20 years ago today, a film adaptation of Helen Fielding’s best-selling novel about a thirtysomething British singleton was released in theaters. It was an enormous box office hit, propelled Renee Zellweger’s career into the stratosphere, and spawned two commercially successful sequels. On the anniversary of its release, I look back at what made it such a popular film and how it holds up two decades later.

The Origin and Initial Release of Bridget Jones’s Diary

The story of Bridget Jones’s Diary begins in the mid-1990s when The Independent, a London-based newspaper, approached author Helen Fielding about writing a series of…

After years of only being available on DVD and reruns on obscure cable channels, Fran Drescher’s classic 1990s CBS sitcom finally made its streaming debut on April 1st via HBOMax. Having recently rewatched the series in its entirety on DVD, I can attest that it is certainly worth revisiting — and that it is possibly the most underrated comedy series of the 1990s.

The Nanny’s Six Season Run, Objectively Speaking

The Origin. The Nanny famously began by pure happenstance when Fran Drescher ran into current CBS President Jeff Sagansky on a transatlantic flight. She had recently starred in a short-lived…

The pandemic continued to impact Hollywood in unprecedented ways with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards being remote, pre-recorded, and significantly shortened. The condensed, fast-paced ceremony aired earlier tonight on TBS and TNT and was thankfully free of technological malfunctions, long-winded speeches, and awkward presenter banter. But it certainly didn’t clarify much about the race for the 93rd Academy Awards.

What are the SAG Awards and why are they important?

The SAG Awards are comprised of 15 awards competitive awards to individual actors and acting ensembles across film and television. The nominations are voted on by a subset of the…

At 5:19am Pacific Time this morning, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and her husband Nick Jonas announced the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards, which are set to air on ABC on April 25th. There were some shocking snubs and surprise inclusions, but ultimately it played out largely as expected despite the COVID-related upheaval of the movie industry the past year. Below I list the key takeaways and the nominees in the major categories, along with their Oscar history.

10 Key Headlines from This Morning’s Oscar Nominations

On Monday, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil their nominations for the 93rd Annual Academy Awards. With the COVID-19 pandemic completely upending the movie industry and an unprecedented focus on inclusivity, this awards season is unprecedentedly unpredictable. Here, I take a deep dive into the races for the top eight awards.

Last year’s Oscar ceremony was a notable improvement over the prior year. First of all, there were more inspired winners. Sure, the quartet of acting winners (Renee Zellweger, Joaquin Phoenix, Laura Dern, and Brad Pitt) was exceedingly predictable by the time Oscar night came along…

25 years ago today, an all-star American remake of a highly esteemed queer European comedy premiered in theaters. The film featured an astonishing array of talent both on- and off-screen and was greeted with warm reviews and blockbuster box office receipts. Revisiting it a quarter century after its release highlights that despite its pedigree and success, its role in the history of film comedy and queer representation is still enormously under-appreciated.

A Brief History of The Birdcage

The Birdcage was an American remake of the landmark 1978 Franco-Italian queer comedy La Cages Aux Folles. The remake centers on Armand Goldman…

30 years ago last month, Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs was released in theaters. The film adaptation of Thomas Harris’s novel grossed a staggering $273 million and become the third (and most recent) film to sweep the “Big Five” Oscar categories. Three decades later, it is rightfully regarded as one of the best films ever made — but it is not without controversy.

The Development, Release, and Initial Reception

The story of The Silence of the Lambs really begins in 1981, a full decade before the film premiered. That year, Thomas Harris published the novel Red Dragon, which…

This year’s Golden Globes were utter chaos from start to finish. We all knew that the telecast was going to be rocky due to the fact the show was being broadcast from separate venues for the first time, virtually all of the nominees attended remotely via videoconferencing, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) that hands out the awards had numerous recent controversies to address. I also suspected that the unprecedented challenges that the pandemic brought to the entertainment industry would make for one of the more unpredictable awards season in recent years.

But I certainly didn’t expect the ceremony…