Fall Into Awards Season Movies

From “Interstellar” to “Into the Woods.” The  biggest and best movies of the fall and holiday seasons. What to see, what to skip.

Summer brings us the blockbuster, comic book movies.  Fall and the holidays bring on the Oscar contenders, films with a different ambition.  They’re hitting theaters right now, with more to come.  "Dear White People" is out there.  "Birdman," with Michael Keaton.  "Whiplash."  "Gone Girl."  Still to come – "The Imitation Game," on mathematician Alan Turing.  "The Theory of Everything," on Stephen Hawking.  "Foxcatcher."  "Selma."  "Inherent Vice" brings Thomas Pynchon to the big screen.  "Interstellar" would find us a new galactic home.  This hour On Point:  We’re previewing the end-of-year movie rush.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Ann Hornaday, movie critic for the Washington Post. (@AnnHornaday)

Carrie Rickey, former film critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Also writes for  Yahoo! Movies, the San Francisco Chronicle, RogerEbert.com and others. (@CarrieRickey)

Washington Post: From ‘Birdman’ to Zellweger: the actor as screen object -- "As punitive as movie culture is for actresses, it’s no cakewalk for men, either. In 'Birdman,' opening Friday, Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, a middle-aged actor whose heyday as a cartoon action hero has long since passed; in an effort to reignite his career, he directs and stars in a Broadway play."

RogerEbert.com: Visual Pleasure and Voodoo Demographics: A Reflection on Women and Film — "In 1987, nine percent of the top 250 movies at the box office are directed by women. That's the good news. The bad news: Since then the needle hasn't moved. The percentage has been remarkably stable, varying from seven to nine-and-a-half percent. Although academics and reporters hear from Hollywood executives that films directed by women don't make as much money as those directed by men, the truth is that female and male filmmakers with similar budgets generate similar box office results."

Salon: Indie award nominations boost Oscar chances for “Birdman,” “Boyhood,” “Grand Budapest” -- "Understanding that film critics pick the nominees, but not the final winners, is crucial to grasping the role the Gothams play in the movie-world economy, and how to read their nominations. I’m not supposed to discuss our committee’s deliberations in any detail, but I feel OK telling you that while we definitely bargained and haggled and debated over our choices, the three big Oscar-bait movies cited above played no significant role in our conversation. What that tells us is that the buzz for those 'big' pictures may be coming from somewhere – film-industry insiders, festival word-of-mouth or the Hollywood P.R. machine – but it isn’t coming from critics."