News

Diana Naser’s “Amplified,” Adam J. Graves’ “Anuja,” Nina Gantz’s “Wander to Wonder” and Ben Proudfoot’s “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht” have qualified for Academy Awards in the short-film categories by winning the top awards at the 20th annual HollyShorts Film Festival, which took place this week in Hollywood and held its awards ceremony on Sunday night.

HollyShorts is one of about 150 Oscar-qualifying festivals whose top winners automatically become eligible for Oscars in the three shorts categories. It is one of only 15 festivals that qualifies as many as four films for Academy Awards.

“Amplified” won the Best Short Film Grand Prize, the festival’s top award. “Anuja” took the award for live-action short, “Wander to Wonder” for animated short and “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht” for documentary short.

Ben Proudfoot, the director of the last of those films, is the reigning Oscar champ in the Best Documentary Short category,...

Doomsdays is not another big budget, effects laden, apocalyptic blockbuster about the end of days. This is the exact opposite. Writer and director Eddie Mullins tells the story of two aimless squatters who wander from one lavish vacation home to another in the Catskills, breaking in and making themselves at home. Justin Rice plays Dirty Fred, the more cultured and outwardly intellectual of the two men. Leo Fitzpatrick plays Bruho, the less stable, paranoid loose cannon. Both men live life by their own rules, which for the most part, means there are no rules.

Dirty Fred and Bruho’s daily life goes on swimmingly, unencumbered by law or societal expectations for some time. They take what they need, do what they want, and generally cause havoc and mischief as necessary for their own amusement. One day, they meet Jaidon, played by Brian Charles Johnson. Jaidon is a husky runaway teenager with limited social skills,...

Recently, CBS released the new,official,synopsis/spoilers for their upcoming "The Good Wife" episode 20 of season 5. The episode is entitled, "The Deep Web," and it sounds like things will definitely get very interesting as Alicia starts contemplating cheating again with a new stud that's arrived on the scene, and more. In the new,20th episode press release: Alicia will seek advice from her mother when jury duty leads to a chance encounter with a handsome businessman. Press release number 2: When Alicia has a chance encounter with a charming entrepreneur during jury duty, she is going to consider options outside her marriage and seeks the advice of her mother. In the meantime, Diane’s friends will come to her for legal advice when their son is accused of selling drugs on the Internet. Michael J. Fox is going to return as Louis Canning and Stockard Channing returns as Alicia’s mother,...

I see the harbingers of doom in this “pre-apocalyptic comedy,” but there’s nothing actually funny about it. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

The world, Dirty Fred (Justin Rice: Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist) and Bruho (Leo Fitzpatrick: Cold Comes the Night) agree, is doomed. So as a blow to the consumerism that is killing the planet and humanity, they have given up on civilization. They don’t work, and they don’t own stuff. They still need food and shelter, of course, but that’s a problem easily solved: they break into people’s vacation homes in New York’s rural Catskill Mountains and hang out there, eating and drinking until they get bored or get caught. They enjoy urinating in people’s beds for fun, and Bruho has a special hobby of destroying automobiles,...