OSCAR FEVER
Reunion Newsletter [3.13.25]
Sunday’s Reunion LIVE was so so awesome. Planning another very soon in NYC and LA as well! Video on the ig link. Will post more too. Reach out if you want to get involved or have ideas. Thank you all the team and collaborators. Oh and we did opera!
Jeez that escalated quickly. Weird how the world works now and two innocuous sentences from an innocuous interview circulates two very not innocuous weeks later (like bc of ya know the war and all the other things in the news) and all the sudden becomes top news story. Wag the dog as they say I guess. How does Barry Levinson (Wag the Dog filmmaker) do that for his son by the way?
Anyway I just left Dudamel’s debut at NY Phil, which is the symphony, not the opera nor ballet, and it was tremendous. I scored a front row seat for cheap, never sat there before, never got to see the facial expressions during a symphony like that. Tremendous. They smile when they nail it. They look at one another. I was studying when they blinked and breathed. It was very cool. I also had a whole slew of filmmakers and artists on the stand up to my right, a full lookalike troupe of William Burroughs, David Cronenberg and Joachim Trier right in a row. It was fun. Dudamel is a rock star wow. I’d seen him do Mahler’s 9th in LA, but from the back of the room. Up close, so much fun. The hair going all over. It was Beethoven’s Eroica today. Incredible.
Contrasting this morning’s transcendence to the actual ballet and opera I saw in the last week. Tristan und Isolde production sucked. Sorry. I didn’t want to dim the opening and say so last week. But the production was so dumb. The music is the greatest there ever was of course. But the screens. Come on. Just stop. Stop with these screens! Benjamin Millipied’s Romeo & Juliet ballet at Park Ave Armory was a curiosity, because I saw it get trashed in reviews, but thought maybe it was radical, so I went. It was such junk. Way worse than Tristan. I mean this one was a joke. You stare at a screen the entire time. The Steadicam op is the star if anybody, he’s amazing. Truly. Hire that guy for your movie. Wow. But after seeing Anne Imhof do her R+J in the same space last year, which I still cannot stop talking about, Millipied’s lack of creativity in using the space was so lame. They go out into hallways without the audience and we watch the biggest most dramatic scenes on screens. One happens below our seats under the rafters, but on screen. So so so lame. No music is live, just played back on speakers. And we see dancers live only half the time, and even then, it’s just unremarkable. I don’t know. Kinda reminded me of Kanye doing the Mexico City ‘concert.’ It just lacks oomph. It’s very thirsty and insecure, they do a whole piece of krumping and waacking and use the same fisheye idea of Climax, except we’re not at a movie, we’re watching it live, but he makes us watch a movie anyway. They subvert the casting to be super woke, it’s just so lame. 2026. Felt very 2020. Get over it.
My takeaway on this isn’t that the arts are dying. It’s that the arts are insecure. The arts are tremendous. Opera and Ballet is tremendous. Stop trying to appeal to influencers and short attention spans. Be tremendous. Big headline last week was that Gen Z is turning movie night into an outing. Wow. Huge. Novel. What an invention! Ya don’t say! You’re telling me going to the movies is a good idea for a date? Going to the movies is a cool thing for a group of friends to do together???? WOW!!! Arts people…just keep doing your art! It’s stuck around for centuries. This has been a bad decade dominated by social media tech overlord losers. That’s it. We’re fine.
Stop letting losers trick you into thinking they’re meaningful. Quantity of losers does not signify quality anything. These people don’t care about anything, don’t commit to anything, don’t struggle, don’t adjust, don’t work hard, don’t focus, don’t come up with ideas... Listen to the people who commit, who devote their lives to their art, and the audiences who love it. Don’t listen to #FilmTok losers who only do the film content for clicks. Don’t bow to Letterboxd crowds. When I was a kid we called all these people ‘fair weather fans’. Same for NYC. During pandemic, losers said NYC was dead. We ignored em. NYC is the best. Movies are the best. Theater is the best. Opera is the best. Ballet is the best. Symphony is the best. Love it and enjoy it. Stop worrying about what’s on your instagram algorithm. Stop worry about what drugged out idiots in dimes square talk about at parties.
Timothee Chalamet would throw movies under the bus in two seconds if it benefited his personal brand, just like he spoke about opera and ballet.
—
I watched Hoppers…it’s terrifying. Dark stuff. I don’t know if it’s ok for kids because they don’t understand? But terrified me. The Jerry character with eyes popping out and face peeling off has to scare kids. No? What am I missing?
Can’t wait for WBC tonight. Shameful USA thing they did this week. Losers. I’ve never liked Mark DeRosa, his takes as a commentator are dumb. I hope they fire him. I hope DR runs the table. Go DR!!! What a squad!
I did a cool talk with this org DOCSHOP this week, via DOC NYC. Nice people, great work.
Julian Mesri’s reading this week went great. 60 people showed up for a table read. And stayed for 2.5 hours and talked with us about it after. Was amazing. What a crew. Thanks to producers split/decision, honored to work with them.
Last minute add, missed this. RIP OG ANGELIKA!!
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/movies/angelika-saleh-dead.html
— Sean Glass @sdotglass
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EVENTS
THE NEWS
The important stuff on the important stuff. TL;DR + links if you want more.
| INDUSTRY |
Don’t Let The Bride! Box Office Bomb Give the Wrong Lesson About Ambition and Originality [IndieWire]
Someone really interviewed Harvey. Bleh. [THR] I can’t believe they did this. I was asked to do this interview on a podcast I was producing a few years ago. I got all of this info from him, understood his argument, and I killed the interview because I felt the world did not need to hear him say this.
| FESTIVALS + AWARDS |
Barbra Streisand to receive Honorary Palme d'or at the 79th Festival de Cannes [Cannes]
17 film festivals receive official ‘A’-list classification as part of major FIAPF revamp [Screen Daily]
Juliette Binoche Weighs In on Timothée Chalamet Ballet Comments: ‘I Thought Cinema Was a Dying Art’ [Variety]
South by South Swanberg! [Deadline]
All the classy folks hating on Timothee. [Variety]
| ANNOUNCEMENTS |
Sonia Friedman Productions & Sony Team On Quentin Tarantino Stage Production ‘The Popinjay Cavalier’ [Deadline] Big!
Universal Extending Theatrical Window to Five Weekends This Year, Seven Weekends in 2027 [Media Play News] Saw a good point that the note here is not that they doubled down on theatrical, but rather they acknowledged Peacock streaming does not work. I’ve mentioned it before. Peacock has kinda hidden its failure in major events like Super Bowl, Olympics, NBA, etc. Even SNL is a unique boost. Peacock manages appointment viewing and events in a way no other stream does, but that doesn’t mean the overall streaming ecosystem works. You know what works thoooooooouuuugggghhhh??!?!?!?!? 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
Single Female Movie Starring Jenna Ortega And Taylor Russell Taps Sarah DeLappe To Write; Stacey Sher And Marisa Paiva Join As Producers [Deadline] Oh come on.
Hot Rumor: Billie Eilish, Sarah Polley Teaming for Feature Adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s Novel ‘The Bell Jar’ [The InSneider] Worst news. This is one of those that if they add Lena Dunham, my veins spontaneously pop open.
| BONUS FEATURES |
‘On Cinema at the Cinema’: How Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington Pull Off the Internet’s Most Deranged Movie Review Show [Variety] Hell yeah.
Cool!
SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATIONS
Must watch / listen. Also I love that she calls them “Fecal Matter”, the og name, not Matieres Fecales like all the pretentious folk adopt happily.
WHAT TO WATCH
Art House Cinema Week next week—lots of promos around the city.
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2026, through March 15 [FLC]
Agnès Varda: A Complete Retrospective [Film Forum] Obviously major.
Branch Selects series [Paris]
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen series [Paris] Burying the highlights Sole Survivor and The Vanishing 35mm prints very cool. Otherwise lotsa stuff that plays all the time.
Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA Announce the Lineup for the 55th edition of New Directors/New Films, April 8–19, 2026 [FLC]
| NEW RELEASES |
Undertone [wide] Another underbaked A24 horror release? Sounds about right. I loved the Alamo doing baby screenings of this with the volume turned down and the lights midrange. Alamo is such a dreadful nightmare cesspool. The whole thing with the phones, Jesus, I couldn’t imagine this. What happened to this organization. Everyone hates them. They torture their employees. I wanted to think this was like an oppression porn narrative, some intersectional thing, but it’s not. They’re just terrible. I didn’t want to think a movie theater organization was as terrible as this. But alas.
Colors of Time [FLC]
Slanted [Angelika]
Space Cowboys, with filmmaker and subject in person [IFC]
Group: The Schopenhauer Effect, with filmmakers and cast in person [Quad]
Idiotka [Roxy]
Numbskull Revolution, with filmmaker in person [Roxy]
I Live Here Now in 35mm, with producer in person [Roxy]
Resurrection [Roxy] 🍿
| ON FILM |
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised in 35mm, with special guests [Angelika]
Talk Radio in 35mm [Roxy]
The Girl with the Hatbox in 35mm, with live piano accompaniment [Metrograph]
The Bad and the Beautiful in 35mm [Metrograph]
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai in 35mm [Metrograph]
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 35mm [Metrograph]
Fat Girl in 35mm [MoMI] 🍿
The Royal Tenenbaums in 35mm [MoMI]
| REP CINEMA |
La Pointe Courte, Varda By Agnès, L’Opéra-Mouffe and Other Shorts, Cléo From 5 to 7, Le Bonheur [Film Forum]
Pi in IMAX and DCP (Pi Day event) [AMC]
Battle Royale [Metrograph]
In A Lonely Place [Metrograph]
Mauvais Sang [Metrograph] 🍿
Fantastic Voyage [MoMI]
| COMING SOON |
| STREAMING |
Bi Gan’s Cannes Winner Resurrection to Stream on Criterion Channel, With Home-Video Release to Follow [Variety] 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
Anniversary [Hulu] This is actually solid, I watched it a little while ago. 🍿
Here’s a story about how it got buried. [The Wrap]
Bodycam [Shudder]
Ghost Elephants [Disney+ and Hulu]
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die [VOD] Sad I missed this in theaters, but will watch at home. 🍿
The Testament of Ann Lee [VOD]
ON OUR MIND
Doors of Bresson | by Kogonada
Tânia Maria (The Secret Agent) for Elle Brasil.
William Eggleston × David Byrne True Stories (1986)
Own Hand-Painted Street Signs from Marty Supreme [Olde Good Things] Beat me to death with one of these just end me. Leave my body to rot on 47th St as a social media stunt.
Hank Azaria celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Birdcage.
