Cinema News: Treat your Oscars hangover with more movies

March 13, 2026 | View in browser

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in Anthony Minghella's 1996 romance

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.

As we head into the weekend of the Oscars, I am coming to you from Austin, Texas, where I have decamped to for the SXSW Film & TV Festival. I always feel so energized by this festival, with its mix of comedies, action films and real discoveries. It's a perfect way to shake off the Oscars hangover and move on to some fresh titles.

Last night, things kicked off with the premieres of "I Love Boosters" on the film side and "Margo's Got Money Troubles" for TV. Other titles premiering in the next few days include "Ready or Not 2: Here I Come," "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice," "Over Your Dead Body" and "They Will Kill You." The dysfunctional family comedy "Seekers of Infinite Love" marks the biggest movie role yet for "Hacks" breakout star Hannah Einbinder.

As part of my festival preview, I compiled a list of eight titles to watch out for, including three from the narrative competition, which, from what I have seen, is the strongest in a few years. SXSW veteran Joe Swanberg returns this year with his 10th film to premiere at the festival, "The Sun Never Sets," which features a revelatory performance by Dakota Fanning.

And for those looking for guidance with last-minute Oscar predictions, The Times' Glenn Whipp has you covered. He's picking "One Battle After Another" to win best picture, while noting that "Sinners" might emerge as the winner. The two films will slug it out all night long, as dedicated Oscar-watchers tally wins as the event goes on.

Amy Nicholson drops her own list of who among the nominees should win, while also picking some films she thinks should have been included in the nominations. (Imagine a world in which "Eddington" competed for best picture.)

'The English Patient' in 35mm

On Wednesday, the Academy Museum will show 1996's romantic drama "The English Patient" in 35mm in the David Geffen Theater. The film won nine Academy Awards, including best picture, and the screening will be introduced by late director Anthony Minghella's two children, academy governor Hannah Minghella and actor and filmmaker Max Minghella, recently of HBO's "Industry."

Though we now think of the movie as something of an iron-clad classic, our coverage of its big night at the Oscars had a slightly different tone, referring to the film as "a sweeping World War II romance whose struggle to get made came to symbolize the hurdles independent filmmakers endure in Hollywood."

In his original review, Kenneth Turan noted, "Finally it comes down to writer-director Minghella, whose modest debut film, 'Truly, Madly, Deeply,' didn't hint at the command of dreamlike mood and atmosphere on a large scale he demonstrates here. Though it may sound excessive at 2 hours and 42 minutes, 'The English Patient' captivates as only the grandest and most consuming passions can. The heart is an organ of fire indeed."

'Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?' 4K restoration

On Sunday, the American Cinematheque at the Los Feliz Theater will have the L.A. premiere of the 4K restoration of Henry Jaglom's 1983 "Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" The restoration first played at last year's New York Film Festival.

Set in New York City's Upper West Side, the story follows recently divorced Eli (played by Jaglom's real-life brother Michael Emil) as he becomes involved with an aspiring singer named Zee (Karen Black), recently abandoned by her husband. With a freewheeling energy and great location work around the city, the movie feels like a real snapshot of a time and place. Larry David and Orson Welles both have small roles as well.

In a review from December 1983, Kevin Thomas wrote, "The freshness of 'Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?' lies not in its insights into contemporary romance, which are familiar enough, but in Jaglom's breezy approach and in his acceptance that cruelty, as deplorable as it is, is at times inevitably as much a part of emotional relationships as kindness. From Karen Black, who can seem alternately gorgeous and bedraggled, joyous and defeated, Jaglom has gotten one of her finest portrayals and surely her best comic performance. As for the warm and funny, unhandsome yet attractive Emil, he makes middle age seem not such a bad proposition after all."

In a January 1984 Times interview from his home near the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, Jaglom described "Cherry Pie" as "a film for those who want to see a movie about people." He went on to say, "This town is full of people complaining that they're not doing the work they want. Me, I make exactly the films I want. I see myself as representing Off-Hollywood, if you like, someone making movies for the same people who would go see an Off-Broadway play. I shoot them inexpensively and they make money. Really, I'm very fortunate."

Points of interest

'Slap Shot' in 35mm

Screening tonight at the American Cinematheque at the Aero in 35mm is George Roy Hill's 1977 "Slap Shot," which stars Paul Newman as a pro hockey player at the end of career trying to squeeze out one last championship season with a misfit minor league team. With a screenplay by Nancy Dowd, who would win an Oscar for "Coming Home" (and who also wrote "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains" under a pseudonym), this movie is an unlikely gem, smart and funny and sharp. Seeing it with an audience would be an absolute blast.

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I was surprised to discover that the film was a point of controversy on its initial release, with both a review from Kevin Thomas and a critic at large piece by Charles Champlin chastising the billowing plumes of profanity in the film's dialogue. Hill wrote an essay for The Times defending the film and Dowd gave an extensive interview as well.

Defending the movie from charges of exploitation, Dowd said, "It makes me mad that people try to second-guess us now, and because the film stands to have some kind of commercial success, to say that it was calculated exploitation picture. How you can take a 52-year-old star paying a hockey player, a studio opposing a picture, a first-time screenwriter with a screenplay full of obscenities writing about a minor league sport, a cast of unknowns and nonfactors, shot on location, on ice, and call that a sure-fire exploitation picture, I don't know."

Director Hill compared the critics' reactions to that of an easily offended character in the movie: "If they haven't gotten the joke by this time, they probably never will."

'Jackass Number Two'

Tonight Vidiots screens 2006's "Jackass Number Two" with star Johnny Knoxville in person. Among the more notable stunts this time are Knoxville riding a giant rocket, Bam Margera trapped in a trailer with a cobra and a finale musical number. And in a sign of how the "Jackass" movies were breaking to wider (and increasingly unlikely) audiences, John Waters makes a cameo.

Reviewing the film for the Chicago Tribune, Jessica Reaves wrote at the time, "Quite honestly, I don't know what to say about 'Jackass Number Two.' What is there to say, after all, about a 95-minute foray into feces, intestinal gas, horse semen and a beer funnel inserted into a body cavity that's quite obviously not someone's mouth. … Knoxville and his crew operate with knowing smirks on their faces, which makes them both more annoying and less susceptible to critics who might question their intelligence, human decency or both."

Our own Joshua Rothkopf reviewed the movie back in the day at Time Out New York, kicking off with this lede: "Call it distasteful, crude, the lowest form of culture-coarsening trash. Or, in the thoughtful words of a critic sitting beside me at the screening: 'Oh no no no no bad idea BAD IDEA that's no no no no please no stop no what a stupid thing you're doing to yourself no no no no no nooooooo!!!'"