Cinema News: Moving on from the Oscars

March 20, 2026 | View in browser

By Mark Olsen

Staff Writer

Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

This was a very busy week. Of course, the Academy Awards were last Sunday, with Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" winning six awards, including best picture, Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" winning four and Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" winning three.

The Academy Museum is in the midst of screening a handful of the winners in the David Geffen Theater. Tonight "Sinners" will play in 70mm. On Saturday there will be a singalong screening of "KPop Demon Hunters," which won two awards, along with a 70mm screening of "One Battle After Another." On Sunday there will be a screening of "Weapons," which snagged a supporting actress prize for Amy Madigan and her instantly iconic character of Aunt Gladys.

I have just returned from the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival, where I attended the raucous premiere of Boots Riley's "I Love Boosters" and also saw a talk with Steven Spielberg where he professed his belief that "we are not alone" and that alien lifeforms have visited Earth.

I spoke to Joe Swanberg, Jake Johnson and Dakota Fanning — in what may be a career-best performance — about their absolutely winning collaboration on the Alaska-set romantic dramedy "The Sun Never Sets." And real-life couples Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick and Katie Aselton and Mark Duplass talked about the experience of making a movie with their real-life children on, respectively, "Family Movie" and "Their Town."

"As a parent, you don't really get to watch your kids navigating their way in the world as adults," Sedgwick said. "So having a window into that and also to be like, 'Phew, they're such good people,' it was just such a gift. Because it could have been, 'Geez, they're a nightmare.'"

Bud Cort's 'Ted & Venus'

On Tuesday at Whammy Analog Media, Hollywood Entertainment and 7th House will present an evening in tribute to Bud Cort, the actor best known for "Harold and Maude" and "Brewster McCloud" who died in February at age 77. There will be a showing of 1991's "Ted & Venus," the only feature directed by Cort, as well as the 2016 short "Affections," his final screen appearance. "Affections" director and star Bridey Elliott will be there to introduce the event.

"Ted & Venus" stars Cort as a Venice Beach poet who becomes obsessed by a woman (Kim Adams) he sees on the beach. As his romantic pursuit of her becomes increasingly unhinged, the film develops a deeply off-kilter energy — honestly, it would not have been out of place at this year's SXSW. It also features appearances by James Brolin, Gena Rowlands, Carol Kane, Cassandra Peterson and Timothy Leary.

When Cort died, Elliott posted a heartfelt tribute, so I reached out for a few memories of her friend. The two met in 2011 when Elliott was a production assistant in New York City on an Adult Swim series Cort made an appearance on as an actor and struck up a friendship. When she later moved to L.A., he took her under his wing.

"Working with him on my short was wonderful," Elliott said via email. "I barely recall actually directing Bud, honestly, it was more about observing him at his craft. He was always teaching me a lot about art-making, even while putzing around his house. He would be rattling off amazing stories and life lessons about acting and film. … He was really generous with process and effort, even for someone directing their first short. When we screened the film, he called me 'a demented Audrey Hepburn.' I was delighted by that."

Elliott referred to Cort as "a true seeker," and when asked what she would want people to know about him, she responded, "[H]ow special Bud's heart was. He was super supportive of the people in his life, talking everyone's brilliance up. He planted a deep sense of belief in me at a time when I really needed it, and I've come to realize he did that for so many others too. Since his passing, we've all found ourselves sharing these stories, recognizing his impact. Bud lived by the philosophy at the heart of 'Harold and Maude,' and in his departure, left it with everyone whose life he touched."

Points of interest

'Network' and 'True Confessions' in 35mm

On Sunday the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre will have a 50th anniversary screening of Sidney Lumet's 1976 film "Network" in 35mm as part of their ongoing tribute to Robert Duvall.

Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the film is a scathing takedown of the conflation of news and entertainment in television that has only become more prescient and relevant over the years.

The film stars William Holden and Faye Dunaway as executives at a struggling television network, with Duvall as their boss. When their news anchor (Peter Finch) has a nervous breakdown on the air, suddenly their ratings turn around, bringing on a moral morass only some of them are prepared to face.

Keep up with California

Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.

Subscribe Now

In a review at the time, Charles Champlin wrote, "Chayefsky does not bite the hand that fed him when he was one of the then-young medium's best dramatists, he rips it off at the shoulder. It has been a long while since a movie attacked anything as savagely (and knowingly) as Chayefsky attacks television. … But his jeremiad is not only about the misuses and degradations of the medium and its powers, it is also about the all-pervading, life-changing, soul-crippling, reality distorting influence of television even when (presumably) it is noble and swell."

The Cinematheque will be showing another Duvall film, 1981's "True Confessions," on Monday at the Los Feliz Theatre in 35mm. Directed by Ulu Grosbard from a screenplay by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, the film stars Duvall and Robert De Niro as brothers, one a cop and the other a priest, caught up in the corruption, power and scandal of 1940s Los Angeles in a story that touches on the notorious "Black Dahlia" murder case.

Reviewing the film, Sheila Benson wrote, "'True Confessions' is as engrossing, as rich in detail and as fascinating a portrait of corruption and ethnicity as we have had from an American director in years. … For those who savor performances of the greatest intelligence, understatement and elegance, 'True Confessions' is a glossary of them."

'Groove'

On Saturday, Vidiots will have the world premiere of a new restoration of Greg Harrison's 2000 film "Groove," a fun-loving time capsule of millennial San Francisco rave culture in which characters converge on an all-night warehouse dance party. (In typical Vidiots fashion, the screening will be followed by a dance party.)

In his original review, John Anderson compared the film to "American Graffiti," "Animal House" and "Dazed and Confused" for the way it uses music to evoke its time and place. "Harrison gives us a glimpse into a subculture that thrives on an intrinsic underground-ness, but it's only a glimpse. There's not enough sustained musical momentum to simulate the energy of an actual rave; the characters are likable but unremarkable. The most resonant aspect of 'Groove' is the paradox of pop-music movements: how transient they are as well as critically important, at least when it's your first time around."

In other news

'Project Hail Mary'

The week's biggest new release is "Project Hail Mary," Phil Lord and Chris Miller's adaptation of Andy Weir's novel from a screenplay by Drew Goddard. Ryan Gosling stars as a middle-school science teacher named Ryland Grace who is chosen to be launched into space in hopes of reversing the sun's dimming. Along the way he meets and befriends an alien creature he comes to call "Rocky."

In her review, Amy Nicholson wrote, "Silly but not sappy, 'Project Hail Mary' doesn't gin up much suspense over whether anything bad will happen. This crowd-pleaser simply wouldn't dare. So much of science fiction is about humanity bringing our problems — class, capitalism, pollution — with us into outer space. Weir's trick is that he knows that two astronauts is a crowd. A solo explorer can only fight his circumstances, not his co-pilot. … An aspiring blockbuster this grand must have calculated that despite the moral and emotional exhaustion of our own timeline, people yearn to root for this kind of hero: a flexible, generous, empathetic and sensitive man rather than a strong one."