NYT Critics’ Pick Movies, Oscar Buzz, and an Obit of SFnal Interest

[lsanderson]

Review: In ‘The Witch,’ a Family’s Contract With God Is Tested
The Witch
NYT Critics’ Pick
By MANOHLA DARGIS

Review: Twisted Sister’s Hard Road and Drummer Shortage
We Are Twisted ______ Sister!
NYT Critics’ Pick
By GLENN KENNY

-- Oscar Buzz --
Holding Out Hope for ‘Room’ to Win the Oscar for Best Picture
By BROOKS BARNES and MICHAEL CIEPLY

How the Bafta Winners Do (and Don’t) Foretell the Oscars
The Carpetbagger
By CARA BUCKLEY

-- Obit --
Andrzej Zulawski, Rebellious Film Director, Dies at 75
By WILLIAM GRIMES

Buoyed by the film’s success, Mr. Zulawski returned to Poland to make the film version of “The Moon Trilogy,” a work of science fiction by his great-uncle Jerzy Zulawski. Titled “On the Silver Globe” and mounted on an epic scale, it followed the adventures of marooned astronauts contending with telepathic humanoid birds, amphibious mud people and their own mutant descendants.

Polish censors halted production just as the film was nearing completion and ordered it destroyed. From rescued negatives, Mr. Zulawski cobbled together a new version, with a running time of more than two and a half hours, in the late 1980s when the political situation in Poland had changed.

“In whatever form, ‘On the Silver Globe’ remains one of the most unforgettable visual assaults in movie history,” Mr. Atkinson wrote.