Variety’s @guylodge.bsky.social returns for two films that faced similar controversies over their supposedly "irresponsible" use of child actors: Jonathan Glazer’s 2004 drama BIRTH and Sandra Wollner’s little-seen 2020 sci-fi provocation THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN open.spotify.com/episode/5vhC...

So, some news. variety.com/2026/film/ne...

Read this and so wanted it to be true that I checked IMDb to make sure I hadn’t misremembered, but alas.

Fun fact: it was on video, sure, but to my knowledge, the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards got Sean Penn’s only acceptance speech of the entire season.

Remember when Javier Bardem made LOVING PABLO? You probably don’t, but I do, and let me tell you, that was Pablo Escobar saying, “Free Palestine.”

Four Oscars for Best Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Score is a handsome runner-up haul by any standard, and doesn’t really square with breaking the record for most Oscar losses in one night. 16 nominations is just an awful lot to live up to.

People on awards shows don't "make it political." The world is political. Our lives are political. Our choices are political. The only decision is whether to acknowledge it.

Also, I almost got this, so who’s the real winner tonight

Any Oscar ceremony is ultimately as good as its winners and speeches, so I’ll remember this one fondly. But everything around them? Jesus Christ. What happened?

Delighted to see Teyana Taylor win her deserved Best Picture Oscar

Okay, fine, some predictions.

Absolutely exhilarating writing, I’m literally out of breath www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Okay but tell me Kidman and McGregor are presenting only after they perform a 25th-anniversary MOULIN ROUGE! tribute number in which they sing the complete and unabridged Elephant Love Medley while the camera cuts to a fuming Diane Warren every 20 seconds

It’s cute how seriously many people took the Academy’s new “rule” that members have to see all the nominees in a category to vote, as if everyone isn’t just going to do exactly this.

All fruit is good

Meant to put a little money on Robert Aramayo and forgot to do so, but it would have been a nice dinner out.

It’s Valentine’s Day, so here’s a love letter: Alain Gomis’ Berlinale competition entry DAO is a pure stunner, and early film-of-the-year material. variety.com/2026/film/re...

Werner Herzog and Sabrina Carpenter. Together.

Hey @jasondashbailey.com and @thehighsign.bsky.social, you’re big in Rotterdam.

Palestinian-American actor-director Cherien Dabis talks to @guylodge.bsky.social about family grief, Gaza and her shattering new movie www.thenerve.news/p/cherien-da...

Just saw someone say he was surprised Jafar Panahi didn’t get a Best Director nomination because “he has such a great narrative,” and guys, the world is bigger than awards season.

Seeing a lot of posts asking how THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE could be so overlooked when THE BRUTALIST did so well last year, and I admire both films, but the Corbet-Fastvold connection doesn’t mean they’re like for like. Both are big swings, but one is stately and classical, and the other is wild.

My now-annual awards season reminder: just because the Academy decided on the term “international film” as a euphemism for “non-English-language film” to make themselves sound less parochial, doesn’t mean we all have to follow suit. “International film” means pretty much nothing at all.

Mescal was good in HAMNET, but attempting to pass him off as a supporting actor in that film was ridiculous, so I’m not mad he missed while Lindo, a film-enhancing asset in a genuinely supporting role, got the nod instead. (Yes, Elordi and Skarsgard are leads too, but one small victory at a time.)

I had quite a good time with F1, but it is one of the more arbitrary popcorn blockbusters ever to find its way into the Best Picture category — it’s extremely well-made but not exactly artistic, popular but not exactly a pop-culture phenomenon, liked by many but adored by… who?

That we now every year have multiple films scoring double-digit nomination tallies does suggest to me that voters are watching fewer films than they did before — in an odd way, I think expanding the Best Picture field has narrowed the prospects for films that aren’t in that discussion.

Nominations I’m happiest for that weren’t a given: - SIRAT in Sound - ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER in Production Design - UGLY STEPSISTER in Makeup - Kate Hudson in Actress - Fanning in Supporting Actress - SINNERS MVP Lindo in Supporting Actor - SECRET AGENT in Casting - WICKED: FOR GOOD in nowhere

May we all move through life with the confident entitlement of Jeff Wells scolding his readers for only giving him $3000 for a free jolly to Cannes

Melissa Leo is forever a queen, but “I never wanted the Oscar”? Um.

There is going to be full-on murder at the Barbican’s box office

Instagram shows this home makeover to me approximately 20 times a day, and I mutter “arrest them” under my breath each time

Just caught up with THE HOUSEMAID, and it’s a good enough time, but 131 minutes? Sorely needs some snap, and a director with at least half the lurid B-movie rizz that Amanda Seyfried brings to it.

The Globes aren’t in the habit of shaming other awards shows, but SAG looks really, really dumb tonight.

Did they just say Ludwig Goransson won Best Score earlier tonight? Was a single category booted off the telecast? What?

I miss when the Golden Globes could be reliably counted on to give their TV awards to the newest thing with the most famous person. What’s the point of just xeroxing the Emmys?

Enjoyed the Globes red carpet interviewer’s look of faintly panicked bafflement when Paul Mescal said the person he’s most excited to meet tonight is Jafar Panahi

How is Delroy Lindo, who’s both long due some industry recognition and the ensemble MVP of SINNERS, getting so stiffed this season?

On the upside, sincerely delighted to see the SAG nod for Kate Hudson, who powers an old-school, pure-hearted crowdpleaser with both the sparky charisma we all already knew about, and a gentle, creased humanity that the industry seems to forget about a lot of the time. Hope the Academy follows.

Anyway, congrats to the deep and absolutely uniformly excellent ensemble of FRANKENSTEIN!

At a time when pretty much every awards institution is turning more than ever to non-English-language cinema to elevate the field, the stubborn parochialism of SAG is almost endearing.

How many more crushingly sad stories must we read about ChatGPT fatally enabling the worst impulses and addictions of vulnerable people before there’s real pushback? AI chatbots aren’t helpful, fun or even correct most of the time. They aren’t friends to the friendless. Cut them out of your life.

Thrilled that THE SECRET AGENT won the Critics Choice award for Best International Film but so disheartened and angry at how it happened. Mendonça Filho and producer Emilie Lesclaux were ambushed on the red carpet, no briefing, no chance of giving a speech, the whole thing an insulting disaster.

Late to this, but what thrilling recognition for an astonishing performance — Chalfant deserves to be at the forefront of an “awards conversation” that has never let her in, but this is rather more meaningful.

Special Award for a Film Awaiting U.S. Distribution: LANDMARKS (Lucrecia Martel)

Fascinating to see the range of filmmakers picking SIRAT: Pedro Almodóvar, Michael Mann, Luca Guadagnino, Dea Kulumbegashvili, Gints Zilbalodis, Karyn Kusama, Fede Álvarez, Ana Lily Amirpour, Andrew DeYoung, Pascal Plante. (It gets as many mentions here as SINNERS!) www.indiewire.com/gallery/dire...

2020 - First Cow 2021 - What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 2022 - Tár 2023 - The Zone of Interest 2024 - April 2025 - Sirāt

Blast of Silence is available as a @criterion.bsky.social Blu-ray with cover art by me! observer.co.uk/culture/film... @guylodge.bsky.social

My @sightsoundmag.bsky.social top 10, with a few additional notes. All world premieres since November 2024 (the deadline for last year’s list), so not in line with any release calendar. Browse all the individual lists here: www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

People always say these lists are just PR-created, but what publicist would choose GOOD FORTUNE, and why

Taken back for a second by the Year in Review on my fitness app