‘Mamacruz’ Review: In This Spanish Tale Of Sexual Rediscovery, A Grandmother Comes To Her Senses. [Sundance]

Last month, Danielle Deadwyler missed out on a Best Actress nomination at the 2023 Academy Awards for her role in as activist Mamie Till-Mobley in “Till,” to the ire of the film’s director, Chinonye Chukwu. Not long after the Academy released its nominations, Chukwu took to Instagram to protest her film not receiving any at all.

Filled with the brutal wonder of nature – both topographical and psychological – Hlynur Pálmason’s impressive period drama “Godland” drops us into the harshly beautiful terrain of Iceland for an austerely mesmerizing tale of mad conceit and errant conquest in the late nineteenth century. A sumptuous travelogue it is not; a visually stunning, soul-clenching examination of the curious push/pull between humans and the environment it most certainly is.With its landscape of volcanos, lowlands, and ice, and hubristic treks marked by doomed clashes and solemn grace, “Godland” – its majestic Academy-ratio cinematography ideally maximized if seen in a theater – is the kind of bold work about which one could imagine Werner Herzog, upon viewing, feeling very seen.

Seth Rogen thinks “Superbad” still reigns as the best high school movie ever made.In an interview with People, the actor and comedian addressed the resurgence in popularity for the 2007 teen comedy, which he co-wrote with Evan Goldberg. The movie stars Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader and Emma Stone alongside Rogen.“What’s crazy is that [fellow actor] Gabe LaBelle is like, 19 years old and his and his friends’ favorite movie is ‘Superbad,'” Rogen said.

Hello and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen podcast, and I am your host, Valerie Complex. T Sorry for not posting last week, but the Sundance Film Festival was brutal and couldn’t get an episode out in time. Sorry!!

Every year, there are “snubs” discussed after the Academy announces the Oscar nominations. Most of the time, these snubs happen when there are just so many talented people and only five slots to recognize them.

Chinonye Chukwu, director of Till, is reacting to the Oscar snub after her film was not nominated at the Academy Awards.

Family first. Alec Baldwin returned to social media after being charged with involuntary manslaughter for the fatal 2021 shooting on the set of his movie Rust.

One can only imagine the blank check that Bill Lawrence has from Apple TV+ after the massive success of his “Ted Lasso,” which he co-created and has won the company dozens of awards, putting them on the TV map. He used that cachet for this week’s likable dramedy “Shrinking,” a show that almost brazenly sets up character archetypes and then asks its cast to push through the clichés of their shallow descriptions.

If Jordan Firstman did not exist, it would be necessary for Sebastián Silva to invent him. “Discomfort rooted in class friction” and “the perverse amusement of watching people be annoying” rank high on the list of stalwart indie filmmaker Silva’s favorite recurring themes, and no modern type marries the two quite as handily as the social media influencer that plague of shamelessly promotional non-celebrities who adopt the entitled mindset of fame long before breaking into the industry sector accommodating it.

The "Once" and "Sing Street" filmmaker is back with another testimonial to the transformative power of popular music.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Alice Englert’s “Bad Behaviour” is a dirty bomb of a movie, and it almost seems intentionally devised to keep the viewer off-balance. What at first appears a rather obvious send-up of self-help culture turns into a take-no-prisoners assault on narrative expectations and norms, all the while painting a pointed portrait of a truly complicated protagonist, the kind of character whose motivations and intentions are so slippery, you can barely make up your mind about her before she gives you a reason to change it again.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Alice Englert’s “Bad Behaviour” is a dirty bomb of a movie, and it almost seems intentionally devised to keep the viewer off-balance. What at first appears a rather obvious send-up of self-help culture turns into a take-no-prisoners assault on narrative expectations and norms, all the while painting a pointed portrait of a truly complicated protagonist, the kind of character whose motivations and intentions are so slippery, you can barely make up your mind about her before she gives you a reason to change it again.

Richard Pryor used to do a bit on the differences between Black and white churches – one that was often revised and revisited by his many imitators in the decades that followed. But one thing he got particularly right, beyond the lameness of the hymns and the restrained quality of the ministers, is the eerie quiet of white churches, the way that the fires of hell and the sins of man can be described in tones barely more threatening than a hot dish recipe.

Twenty years ago, it was obvious that Judd Apatow‘s “Freaks and Geeks” would be a launching point for countless careers in comedy. But the last decade has proven that this was a group of actors who would only get more interesting with age.

My guest this week is Jason Segel.