Matt Sweeney Dies: Oscar-Nominated ‘Apollo 13’ Visual Effects Artist Was 75

Waves of joy were interrupted by a brief struggle with the English language as the euphoric group behind Japan’s Godzilla Minus One accepted the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In a strange reversal of a longstanding trend with the Academy, this year’s documentary short ballot is almost entirely domestic (which is to say, films made by or about Americans), while the feature doc category — where subtitles aren’t so common — is entirely international. Judging by the overall quality of the films in the 141-minute “2024 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary” lineup, that’s no sign of compromise. In fact, for Oscar completists, ShortsTV’s annual roundup is one of the most rewarding theatrical experiences audiences could hope for this year.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic If the Academy judged features by the same standards that they do live action shorts, the best picture ballot would be full of starry, quasi-political issue movies: well-meaning but manipulative films like “Father Stu” and “The Janes.” In this category, it’s the message that matters to Oscar voters, which makes this year’s “2024 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action” program (available in theaters and on demand from ShortsTV) one of the most frustrating lineups in recent memory. Or it would, if not for the presence of one genuinely brilliant, liberatingly unserious nominee among them.

Jaden Thompson The Oscars can always be counted on to prompt discourse. From “Barbie” snubs to racial diversity to a certain on-stage slap, the prestigious awards ceremony often serves as the impetus for societal debates. This year, Good Energy and Colby College are hoping to spark conversations about the representation of climate change on screen, with the invention of the “Climate Reality Check,” an evaluation modeled after the Bechdel-Wallace Test measuring female representation on screen.

At their nearest point, Taiwan and mainland China are less than a hundred miles apart. But historically and politically – for over 70 years – a broad gulf has separated them. In the case of the Kinmen Islands, part of Taiwan, the paradox between geography and history is even more stark: the islands sit but a few miles from the mainland city of Xiamen, in the increasingly fraught waters of the Taiwan Strait.

If you are aiming to win your Oscar pool you may feel relatively safe right about now predicting, as most are, a sweep by Oppenheimer, especially after its overwhelming showing last week winning 7 BAFTA awards, the DGA honor for Christopher Nolan the week before that, and on Saturday sweeping 3 of the 5 movie awards at SAG and winning top prize at PGA last night. However key to actually winning your pool will not be those marquee feature film categories but rather the three for shorts that run under the radar, but can spell the difference in triumphing over all others in whatever pool you enter. So who could – or should for these purposes – prevail in the Documentary, Animated, and Live Action shorts contests this year? Shorts TV in association with distributor Magnolia Pictures has, as usual. put all of them in theatrical release in theatres across the country, so if you are lucky you could have the chance to see the three different programs offered on the big screen. Some, like MTV’s The ABC’s Of Book Banning are available for free on You Tube, and some are available on the various streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon, Apple. I have seen all 15 of the films spread across these categories with 5 nominees each. Here is my take on the artistic merits of each.

Major news today for Oscar-nominee To Kill a Tiger. Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas is joining the award-winning feature documentary as an executive producer, alongside Dev Patel, Mindy Kaling, and other bold-faced names. The news comes as Netflix inks a deal to launch the film globally on its platform soon.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Audiences will get a chance to see MTV Documentary Films‘ Oscar nominated short documentary “The ABCs of Book Banning” for free on YouTube beginning on Feb. 23 until the end of the month. The 27-minute film, about the rising tide of book banning efforts around the United States, marks docu titan Sheila Nevins‘ directorial debut.

Italy’s Best International Feature Oscar-nominated Io Capitano starts its U.S. run today in ten market on 21 screens, a bit wider than usual for Cohen Media Group but with Academy final voting just started, reviews are gold for the odyssey that director Matteo Garrone calls “a movie about human rights. About the rights of everybody to move, to look for a better life.”

It takes more than a village to make a movie. It often takes a global network of visual effects artists working alongside the on-set actors, crew, and filmmakers.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Jane Campion is championing Matteo Garrone‘s “Io Capitano,” which is Italy’s Oscar-nominated contender for best international feature film. The movie narrates the Homeric journey of two two Senegalese teenagers, Seydou and Moussa, who decide to leave Dakar to reach Europe in pursuit of a better life. It realistically depicts their plight through the pitfalls of the desert, the horrors of detention centers in Libya and the dangers of the sea.

ndVisual Effects Society Awards, claiming five wins including one in the leading category for outstanding VFX in a photoreal feature. Wednesday night at the Beverly Hilton, it also won the categories for created environment, model, compositing and lighting and effects simulations. Also, in the feature competition, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.

The LAUSD Education Foundation is embarking on a major capital campaign to benefit the musical instrument repair operation documented in the Oscar-nominated film The Last Repair Shop.

There is a very competitive race in the Visual Effects Oscar category this year. There’s the old standby (“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”), the head-scratcher (“Napoleon”), the iconic monster (“Godzilla Minus One”), the space-faring super-hero team (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.

Christopher Vourlias Oscar nominee Abderrahmane Sissako (“Timbuktu”) returns to the screen for the first time in nearly a decade with his latest feature, “Black Tea,” a lushly lensed romantic drama about a love spanning cultural divides that world premieres Feb. 21 in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.

Ed Meza @edmezavar An unsung master of movie magic, Solon Luigi Colani has worked on some of the biggest Hollywood movies ever shot in Germany and beyond, among them works by Quentin Tarantino, Ron Howard, George Clooney, Denis Villeneuve, Paul W.S. Anderson, Gore Verbinski and the Wachowskis.

Rita McKenzie, known for staging the longest-running one-woman show in theatrical history, died Feb. 17 in Los Angeles days before her 77th birthday. She succumbed to what her family described as a long-term illness.

The Avenue release Land of Bad, powered by Variance, grossed $1.8 million on 1,120 screens, landing in the top ten for the weekend as Variance noted strong word of mouth with Saturday grosses jumping 37% from Friday’ (not including Thursday sneaks). The estimate for the four days is $2.07 million.

The Oscar-nominated artisans from Ridley Scott‘s epic Napoleon joined me as part of Apple Original Films‘ presentations at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event. Veteran production designer Arthur Max and costume designers Janty Yates and David Crossman talked extensively about what it was like to work with Sir Ridley on the ambitious, large-scale production that saw Joaquin Phoenix play Napoleon Bonaparte and Vanessa Kirby his wife Josephine.

Tomris Laffly There is a pivotal scene in Greta Gerwig’s dust-pink “Barbie” that has come to define the Oscar-nominated movie — a disarmingly truthful monologue that is not delivered by the film’s many Barbies, nor its numerous Kens. Instead, supporting actress Oscar nominee America Ferrera’s Gloria crisply sums up the movie’s themes around a picture-perfect doll confronted by the real-world, patriarchy-fueled challenges of womanhood. “You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.