Hear Marisa Abela's Amy Winehouse voice in new biopic trailer, judge some Oscars songs, and more from the week in film

Ranking every Best Original Song contender for the 2024 Oscars

When the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences recently released its shortlist of the 15 songs in consideration for Best Original Song nomination, there was almost as much talk about what wasn’t included as what was. There were no tunes from Wish, for instance, marking the first time in two decades that a Disney animated musical was shut out of a category that the studio has long dominated. New songs added to the live-action version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda also didn’t make the cut, depriving Menken of his 20th nomination and denying Miranda a chance to complete his EGOT. – Cindy White Read More

Pixar’s pandemic films are heading to theaters. Other studios should follow suit

2020 is a forgotten year at the movies. Namely because the movies and, more specifically, movie theaters barely existed. After Trolls: World Tour broke the dam for movies to bypass theaters and go straight to VOD, the words “day-and-date” emerged as a new form of distribution. Movies would simultaneously go live on streamers and in theaters, and it was the right thing to do at the time. Seeing Tenet wasn’t worth adding to the already catastrophic losses. Today, unsustainable trends like “day and date” release structures have mostly gone the way of “social distancing.” Movie theaters are back open, and surprisingly, movies devoid of superheroes and multiverses are making money. – Matt Schimkowitz Read More

The Beekeeper review: Predictable Jason Statham actioner lacks buzz

In The Beekeeper, Jason Statham plays, as you may well have surmised, a beekeeper. When we first meet him, this beekeeper is the stoic kind, unconcerned with the world beyond his hive. Even the woman who’s renting him a barn where he harvests his bees’ honey is kept at arm’s length. Soon, though, we learn this beekeeper used to also be, well, another kind of “beekeeper.” And if me saying the film’s title oh so many times in this intro has already irked you enough, worry: for David Ayer’s efficiently directed actioner utters it so many times and exhausts its bluntly delivered metaphor so often that just watching Statham punch and shoot his way out of any scene he’s in becomes an exercise in exhaustion. – Manuel Betancourt Read More

What the Mandalorian & Grogu movie reveals about the future of Star Wars

This week’s announcement of The Mandalorian & Grogu film added one more major project to Lucasfilm’s already crowded Star Wars slate. While we don’t have many details about The Mandalorian movie at this point, what we do know shows where the studio is focusing its resources, and where the Star Wars franchise is headed. It’s pretty clear that Lucasfilm is all in on the adventures of an adorable little green puppet and his dad as well as the creators who brought him into the world in the first place. But it’s also interesting to look at what’s been sidelined as a result of fast-tracking this project. – Cindy White Read More

Marisa Abela debuts her Amy Winehouse (speaking) voice in first Back To Black teaser

Amy Winehouse is the next late, great artist to get the biopic treatment, after films like Elvis, Maestro, and Rocketman have made it a pretty significant trend in recent years. Winehouse’s meteoric rise and tragic death will be told through the lens of director Sam Taylor-Johnson, whose film Nowhere Boy, an exploration of John Lennon’s early years, first brought her acclaim in the genre over a decade ago. – Emma Keates Read More