Detroit movie street riot scene: The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow tackles the 1967 Detroit riots in “horribly real” and “deeply self-serving” 2017 release marketed as a “dramatic thriller.” Kathryn Bigelow's 'Detroit' movie: Horribly real semidocumentary or self-serving Hollywood depiction of 1967 Detroit Rebellion? In the […]

Scariest Movies: Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' with Janet Leigh, John Gavin and Vera Miles. Scariest movies ever made: The top 100 horror films according to the Chicago Film Critics I tend to ignore lists featuring the Top 100 Movies (or Top 10 Movies or Top 20 Movies, etc.), no matter the […]

Zero Dark Thirty: Controversy boosts weekend box office Familiarity may breed contempt (if you're around the wrong person), but controversy surely breeds box office sales (if said controversy takes place at the time of the film's release). Blasted by Righteous U.S. congressmen and women, by CIA honchos (who always tell […]

Zero Dark Thirty with Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton. With ten wins and two nominations to date, Kathryn Bigelow is the top Best Director choice this awards season for the controversial “war on terror” thriller Zero Dark Thirty, about a dogged CIA analyst (Jessica Chastain) and the hunt for Osama […]

Amour with Emmanuelle Riva. Michael Haneke's French-language drama Amour is easily the top Best Foreign Language Film pick this awards season. Strangely, the film's veteran leading man, Jean-Louis Trintignant, hasn't been winning any awards in the U.S.; on the other hand, co-star Emmanuelle Riva has been faring quite well. She has shared […]

Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow. The “war on terror” thriller Zero Dark Thirty has yet to open in the U.S., but it can already be labeled as one of the year's most controversial movies, as it deals with the hunt for and assassination of Osama bin Laden. Besides, there […]

Zero Dark Thirty with Jessica Chastain. Kathryn Bigelow's thriller Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for – and eventual assassination of – Osama bin Laden, has already stirred quite a bit of controversy even though it has yet to open in the U.S. Whether or not the Barack Obama administration shared […]

Zero Dark Thirty poster: Kathryn Bigelow's mystery movie about the story everyone (sort of) knows The Zero Dark Thirty poster has just come out. Plot details about the upcoming Kathryn Bigelow-directed feature, however, have been scarce – or downright nonexistent. Zero Dark Thirty: Echoes of The Hurt Locker Zero Dark […]

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis 'Persepolis' Broadcast: Tunisian Television Station President Apologizes to Offended Muslims Three days ago a group of 200 Fundamentalist Muslims protested outside the headquarters of a television station in Tunis for showing Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's Academy Award-nominated animated feature Persepolis. What irked the […]

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker The Hurt Locker's Academy Award winners Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal have been receiving assistance from the Barack Obama Administration for their project about the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan earlier this year, according to a Maureen Dowd report in […]

Amy Adams: Oscar Red Carpet. Amy Adams Oscar photos Amy Adams is pictured at the 2011 Oscar ceremony, held on Feb. 27 at the Kodak Theatre in the fast-thumping heart of Hollywood. Adams was – for the third time in six years (more info below) – a Best Supporting Actress […]

Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe, who'll next be seen with Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in David Yates' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in the fall, has done a public service announcement for the Trevor Project, described as “the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide […]

Anna Paquin, Cindy Lauper, Whoopi Goldberg, are some of those featured in a new PSA for the Give a Damn campaign, started by Lauper's True Colors Fund which fights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. [Note: the video above will pop up and start playing on its own out […]

Kathryn Bigelow The Hurt Locker's Best Director Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar acceptance speech: “This really is… There's no other way to describe it, it's the moment of a lifetime. First of all, this is so extraordinary to be in the company of such powerful, my fellow nominees, such powerful filmmakers who […]

Jeremy Renner in Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker. Below is our complete 2010 Oscar Predictions list. If we're correct, The Hurt Locker will win a total of six Oscars, followed by Avatar with three (Titanic won 11 back in 1998), and Crazy Heart and Up with two […]

If Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker wins the Best Picture Academy Award on Sunday, it'll be the eighth out-and-out war movie to win the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' top prize. Prior battle-scarred winners were Wings (1927-28), All Quiet on the Western Front (1929-30), The […]

Helen Mirren, Anne-Marie Duff, Paul Giamatti in The Last Station The Academy Awards show will be held on Sunday. The Razzie Awards Gala Ceremony will take place tomorrow. And tonight it's the Spirit Awards, live from downtown Los Angeles (instead of Santa Monica beach as in years past) at 8 […]

Jafar Panahi's Offside Jafar Panahi, 49, the Iranian director of the Venice Film Festival winner The Circle, was arrested on Monday night along with his wife and daughter and 15 house guests following a raid at his home in Teheran, according to The Times of London. Panahi had supported opposition […]

Jeremy Renner in Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker. 'The Hurt Locker,' 'Up in the Air': WGA Awards The Writers Guild of America came up with some pretty shocking choices at their 2010 awards held this evening: Mark Boal's The Hurt Locker (directed by Kathryn Bigelow) for best original […]

Feb. 27 update Anthony Mackie, Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker The Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier will be facing some sort of punishment from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences following multiple e-mails he sent out asking Academy members to vote for the Kathryn Bigelow-directed Iraq War […]

Stanley Tucci, along with Colin Firth and wife Livia Giuggioli attend the BAFTA Soho House Grey Goose after party at the Grosvenor House Hotel on February 21 in London. Lower photo: Richard Buckley, Tom Ford, Livia Giuggioli and Colin Firth. Firth was the Best Actor winner for his portrayal of […]

Jeremy Renner in the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, Colin Firth, Carey Mulligan. Surprises and non-surprises at the BAFTAs, held Sunday evening at London's Royal Opera House. Mostly non-surprises. The fact that The Hurt Locker beat Avatar wasn't really a surprise. The Iraq War […]

Avatar may be the world's box office ruler, but it surely wasn't ruler of anything at the London Film Critics' Circle Awards held this evening in, where else, London. The London Critics' best film of 2009? Jacques Audiard's prison drama A Prophet, the first French-made production to win the Circle's […]

Best Actor Oscar nominees Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Renner at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 2010 Oscar Nominees Luncheon held this afternoon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. This year's five Best Actor nominees are in the running for the […]

Stephen Lang, Sam Worthington in Avatar (top); Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (middle); Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes (bottom) Avatar, The Hurt Locker, and Sherlock Holmes were the motion picture winners at the Art Directors Guild Awards announced Saturday (Feb. 13) night at the International Ballroom of […]

'Avatar' Best Picture Chances & Sandra Bullock from Razzie to Oscar At this year's Oscars, James Cameron's mega-budget fantasy adventure Avatar tied with Kathryn Bigelow's low-budget Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker. Each film received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. That makes Avatar one of […]

Avatar, starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver, and The Hurt Locker, featuring Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie, are the 2010 Academy Awards' leaders. James Cameron's sci-fi/fantasy adventure and Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama received nine nominations apiece, including best picture, best director, and best original screenplay. Curiously, Cameron […]

Jan. 31 update: Perhaps it's a good thing that the Directors Guild Award ceremony wasn't televised. TV audiences were spared having to listen to Quentin Tarantino say “both my testicles were totally tingling through the whole thing,” following Brad Pitt's introduction to his Inglourious Basterds director. Or The Hurt Locker's […]

Helen Mirren, The Last Station In the last 15 years, SAG's best female actor nominees have been identical to the Academy's Best Actress line-up only five times. Well, in addition to last year's upset when Kate Winslet was nominated by the Screen Actors Guild and Academy members, but for different […]

After James Cameron's best director upset at the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild of America one-upped the Hollywood Foreign Press Association by choosing not the blockbuster Avatar, but Kathryn Bigelow's independently made Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker (above, top photo) as the best film (or best producers) of the […]

“It's sort of surreal,” The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow told journalists backstage when asked about her Critics Choice Award victory over former husband James Cameron, in the running for the blockbuster Avatar. Cameron's 3D sci-fier, however, was the evening's big winner in terms of sheer number of trophies: six […]

Vera Farmiga, George Clooney in Up in the Air (Dale Robinette / Paramount) Jan. 17 update: Hosted by Ricky Gervais, the 2010 Golden Globes ceremony will be broadcast live coast to coast later this evening, January 17, on NBC (5 to 8 pm PT, 8 to 11 pm ET) from […]

Kathryn Bigelow directing The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment) Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) is a first-time Directors Guild of America nominee, but her former husband James Cameron (Avatar) won the DGA Award for his megablockbuster Titanic back in early 1998. Lee Daniels (Precious) and Jason Reitman (Up […]

Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), James Cameron (Avatar), Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), and Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) are the Directors Guild of America's five nominees for their best motion picture director of 2009 award. Among those not shortlisted by DGA voters were Joel and Ethan […]

Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment) Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker has just won another best picture award, this one from the Online Film Critics Society. The other nominees in that category were Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man, Pete […]

Jeremy Renner in the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment) The Hurt Locker was the National Society of Film Critics' big winner. The war drama about a bomb squad doing their work in the dangerous streets of an Iraqi city was voted best film of […]

Critics' favorite films: Kathryn Bigelow, seen here with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd while shooting The Hurt Locker, is this awards season top Best Director choice. The clear Academy Award front-runner, Bigelow will likely make Oscar history in (at least) two ways: a) first woman to win Best Director b) first person […]

Critics' choices: Summer Hours with Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and Jérémie Renier. Olivier Assayas' French-made family drama was the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's, the New York Film Critics Circle's, and the Boston Society of Film Critics' Best Foreign Language Film of 2009. Summer Hours was also the Best Film […]

Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds. Vienna-born veteran Christoph Waltz, whose big-screen career dates back to the early 1980s (Tristan and Isolde, Kopfstand), is this awards season's Best Supporting Actor fave and Oscar shoo-in for his vicious Nazi in Quentin Tarantino's WWII revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds. Also in the cast: Brad […]

A Prophet with Tahar Rahim. Directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain – itself from “an original screenplay” by Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit – A Prophet is one of several non-U.S. productions that found space on the London Film Critics' nominations roster. Best […]

Utah Film Critics' Best Actor winner Viggo Mortensen in The Road. The performer best known for playing Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Viggo Mortensen was the surprise Best Actor choice in Utah. In John Hillcoat's The Road, he portrays a man struggling to survive with […]

The Hurt Locker with Guy Pearce and Brian Geraghty. After being all but ignored at this year's Venice Film Festival and at the 2008 Spirit Awards – where it received only two nominations in the acting categories (Best Actor for Jeremy Renner; Best Supporting Actor for Anthony Mackie), Kathryn Bigelow's […]

Colin Firth in A Single Man. San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best Actor Colin Firth will quite likely receive his very first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a Los Angeles-based English professor grieving over the unexpected death of his lover (Matthew Goode) in Tom Ford's A Single Man, based […]

The Hurt Locker with Jeremy Renner. The Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles film critics' Best Picture is a low-budget Summit Entertainment release that turned out to be a major box office disappointment. Curiously, the Kathryn Bigelow-directed, Mark Boal-written Iraq War-set thriller about a U.S. Explosive Ordnance Disposal team was […]

Catalina Saavedra in The Maid (top); Stella Schnabel in You Won't Miss Me (middle); The Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow (bottom) “Kudos to you, great performance,” Rosie Perez told Willem Dafoe, after saying that Lars von Trier's Antichrist, a dark, sex-filled drama in which Dafoe co-stars with Charlotte Gainsbourg, was […]

Why should anyone give a damn about the (Golden) Satellite Awards? Well, how often will you see a small, little-seen indie like The Stoning of Soraya M. (above) listed as one of the best films of the year? Or Hugh Dancy shortlisted for his performance in Adam? Or Mozhan Marno […]

2010 Golden Globe Predictions: Best Picture - Drama The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow; scr: Mark Boal A US Army elite unit disarms bombs in Iraq. Invictus (above, with Matt Damon), d: Clint Eastwood; scr: Anthony Peckham Newly elected South African president Nelson Mandela campaigns to stage the Rugby World Cup […]