Golden Globes meets WTF moments
Jan. 16 — Happy Friday, everyone! ICYMI, I was featured on Rough Draft’s Instagram this week as part of our Rough Cut series reacting to the Golden Globes. That clip offers just a small taste of my thoughts about the Golden Globes – and mostly sticks to the awards (which, IMO, ranged from fine to good!) – but, as is wont to happen at the Globes, there was a lot of silliness (pejorative, mostly) in the air! So, as a final goodbye, I’ve prepared a list of the biggest WTF moments at the Golden Globes.
1. The Locator: Instead of, I don’t know, playing clips of the nominated performances during the lead-up-to-the-winner announcement, the Globes instead opted for an incredibly strange way of showing us where each celebrity was seated in the room. Why would I care where Wagner Moura is sitting when I could watch a clip from “The Secret Agent” instead? Someone should think about these things for more than 10 seconds!
2. UFC Promo: I think you get a flash of my face when Paramount included this shameless bit of promo for the UFC in one of the Instagram reactions. As you can see, I was unimpressed.
3. The Podcast Award: At least this went to Amy Poehler, who handled it with about as much class as one could, but this entire experiment reeks of corruption and shameless money-grabbing. More on that from The Ankler here.
4. Cutting off “The Secret Agent”: As far as I can tell, the only person whose speech was cut short all night was Kleber Mendonça Filho, the filmmaker behind “The Secret Agent,” just as he started to say something political. Seems a bit fishy to me.
5. Ricky Gervais: Ricky Gervais winning a Golden Globe for his stand-up special in 2026 is about as WTF as it gets. Luckily, he didn’t show up, and Wanda Sykes got to accept the award on his behalf and thank the trans community while doing so.
Without further ado … Action!
⚖️ The biggest news in Hollywood is that Monday morning (the morning after Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix won big at the Golden Globes), Paramount Skydance took their hostile takeover bid to the courts. Paramount sued Warner Bros., seeking to force the company to share the details of the $83 billion deal with Netflix. Paramount also launched a proxy war for WBD’s board, vowing to propose nominees who would engage with its bid instead of Netflix.
🎬 Trilith is expanding its footprint in the South Atlanta metro with the completion of Trilith Live, a 530,000-square-foot entertainment complex.
🍿 The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival recently announced its lineup for 2026. The festival will run from Feb. 18 to March 3.
🏚️ Jim Farmer recently spoke with legendary director Gus Van Sant about his new film “Dead Man’s Wire.” Check out that conversation here.
🏩 The upcoming HUMP! Film Festival, which celebrates porn films (yes, you read that right), has released its schedule for 2026. The festival makes a stop in Atlanta on March 14.
🎞️ The Metro Atlanta Film Summit is returning for its second annual event on March 13 in Acworth.
📽️ IMAX made 2025 its best year ever, closing out December with a record $1.28 billion grossed worldwide.
💸 Ben Affleck and Matt Damon convinced Netflix to share backend profits on their new film, “The Rip.” All cast and crew members are eligible for a one-time bonus depending on how well the film does in its first 90 days.
This week’s newsletter includes an interview with Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, and another with local filmmaker Glen Owen. Both directors have movies releasing in theaters this weekend. We’ve also got reviews of the new films “All That’s Left of You” and “The Testament of Ann Lee.” Plus, a new edition of Spotlight, what’s playing at the movies this week, and some reading and listening recommendations for your lunch break.
Thanks for reading!
Sammie
🏀 Hey, Atlanta! Come out and celebrate the legacy and influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the Atlanta Hawks for their MLK Game vs the Bucks on January 19. Get tickets today. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Kaouther Ben Hania talks the necessity of her film ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’
🇵🇸 On Jan. 29, 2024, five-year-old Hind Rajab and her family attempted to flee Gaza City. Israeli forces opened fire on them, killing almost all of the occupants of the car immediately. But Hind lived, and spent hours trapped in that car on the phone with emergency workers, waiting for an ambulance to come and save her while still under fire. Twelve days later, Hind – still in the car – was found dead.
Like so many in the world, Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania first heard Hind Rajab’s voice when the Palestinian Red Crescent Society – who, while on the phone with Hind, worked tirelessly to coordinate safe passage for an ambulance to her location – published audio of their phone calls with her online.
Listening to Hind’s pleas for help, Ben Hania felt like the little girl was speaking directly to her. She poured the immediacy of that emotion into her new film “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which dramatizes the events of that day from the perspectives of the Red Crescent workers who tried to save Hind.
🎥 I got the chance to speak with Ben Hania about the film, which is shortlisted for Best International Film Feature at the Academy Awards. You can find that conversation here.
Ready, Set, AGLOW!
SPONSORED BY FERNBANK MUSEUM
🌟 When the sun sets, the woods come alive at WildWoods: AGLOW.
This after-hours experience combines art, nature and music at Fernbank Museum, featuring scenic trails aglow with light outdoors and nighttime access to museum exhibits inside.
🌙 Select nights through Feb. 28.
Glen Owen talks football and ‘Signing Tony Raymond’
🏈 While Glen Owen did play basketball at the University of Georgia, he didn’t experience the intense recruitment process that we all hear madcap stories about today. But his friends on the football team did, and years later, that inspired the Cartersville native to write “Signing Tony Raymond.”
In addition to being written and directed by a Georgia native, “Signing Tony Raymond” was made in Georgia and features a homegrown producing team.
The film follows Walt McFadden (Michael Mosley), a talented but down-on-his-luck assistant coach looking to prove himself by signing the number one prospect in the country, Tony Raymond (Jackie Kay). The problem is, Tony has all but disappeared, hiding from recruiters promising grand NIL deals and more in his tiny, rural Alabama hometown. Walt – along with every other college coach in the country – descends upon the town to find him.
🏍️ Ahead of the release of the film this weekend, I spoke with Owen about making the movie. You can check out that conversation here.
‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ is a testament to rapturous community
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
⛪ Directed by Mona Fastvold and co-written by Fastvold and Brady Corbet, “The Testament of Ann Lee” relays the story of the Shakers’ founder (portrayed by Amanda Seyfried) from her humble beginnings in Manchester, England to her eventual status as one of the most radical religious figures of the 18th century.
The Shakers – splintering off from the Quakers – practiced celibacy (a doctrine straight from the Mother Ann herself), believed in social and gender equality for all people, and were pacifists. But they are perhaps best remembered for their fierce, ecstatic movement in song and dance during worship.
“The Testament of Ann Lee” has been described as a musical, but in Fastvold’s film, the music and choreography feel far more like a tone poem of sorts – bursts of movement and sound meant to express emotions that are not so easily put into words, particularly in the oppressive and harsh society Ann and her cohort inhabit. That movement is particularly mesmerizing, but “The Testament of Ann Lee” is most striking in its insistence on viewing its subjects strictly in the context of their own time. Hauntingly modern in its visuals yet divorced from modernity at the same time, “The Testament of Ann Lee” is a story about the nature of community and belief, about suffering and joy in equal measure.
The resistance of humanity in ‘All That’s Left of You’
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
✊ When “All That’s Left of You” begins, we’re immediately off to the races. A percussive, driving score follows two teen boys – one named Noor (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) – racing through the streets of the West Bank in 1988 during the First Intifada, or uprising. The moment is filled with glee, the boys leaping over rooftops and chasing each other with abandon until they happen upon a protest against the Israeli occupation.
Noor’s friend wants to go home, but Noor has no love for the Israeli forces. He needles his friend (“Are you scared?”), and joins up with the other marchers. Moments later, shots ring out. Noor tries to duck into a car parked on the side of the road just as an IDF bullet shatters the glass windshield. Director Cherien Dabis leaves you hanging on this harrowing moment, the camera peering out through the broken glass. We suddenly switch to Noor’s mother, Hanan (played by Dabis), staring down the barrel of the camera. To understand her son, she says, you have to first understand his grandfather.
“All That’s Left of You” is a sweeping epic spanning roughly 80 years of one Palestinian family’s existence, starting with the mass expulsion of Palestinians from what is now Israel in 1948. “All That’s Left of You” mines the lineage of this family in all its hurt and joy with the knowledge that we can’t understand anything – not hate, nor power, nor love, nor ourselves – in a vacuum.
🫀 Check out my review here.
At the Movies!
Movies releasing this weekend:
🍊 “All That’s Left of You”
⛪ “The Testament of Ann Lee”
🦴 “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” (pictured)
🎼 “The Choral”
🇵🇸 “The Voice of Hind Rajab”
💸 “Dead Man’s Wire”
Special Events:
⚔️ Joystick: “The Princess Bride” @ The Plaza (Friday)
🧊 “The Thing” in 4K @ The Plaza (Saturday-Wednesday)
💍 “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” @ The Tara (Friday and next Friday)
🏰 “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” @ The Tara (Saturday and next Saturday)
👑 “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” @ The Tara (Sunday and next Sunday)
🪩 “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!” Movie Party @ Springs Cinema & Taphouse (Sunday)
🏀 Hey, Atlanta! Come out and celebrate the legacy and influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the Atlanta Hawks for their MLK Game vs the Bucks on Jan. 19. Get tickets today. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Odessa A’zion in ‘Marty Supreme’
🏓 There’s been a lot of talk over the past month about Timothée Chalamet’s performance in “Marty Supreme” – talk that’s 100% deserved, mind you! But I fear we’re losing sight of another performance in that movie that matches Marty’s freak – and that’s the bracing, funny, and determined Odessa A’zion.
A’zion plays Rachel, Marty’s childhood friend, sometimes lover, and the mother of his unborn child (unfortunately, she also is married to someone else). Unlike Marty, Rachel has chosen to follow the path expected of her. But when it comes to going after what she wants, she and Marty have plenty in common.
Rachel could have been more of a caricature in someone else’s hands – without spoiling anything, it eventually becomes apparent that her character is lying about something very serious, a twist could have been used as a cheap way to make the audience her adversary. But by this point, you’ve spent so much time with Rachel observing the way she feels about Marty and the careless way he treats her, that you fundamentally understand her decision-making process, even if it leads her to a bad one.
From the moment A’zion steps on screen, and no matter how wild and out of hand things get, Rachel feels like a real person. Part of this is due to casting director Jennifer Venditti’s ability to find faces that belong in the real world and not on Instagram, but it’s also due to A’zion’s disarming confidence as a performer.
Rachel shares some superficial things in common with your typical sports movie love interest – following Marty around, trying to convince him to stay home, to take care of her and their child, to prioritize someone other than himself for once. The difference is in Safdie and Ronald Bronstein’s script, which both holds more empathy for and lends more complexity to Rachel than a lesser film might do. But it’s also in A’zion. She pitches her performance at the level of Chalamet’s, positioning herself as his equal in ambition and delusion, just with different goals. Despite how dog-tired Rachel is – and she is tired, evidenced by every infuriatingly fleeting interaction with Marty, or by the way she dully stands by while her husband throws household items toward her when he finds out the kid isn’t his – she’s got the same underdog spark that Marty does. Just like him, she’ll do whatever it takes.
Lights, Camera, Action!
👑 If you read nothing else this week, please check out Reeves Wiedeman’s profile on David Ellison in Vulture. An exhaustive breakdown of Ellison’s attempt to become the biggest studio mogul in movie history, this profile is insightful, funny, and – if you care about the future of movies – offers a pretty illuminating look at where things stand.
♊ On the “Prestige Junkie” podcast, Michael B. Jordan talks with host Katey Rich about his striking dual-performance in “Sinners.” I’m not sure that Jordan will receive any winning recognition for this performance this year (we can hope – there are a lot of precursors!), but it was a treat to listen to him break down the technical aspects of the performances.
🗣️ Josh Safdie recently sat down with fellow filmmaker Sean Baker on the A24 podcast to talk about Safdie’s film “Marty Supreme.” I sometimes find interviews conducted by non-professionals slightly lacking, but Safdie and Baker are so comfortable with each other that the conversation flows pretty freely. I loved hearing Safdie talk about working with production designer Jack Fisk, the casting process for the movie, and so much more. Plus, Sean Baker is a confirmed Odessa A’zion fan – maybe we’ll get a Baker/A’zion collaboration in the future?
🖊️ Today’s Scene was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.