COMING SOON

Out this week

*Albums

• Van Weezer by Weezer: Fifteenth album by the American rock band; comes after OK Human which was released earlier this year; features songs with a hard rock influence; includes the singles ‘The End of the Game’, ‘Hero’, ‘Beginning of the End’, and ‘I Need Some of That’.
• Better Mistakes by Bebe Rexha: Second album by the pop singer, the follow-up to her 2018 debut album, Expectations; includes the singles ‘Break My Heart Myself’ (featuring Travis Barker), ‘My Dear Love’ (featuring Ty Dolla Sign and Trevor Daniel), and ‘Baby, I’m Jealous’ (featuring Doja Cat).

*Movies

• Monster (starring Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jennifer Ehle, Tim Blake Nelson, Nas, A$AP Rocky) – legal drama, based on Walter Dean Myers’ 1999 novel; a seventeen-year-old honour student (Harrison Jr.) is charged with felony murder.
• Here Today (starring Billy Crystal, Tiffany Haddish, Penn Badgley) – comedy; a veteran comedy writer (Crystal) befriends a street singer (Haddish).
• Above Suspicion (starring Jack Huston, Emilia Clarke, Johnny Knoxville) – thriller, based on the non-fiction book of the same name; an FBI agent (Huston) becomes involved with an informant (Clarke).

Celeb Tweets

• Justin Shanes (@justinshanes): I’m 90% sure the Oscar producers made up the Pinocchio movie last night to pad out the nominees and that it doesn’t really exist.
• Eve 6 (@Eve6): They left Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne - who died last year from COVID and wrote ‘That Thing You Do’, one of the best, most beloved songs in modern cinema - out of the Oscars In Memoriam. I’m forging a pitchfork out of molten steel right now.
• Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan): Breaking: Oscars ratings crash to an all-time low, down a staggering 58% on last year’s Awards (which was also an all-time low.) As I feared, the woke brigade may have now destroyed the biggest, glitziest event in show business.
• Julius Sharpe (@juliussharpe): Lotta pressure on the next Oscars host to somehow top nobody.

Awards

93rd Academy Awards

Winners:

Best Picture: Nomadland

Director: Chloé Zhao – Nomadland

Actor: Anthony Hopkins – The Father

Actress: Frances McDormand – Nomadland

Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung – Minari

Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman – Emerald Fennel

Adapted Screenplay: The Father – Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller

Animated Feature Film: Soul

International Feature Film: Another Round (Denmark)

Original Score: Soul – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste

Original Song: ‘Fight for You’ (performed by H.E.R.) from Judas and the Black Messiah

For the complete list of nominees and winners, visit oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2021.

Spotlight

Nomadland

Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Bob Wells, Linda May, Swankie

Director: Chloé Zhao

Drama; after losing her job and the death of her husband, a woman (McDormand) decides to leave her hometown and travel around the country as a van dwelling nomad.

Based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century.

Had a budget of $5 million; has grossed an estimated $6.5 million.

Has been lauded by critics as one of the best films of 2020.

Real-life nomads, including Bob Wells, Linda May, and Swankie, play fictionalized versions of themselves in the film.

Score composed by Ludovico Einaudi.