Last night, I got my worst Oscar prediction score since 2007, and that was 13 out of 24, now it’s one worse as there are only 23 categories now (they combined Sound Design and Sound Editing into just Sound). Now, I was expecting this because I knew EMILIA PÉREZ was gonna win multiple Academy Awards, but I just couldn’t go there as I’m so against it. Voting with your heart over your head is never how to go, but that’s how I went this year, and I paid the price. Otherwise, I did highly enjoy first-time host Conan O’Brien from THE SUBSTANCE parody opening to his goofy monologue, with such line ..read more

The world has been on fire lately, but the 97th Academy Awards® is still going down this Sunday night so I’m still going to make my predictions. I’ve been busy finishing a big book project so I haven’t been film babbling much lately (I said the same thing last year), but I’ve seen nine of the ten Best Picture nominees, and a lot of the other films that got nods so I think I’m fairly good to go. The few things that I can safely predict is that I’m going to be really pissed off if EMILIA PÉREZ wins anything, which is sure to happen because it got 13 f-in’ nominations, and that Conan O’Brien i ..read more

The passing of one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, David Lynch (January 20, 1946-January 15, 2025), made me go back to the reviews I’ve written of his work over the years for Film Babble. In the almost 21 years that I’ve had this blog, I posted about three of the ten theatrical releases he made from 1977-2006: ERASERHEAD, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, and INLAND EMPIRE. These were interesting for me to revisit, as I had forgotten some details like I wrote that I had a “love/WTF?” relationship with the films of Lynch,” and that one of my first dates with my now ex-wife was a midnight show of ERASERHEA ..read more

Opening everywhere on Christmas Day: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (Dir. James Mangold, 2024) I’ve long lived with the legend of how a baby-faced Bob Dylan with not much more than a guitar on his back, hitchhiked his way to New York, and began a revolutionary, controversial career so it was initially surreal to see this film so vividly bringing it all to life. It starts in early 1961 with a scruffy Timothée Chalamet as a 19-year old Dylan hitching a ride into New York City, where upon landing in Greenwich Village, he learns from folk singer Dave Von Ronk (Michael Chernus) that his idol, Woody Guthrie, i ..read more

 Another entry in this year’s new series: Movie of the Week: Despite being a modest success, Danny Devito’s theatrical directorial debut, THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN, wasn’t really appreciated by audiences or critics in its original release, but the 1987 comedy thriller is really ripe for re-evaluation. It’s a riff on Hitchcock’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN that has inspired witty writing (by sitcom scribe Stu Silver), great cinematography (Barry Sonnenfeld, back when he was shooting Coen brothers classics), and Devito’s most touching character ever, Owen, as seen here in the above clip (my favo ..read more

BEATLES ’64 (Dir. David Tedeschi, 2024) There was a sketch on the IFC show Portlandia in which Fred Armisen decides he wants to make a documentary about the Beatles. Despite his friend/comedy partner Carrie Brownstein skeptically replying “seems like there are so many,” Fred isn’t dissuaded, and declares that he will bring a new spin on the oft told tale saying it’ll be about “Four mop-topped lads from Liverpool who changed the world…forever!”    The rest of the sketch has Fred telling anyone who’ll listen what he’ll have in his film - the Beatles arrival at JFK, their Ed Sullivan S ..read more

GLADIATOR II (Dir. Ridley Scott, 2024) Nearly a quarter of a century after Ridley Scott’s historical epic GLADIATOR ruled the box office, and swept the Oscars, comes this highly anticipated sequel, opening everywhere today. But it wasn’t highly anticipated by me as, despite all the hoopla, I never got around to seeing the original until earlier this week. When I got an invite to an advance screening of GLADIATOR II, I decided it was time to catch up. I found it on a streaming platform (Paramount Plus), and finally got to see what all the fuss was about.   I can’t say that the 2000 GLADIA ..read more

And now, another entry in this year’s new series: Movie of the Week: Peter Weir’s THE MOSQUITO COAST (1988). Between Indiana Jones sequels in the mid to late ‘80s, Harrison Ford was on an interesting roll with WITNESS (his only Oscar nom), FRANTIC, and WORKING GIRL, but this role as a idealistically delusional guy who pulls his family, including wife Helen Mirren and son River Phoenix (leading the way for his crucial part in INDY 3), away from society to futilely build a new civilization in Central America might be his most invested performance ever. It also may be Ford’s most loathsome char ..read more

Yes, it’s that time of year again when the studios drop the big prestige pictures, and this round of Oscar-bait biopics are for sure the most prestigious this season. As these three films, each big ass, lavish productions with big ass names behind, and in front of the camera, are going to be in theaters or available streaming over the holidays, I thought I’d give ‘em the ole Film Babble Blog appraisal, so here goes: MAESTRO (Dir. Bradley Cooper, 2023) Bradley Cooper’s follow-up to his acclaimed 2018 directorial debut, A STAR IS BORN, garnered criticism when early buzz revealed that the act ..read more

Film Babble Blog has been AWOL since my DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE review last July as things have been hectically busy lately, but I’m back to make a self-indulgent post on my Birthday. I’ve been meaning to do something to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of this blog (first post was March 12, 2004) all year, and I finally came up with compiling a list of my Top 10 favorite posts.   Among the movie reviews have been assorted articles, lists, and interviews and this what I consider the cream of the crop. By the way, the pic at the top is from Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation of THE ..read more