By Lindsey Bahr
Barbenheimer is continuing into awards season. Both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" are among the 10 films that will receive an AFI Award in January, the American Film Institute said Thursday.
The organization is recognizing a wide swath of the year's best films, with blockbusters, an animated film, indies and movies released by both streamers and traditional studios. Honorees include Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon," Alexander Payne's "The Holdovers," Celine Song's "Past Lives" and Yorgos Lanthimos' "Poor Things." The list also has two Netflix films: Todd Haynes' "May December" and Bradley Cooper's "Maestro," as well as Sony's animated "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse."
"As our nation and our world continue to navigate difficult times, AFI is honored to shine a proper light upon these works of art that lift us up and, ultimately, lead us to empathy," said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. "That we do so without competition is AFI's hallmark, and we are proud to gather this community of artists together — as one — to celebrate their extraordinary contributions to our time."
AFI also gives honors to 10 television shows. They are: "Abbott Elementary"; "The Bear"; "Beef"; "Jury Duty"; "The Last of Us"; "The Morning Show"; "Only Murders in the Building"; "Poker Face"; "Reservation Dogs"; and "Succession."
Jurors included directors like Gina Prince-Bythewood, Paris Barclay, authors and film scholars Mark Harris and Leonard Maltin, as well as critics Ann Hornaday, Janet Maslin, Mary McNamara and Peter Travers.
Winners will be celebrated at a private luncheon in Los Angeles on Jan. 12.
Lindsey Bahr is an AP film writer
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More