election-like déjà vu, there’s a candidate that’s objectively terrible, he’s been roasted in the media, but the public has completely different perspective. Sony’s “Venom” was a smash hit this weekend; the film defeated the most poisonous of critical reviews and still earned an $80 million domestic opening, the company’s second-biggest non-“Spider-Man” debut after Bond film “Skyfall” ($88M in 2012).

Continue reading ‘Venom’ Defeats Poisonous Reviews, Breaks Records ‘A Star Is Born’ Shines [Box Office] at The Playlist.

As expected, when you combine the star power of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, you get box office gold. And with the release of the comedy “Night School,” Hart and Haddish have another hit on their hands, but the biggest surprise this weekend doesn’t star any big A-listers. But before we get to that, let’s take a look at the top of the chart.

“Night School” finished at #1 with a three-day total of $28 million.

Continue reading Hart & Haddish Lead ‘Night School’ To An Unsurprising Win But ‘Free Solo’ Is The Real Box Office Star at The Playlist.

“If you’re seeking perfection, free soloing is as close as you can get,” says adventurous, daredevil rock climber Alex Honnold, the subject of directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin‘s astonishing new documentary “Free Solo.” A term used to describe the act of mountain-climbing without safety ropes, the hard-to-watch insanity that is free soloing is a very real, very thriving sub-culture the exists today.

Continue reading ‘Free Solo’: A Thrilling, Astounding Mountain-Climbing Doc [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival begins tomorrow, but the impact of last weekend’s Telluride Film Festival is still being felt for those playing the awards season game.  As noted numerous times over the years, there are many more voting Academy members that attend Telluride than Venice, Toronto or NYFF and it’s one of the few festivals in the world where someone screening their own movie can see other films (emphasis on more than one) while they are in town.  

Continue reading ‘Roma,’ ‘First Man,’ ‘Favourite’ & Nicole Kidman Find An Oscar Spark At Telluride at The Playlist.