Some Bad Performances…Yet Nominated for an Oscar
This is a nonscientific list, and it certainly reflects my aesthetics, not yours. You may have a special place in Oscar hell for Miyoshi Umeki or Abigail Breslin. I don’t. But speaking of Breslin, the...
View ArticlePhilip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Farrow, Cate Blanchett, and The Great Unsaids
I’m not at all sure how to process all of these thoughts and feelings. Death is bad. Drug abuse is bad. The closet (if that’s true) is bad. Child abuse is bad. Rape is bad. So there’s all these...
View ArticleBest Performances Not to Win an Oscar (Nominated)
As with all of these Oscars posts, and Oscar lore, it’s subjective. I will note here that I am not advocating that any of these people should have beaten the winner of that year (except as noted),...
View Article40 Great Performances Not to Win an Oscar (Not Nominated)
40 Great Performances that were not nominated (and double ignominy for Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, and Robert Mitchum). In chronological order: Barbara Stanwyck as Jean Harrington in The Lady...
View ArticleForgettable Lineups
We remember years like 1950 (Davis, Parker, Swanson, Baxter, Holliday) and 1962 (Bancroft bests Davis, Hepburn, Page, Remick), but how many years just stink? Let’s look at some of the (and this is...
View ArticleThe Great Performances (Great Actors, Great Oscar Wins)
I’ve narrowed it to 10 actors, 12 performances, and one line for each of these Oscar-winning performances: Bette Davis, Jezebel 1938 Shows a full arc from spoiled to compassionate without ever losing...
View Article2014 Academy Award Predictions
Best Picture American Hustle Captain Phillips Dallas Buyers Club Gravity Her Nebraska Philomena 12 Years a Slave The Wolf of Wall Street A most baffling category. Cuaron appears to be moving into...
View ArticleOscar Thoughts 2014
We thought the extended season might yield some surprises. It didn’t. We thought the Academy might rebel against the myriad awards before it in thinking about how it gives its prizes. It didn’t....
View ArticleThe Foreign Language Oscar: Dreaming of Oscar Gold in July
Last night I was watching the pristine new version of Persona, Bergman’s masterful film about the relationship between a nurse and her mute patient, a famed actress. A meditation on film, acting,...
View ArticleRainy Day Doubleheader
I watched a fascinating double-header of 1970s films, ostensibly not connected, except that both were recently released by Criterion in fantastic Blu-ray remasterings: Roman Polanski’s visceral 1971...
View Article2015 Golden Globes Predictions
Ugh! Brilliant thespian! Picking the Golden Globes is different than picking Oscars—not because either has any pretension to evaluating the work of artists, mind you, but because while the Oscars are...
View Article2015 Oscar Nomination Predictions
I took a beating this week on picking the Golden Globes—they were, even to a seasoned awards viewer, more esoteric than ever, notably supporting Birdman in two key categories (screenplay and Actor,...
View Article2015 Academy Award Nomination Reactions
They hate me. I was on Alias. I can’t get nominated for Nine, but I can for a Dardennes film? They must hate Jennifer Aniston! I went 35/43, which is not nearly as good as that math suggests. Four...
View Article2014: The Top 10 Films
The notion of the pastiche (or ripoff) is not new the cinema; hell, Martin Scorsese ripped himself off when he made Casino, and then David O. Russell ripped him off last year with American Hustle....
View Article2015 Academy Awards Predictions: The “Other” Films
To begin the prediction-palooza, here are the races that often make-or-break office pools, which I have taken a wild stab at in the spirit of such gambles. Foreign Language Film Ida Poland Leviathan...
View Article2015 Academy Awards Predictions: The Crafts
Cinematography Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Emmanuel Lubezki The Grand Budapest Hotel Robert Yeoman Ida Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski Mr. Turner Dick Pope Unbroken Roger...
View Article2015 Academy Awards Predictions: Picking the Big 8
Best Picture American Sniper Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Bradley Cooper and Peter Morgan, Producers Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher...
View ArticleOscars Reactions 2015
I picked 17 of 24 right at last night’s Academy Awards, and the 7 I was wrong about were not too far off. This is not a statement of being a great prognosticator (I think it was entirely possible to...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....