MURTADA ELFADL

In this bonus episode we are discussing the 2022 Oscar Nominations. Our take on the acting categories and best picture. The discussion touches on the performances of Kristen Stewart, Nicole Kidman, Olivia Colman, Andrew Garfield and Denzel Washington. We lament the exclusion of Ruth Negga and raise a glass to Lady Gaga’s fun and fascinating press tour for House of Gucci. For this conversation Murtada welcomes back Izzy from Be Kind Rewind.
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Other movies discussed include West ...

In this bonus episode we are discussing the many films we screened at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. For this conversation Murtada welcomes Li Lai, founder and editor in chief of Mediaversity Reviews to discuss a few films including Bill Nighy in Living, Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and two films for both Dakota Johnson (AmI OK? and Cha Cha Real Smooth) and Regina Hall (Master and Honk for Jesus Save Your Soul).

As we prepare for the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards, Backstage is breaking down this year’s film and television ensemble work for your consideration. For more voting guides and roundups, we’ve got you covered here.

Main cast: Jenna Lyng Adams, Sarah Baker, Casey Thomas Brown, Michael Douglas, Lisa Edelstein, Ashleigh LaThrop, Emily Osment, Haley Joel Osment, Paul Reiser, Graham Rogers, Melissa Tang, Kathleen Turner

Casting by: Ken Miller, Tara Treacy, and Nikki Valko

Created by: Chuck Lorre...

There’s a comet hurtling towards earth and a bunch of movie stars at trying to not look up at it. To discuss Cate Blanchett’s second movie this holiday season -Adam McKay’s climate change satire Don’t Look Up– Murtada welcomes critic Boyd van Hoeij from The Film Verdict to the podcast.

from 'Backstage Magazine, Digital Edition: December 20, 2021 SAG Awards F...'

Review of the performances in wes Anderson's The French Dispatch

JOEL COEN’S ADAPTATION OF “THE Tragedy of Macbeth” captures a larger-thanlife theatrically that’s rarely seen onscreen. The sets are huge, and the camera moves freely around them, making the audience feel as if they are in a vast amphitheater. Bruno Delbonnel’s stunning black-and-white cinematography foretells the darkness of this familiar Shake...

Flee, the new documentary out on limited release this week, is unusual in a couple of ways. First, it’s an animated documentary, recreating a true story through imagined drawings in a medium that’s about factual truth. Second, it offers a new perspective on the refugee story. While presenting a familiar enough story about an Afghani queer man who escaped to Denmark in the late 1980s, it stands out by showing the dichotomy between the story an asylum seeker must tell to combat a bureaucratic i...

(This article contains mild spoilers, better enjoyed after you’ve seen House of Gucci)
House of Gucci is all about excess. It’s a story of very rich people behaving very badly, and to make matters even campier, there’s the murder part. Everyone has been talking about the over-the-top Italian accents the ensemble cast employs ever since the trailer dropped. But that hardly covers it. There is excess all over this film; in the long running time, in the plot, but most of all in the performances....

Cate Blanchett is back in cinemas this holiday season. And the podcast is back for a final season of episodes. We kick things off with the first of the two Cate movies coming out this month, Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. For this conversation Murtada welcomes film critic Leila Latif, to discuss the film, how it differs from 1947 version, and the performances of Cate as a femme fatale, Rooney Mara, Bradley Cooper and Toni Colette.

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Beyond the voice work, Nicole Kidman's performance is subdued and remains at an emotional remove. Maybe it’s because Ball is mostly shown at work; a place where emotions are checked. However when playing one of the most animated people in the history of entertainment, a little passion is called for.

Charise Castro Smith was working as a writer and producer on the Starz series “Sweetbitter” when she got the call for a meeting at Disney. She was intrigued to hear a pitch about “the first Disney Latinx musical.”

“I was sold because the story was about a girl who felt other, felt less than, and was going to go on a hero’s journey to really discover what she was worth,” says Castro Smith, who’s now the first-ever Latina to direct a Disney animated feature.

“Encanto,” due in theaters Nov. 24 a...

A truly exhilarating moment in the new film musical tick, tick…BOOM! comes with the song “No More.” In it, the lead character, struggling composer Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield), and his friend Michael (Robin de Jesús) lament the misery of living in 1990s downtown Manhattan. They sing of walking up six flights of stairs to cold, cramped living quarters. Of climbing over homeless people on the street, of inhaling noxious fumes from cars and exhaust pipes. It might be anachronistic to what w...

In the first of multiple episodes about Carol (2015), the topic is the love story. How Therese and Carol fell in love, how Todd Haynes visualizes falling in love and the scorching chemistry between Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. For this conversation, Murtada welcomes filmmaker Luke Willis, to discuss all the above as well as rank the best line reading uttered by Blanchett.
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Charting the love story in six set pieces 1) meeting at the department store 2) Ther...

“Horror without catharsis” is how Chris (Vicky Krieps) describes the films of Ingmar Bergman in “Bergman Island.” By contrast, the films of Mia Hansen-Løve always include some form of release, for both her characters and the audience. Hansen-Løve describes that as the heart of why she makes cinema at all. “Bergman, [whom] I love very much, explores the brutality of human relationships. But I couldn’t make my own films this way, because I need catharsis,” she says.
Instead, Hansen-Løve’s movie...