Tonight in Hollywood, and across the globe, it's all about "Parasite." “Parasite” by the Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, netted four Academy Awards on Sunday, winning in the Best Film, Best Director (Bong Joon-ho), Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay categories. What a winning streak! Joon-Ho made history, too, in the process. This is the first time that a non-English-language film won for Best Film at the Academy

Seeing “The Favourite” a few days ago, I was so stunned by Olivia Colman’s turn as Queen Anne that I had to go back the next day and see it all over again, checking whether I was right the first time in thinking that this was an extraordinary performance by an extraordinary actress. It was and more. She plays the overweight monarch (fattened by some thirty pounds for the part) stuffing herself with cake and subservient in both

Hosting the Academy Awards used to be the hottest gig in Hollywood. Bob Hope made it classy, Johnny Carson made it fashionable and Billy Crystal made it hip. Unfortunately, of late it has become a job with as much reward and negativity as working in the Trump White House. The latest victim of its recent controversy is comedian Kevin Hart. Hart recently withdrew himself from the 2019 gig when homophobic tweets he made almost

The no-frills “The Guilty” (“Den Skyldige” in the original Danish) is Denmark’s gathering storm movie. This film was selected as that country’s entry for the Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards. In “Guilty” police officer Asger Holm answers an emergency call from a woman who’s been kidnapped. As the details of the crime emerge, becoming increasingly complex, Holm, a voice on the phone

More than thirty years after his first Oscar nomination, James Ivory has finally been honored with his first win at the Oscars on Sunday, that of Best Adapted Screenplay, for "Call Me by Your Name." In his acceptance speech, Ivory called the film, about first love, “a story familiar to most of us, whether we’re straight or gay or somewhere in between.” In "Call Me By Your Name," adapted from André Aciman’s namesake

The red carpet has been unfurled and Hollywood is getting ready for its collective close-up. The 87th Academy Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, will be taking place at Hollywood's 3,300-seat Dolby Theatre tonight. It's pretty clear that it's down to "Birdman" and "Boyhood," both of which are jockeying for the best picture nod. Performers on hand include Lady Gaga, Rita Ora, Jennifer Hudson and Anna Kendrick.

What a triumphant win for Steve McQueen, last night, for his “12 Years a Slave.” Let us hope that more black filmmakers will advance in their craft and career and reach their place in the sun some day, too (Lee Daniels and Ryan Coogler of “Fruitvale Station” have been leading the charge). The international film industry is rather too homogeneous, color-wise, so last night’s mega-win for the adaptation of Solomon Northup’s

Hany Abu-Assad’s “Omar” is nominated for an Academy Award, as was the Palestinian director’s film “Paradise Now,” also about life in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The film again brings sharply into focus the indignities large and small suffered by Palestinians on a daily basis. With the intensity of youth, baker Omar and his friends learn to bear the unbearable but also find ways around strictures. A graffiti-covered wall stands as constant

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George Clooney wasn’t wrong: this 84th Oscars ceremony was Made in France. With the expected raiding of the top awards tier by the Jean Dujardin-Michel Hazanavicius (for Best Actor, and Best Director and Best Film respectively) dream-team, France figured highly on a lot of people’s minds, not least of all Academy voters. Martin Scorcese’s Hugo Cabret, in which a young boy crosses paths with George Méliès, the genial and inventive