Steve Pond
Steve Pond
Steve Pond’s inside look at the artistry and insanity of the awards race, drawn from more than three decades of obsessively chronicling the Oscars and the entertainment industry.
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‘The Half of It’ Film Review: ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ Gets a Gay High School Spin
The Tribeca-winning film by writer-director Alice Wu takes the 120-year-old story to high school and mixes in emojis, diversity, immigration, LGBT issues and lots of other stuff
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‘All Day and a Night’ Film Review: Ashton Sanders and Jeffrey Wright Sing the Inner City Blues
“Black Panther” co-writer Joe Robert Cole directs an urban drama imbued with a steadfast fatalism
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‘Bull’ Film Review: Annie Silverstein Finds Signs of Life in Numb Characters
Actors Amber Havard and Rob Morgan make us feel for characters who themselves don’t want to feel
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‘My Darling Vivian’ Film Review: Lovely Portrait Tells the Missing Side of the Johnny Cash Story
The sensitive documentary focuses on Vivian Liberto, who spent much of her life struggling in the shadow of her famous first husband
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Daytime, Sports and News Emmys Move to Virtual Ceremonies
All the Emmy shows produced by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will become remote video productions
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‘Bad Education’ Fact Check: Did All of That Crazy Stuff Really Happen?
Here’s the truth about the secret lovers, the bogus expenses, the suspicious hardware-store clerk and the intrepid high school reporter
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Oscars Execs Defend Rule Change to Allow Streaming Films: ‘Theatrical Will Always Be the Academy’s Priority’
Academy President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson say the new rule allowing streaming films to qualify for the Oscars is a temporary exception
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Oscars’ Big Rule Changes: First-Run Streaming Films Now Eligible, Sound Categories Merged
New rules also include combining the two sound categories into one and eliminating DVD screeners beginning in 2021
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‘A Secret Love’ Film Review: Lesbian Love Story Goes From Baseball Diamond to Retirement Home
Chris Bolan’s documentary, produced by Ryan Murphy, is partly about decades of living in the closet but also about the perils of growing old in America
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‘The Beastie Boys Story’ Review: It’s a Hip-Hop Concert Film Without the Concert
Spike Jonze directs and shoots a stage show in which the two surviving band members show film clips and talk about growing up, busting out and wising up
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‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ Film Review: Outlaw Epic Isn’t True, But It Packs a Punch
Justin Kurzel’s period drama stars George Mackay, Russell Crowe, Charlie Hunnam and Nicholas Hoult
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‘Extraction’ Film Review: Wanna See Chris Hemsworth Beat the Hell Out of Everybody?
Hemsworth plays a mercenary in the brutally efficient action movie from Marvel stunt coordinator-turned-director Sam Hargrave
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‘Kubrick by Kubrick’ Film Review: Stanley Kubrick Explains Himself, a Little
Director Gregory Monro’s documentary is structured around a series of interviews with Kubrick, so its appeal is to hear the filmmaker’s own take on his work
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‘Planet of the Humans’ Film Review: Michael Moore-Produced Doc Takes Shots at Environmentalists on Earth Day
The documentary, directed by Jeff Gibbs and executive produced by Moore, is an attack on the current state of the green energy movement
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‘Selah and the Spades’ Film Review: Teen Mobsters Run the Show in Stylish High School Drama
Director Tayarisha Poe’s first feature is striking and controlled, with a fiercely assertive Lovie Simone as a driven high schooler
