News

– Oscars went to Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything (Best Actor), Julianne Moore for Still Alice (Actress), and Birdman for mostly everything else. A huge fist pump goes to Whiplash for winning three out of their five nominations, including a long overdue acting award for J.K. Simmons. All in all, a fairly good year for movies.

-It turns out Neill Blomkamp actually is directing a new Alien movie, not just Instagramming it. Thoughts?

-After shitting on him a little bit in last week’s news roundup, Kodi Smit-McPhee got cast in X-Men: Apocalypse as the supercool mutant Nightcrawler. We’ll have our apology ready for when he nails it.

-Happily, The Man in the High Castle got picked up by Amazon for a full first season; sadly, Niko and the Sword of Light did not.

Trailers

A teaser for the documentary My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn came out a few days ago, which chronicles the Refn Family’s life as Nicolas makes Only God Forgives:

All of the previously released behind-the-scenes footage from Forgives has been better than the actual movie, so this documentary could be cool just for more of that — but it looks a bit self-indulgent, no?

Anyway, there really weren’t many other trailers of note this week, so here’s the Force Awakens teaser for the billionth time:

In Cinemas

Feb. 27 stateside releases see Will Smith returning in the con flick Focus and Olivia Wilde going demonic in The Lazarus Effect. Also in wide release is the godawful Maps to the Stars, which I really wanted to like (because Cronenberg) but could barely even sit through.

On TV

The Voice returns tonight, mercifully airing in a different timeslot than Better Call Saul. The Parks and Rec series finale airs on Tuesday, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot else worth watching. Is Banshee any good? Should we be watching that? Hello? Anyone?

On Netflix

House of Cards returns with a third season on Feb. 27, and the rest of the week is populated by a few 2014 releases like RoboCop and Open Windows becoming available for streaming.

Review of the Week

Head here for our new piece on Best Picture Birdman.