Tag: Academy Awards

by Sean Axmaker, Contributors, Links, lists, Oscars, streaming

Streaming the 2019 Oscar nominees

Written by Sean Axmaker February 13, 2019June 14, 2020

The Academy Awards will be handed out on Sunday, February 24. Are you caught up on the major nominees?

Eight films made the cut in the category of best picture and a few of them are still in theaters, notably the offbeat royal drama The Favourite (2018, R), which came away with ten nominations, political commentary Vice (2018, R) which scored eight nomination, and Green Book (2018, PG-13), with five nominations in all.

Also still in theaters is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018, PG), the current favorite in the animated feature category.

A number of nominated films, however, are already available to watch at home. Here’s an easy guide to what you can see and how you can see them.

Best Picture

Two of the top nominees are currently available to stream on Netflix. Roma (Mexico, R, with subtitles) and Black Panther (PG-13).

Continue reading at Stream On Demand

by Robert Horton, Commentary, Contributors, Oscars

Who We Would’ve Nominated For 2019 Academy Awards

Written by Robert Horton February 2, 2019

While the Oscars remain the one artistic award show that really matters, it’s frustrating how flawed and exclusionary they remain. Still, only certain types of movies are even considered for nominations — sure, a horror film like Get Out or a comic-book movie like Black Panther can get nominated, but they’re the exceptions that prove the rule (and ones that would’ve received major backlash if snubbed). But even if a movie falls under the category of “Oscar bait,” it still requires a cash-back campaign targeted at voters to stand a chance. It’s a crummy system.

With that in mind, we threw any notion of standard Academy Awards qualifications out the window to nominate our favorite films of 2018 in some of the major categories (with entries marked with a * indicating our pick as the winner).

BEST PICTURE

Actual Nominees

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Favourite
Green Book
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

Robert’s Nominees

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman
Burning
First Reformed
Hereditary
Leave No Trace
The Rider*
Roma
Support the Girls
You Were Never Really Here

Continue reading at Seattle Weekly

by Robert Horton, Commentary, Contributors, Oscars

Oscar predictions from Robert Horton

Written by Robert Horton February 26, 2016

This year, a coronation will be held during the Academy Awards ceremony. It happens periodically: An actor has waited an eternity to win an Oscar, and then a year comes when his or her performance is so undeniable (and, maybe, the competition not as strong as usual), and suddenly it’s the moment.

That’s why King Leo the First will be crowned at Sunday’s Oscar event. For years now Leonardo DiCaprio has worked his keister off in a variety of ambitious, ultra-serious roles. He’s been a pretender to the throne before, nominated for The Wolf of Wall Street, The Aviator, and a couple of other roles. But his physically exhausting stint in The Revenant will likely put a statuette up on his mantelpiece.

Aside from that sure thing, there are some toss-ups in the Oscar race this year. Best Picture remains a tantalizing guess: Will the Oscars go with the momentum of The Revenant, or reward the social-issue punch of Spotlight? Or does the political satire of The Big Short catch the mood of the moment?

Continue reading at The Herald (paywall alert)

by Sheila Benson, Commentary, Contributors

Oscar, You’re Breaking My Heart (but you always do)

Written by Sheila Benson January 16, 2016

I have no proof whatever that when the final ballots were tallied, late at night at the Academy, and the prospect of a second year of the dreaded hashtag #OscarsSoWhite hung over the room, considerable thought was given to The Messenger of this news. Messengers.

I do know that it was really nice to see that Guillermo Del Toro and Ang Lee were given the first swath of nominations to read. The second list was handled by redoubtable Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs and John Krasinski.

It was a gallant show of inclusiveness, before the truth was out and hellfire rained down from every side.

– Sylvester Stallone but not Michael B. Jordan? So, who was Creed about, an old, slow white guy from Philly?

– Idris Elba nowhere in sight, unless you count Netflix ads.

– Straight Outta Compton? Not exactly the screener that . . .ummm, mature Academy voters bring out to share with poker cronies.

– Women? Don’t start. Freud said it best, “My god, what do women want?”

– Spike Lee? Maybe no one could pronounce Chi-Raq. In any case, he just got an honorary Oscar. . . in November, at one of those ceremonies that happen way, way off-stage. Check out his speech, every last minute of it.

Don’t even want to think what he’s saying today. No, actually, I do.

Continue reading at Critic Quality Feed

by Robert Horton, Contributors, Essays

Oscar Predictions

Written by Robert Horton February 20, 2015

Last year it seemed so easy: 12 Years a Slave was the pre-ordained Best Picture winner, Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett had acting awards locked up, and nobody was going to deny Frozen in the animation category.

Well, the 87th annual Oscar race has been a little more fun. Even though certain movies have been winning regularly with groups such as the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice (I’m a voting member in the latter), I do think there’s actual suspense about the big prizes this year. It could turn into something because of the way the votes might split. Boyhood stands as the odds-on favorite, and critics’ awards seem to favor it. But Birdman has won some key prizes, including the nod from the Directors Guild.

‘Boyhood’

More complications: The late-arriving American Sniper is the only one of the Best Picture nominees to qualify as a real box-office smash. That does count for something with Academy voters. And then there’s the Selma kerfuffle. Oscar commentators and political pundits took umbrage at the film being shut out of most categories, especially Best Director, even though it was nominated for Best Picture. Could there be a strong response to the perceived snub (as there was when Argo didn’t have director Ben Affleck nominated, but the movie won Best Picture after all)?

Continue reading at The Herald

by Richard T. Jameson, Commentary, Contributors, Essays

Oscar Upsets

Written by Richard T. Jameson February 18, 2015

Set out to write about Academy Award upsets and right away the ground starts shifting under your feet. Oh, some neck-snappers we all remember—like Jack Nicholson coming out to present the award for best picture of 2005, opening the envelope, and saying, “Whoa.” Moments when the title of the movie everybody figured to win suddenly wasn’t the one being read aloud.

But those are ya-hadda-be-there moments. Looking back over Oscar history, you encounter what we might call upsets-in-reverse—instances when a movie or a performance that has long since become part of the racial unconscious did not, in its day, win proper recognition. Then you find yourself in a sort of “What did they know and when did they know it?” situation. How could they have been so blind? We’ve collected some of that kind of upset as well.

Upsets come in all valences, triumphant and appalling. Truly the ways of Oscar passeth understanding. But that needn’t spoil the party.

1939
It was Hollywood’s golden year. Stagecoach … Mr. Smith Goes to Washington … Ninotchka … The Wizard of Oz … Only Angels Have Wings … Young Mr. Lincoln … Wuthering Heights … Of Mice and Men … Gunga Din … Midnight … Drums Along the Mohawk … Love Affair … The Four Feathers (OK, made in England, but still). Yet it was the making of one movie that obsessed fans all year long, and when it ended up with a then-record 13 Oscar nominations, no one doubted that David O. Selznick’s nearly-four-hour Technicolor megaproduction Gone With the Wind would take the brass ring. A lot of brass rings, including best director for Victor Fleming despite the fact that some half-dozen directors (preeminently George Cukor and Sam Wood) had worked on the film. Most of the major players were nominated (including Thomas Mitchell, albeit for Stagecoach, not GWTW); newcomer-to-Hollywood Vivien Leigh won best actress as Scarlett O’Hara, and Hattie McDaniel edged fellow cast member Olivia De Havilland for best supporting actress. Yet what was wrong with this picture? Although novelist Margaret Mitchell had written the book visualizing Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Gable had to settle for a nomination merely (best actor went to Robert Donat for Goodbye, Mr. Chips; we’d have given it to Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith, Jimmy Stewart). The King took it like a man, of course. But watch GWTW today and try telling us all that Selznickean flapdoodle would be tolerable without Gable’s movie-star gravitas to center it.

The ‘Alt’ Oscars: The Silent Years

Written by Sean Axmaker February 17, 2015

The Academy Awards were born in 1927, the brainchild of MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, a studio head whose original idea for an organization to negotiate labor disputes and industry conflicts evolved into the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. The awards themselves were an afterthought and initially more public relations gimmick than egalitarian celebration of the arts. Every member of the Academy (then as now an exclusive organization where membership is by invitation only) was involved in nominations but a committee of five judges picked the winners and Mayer, of course, oversaw it all. If he didn’t actually handpick the winners, be surely put his thumb on the scales. By 1929, Academy members were voting on the final ballots themselves and in 1934 the ceremony moved from November to March. Additional categories were added and other refinements made over the years (Foreign Language Film got its own statue in 1957) but otherwise the Academy Awards as we know them today were born: a glitzy event that brought the stars out and handed out trophies.

That leaves practically the entire silent movie era out of Oscar history. Hollywood had reached a zenith in terms of craftsmanship, glamor and ambition when The Jazz Singer was released before the first awards were handed out. By its second year, sound films dominated the awards.

Let’s imagine an alternate history where the Academy Awards had been born earlier and (as long as we’re dreaming) with a more egalitarian purpose from the outset. What kind of winners might you have in an era when movies were more international and there was no such thing as a “foreign language film” when credits and intertitles were easily replaced for each region? What landmarks leading up to that first ceremony, where the twin peaks of populist blockbuster and artistic triumph—Wings and Sunrise—represented the Best of Hollywood, might have been chosen in the golden age of twenties cinema, or the birth of the feature film in the teens, or even the wild days of experimentation and rapid evolution in the decades previous?

Here are my picks for a few key awards in the imaginary Oscar history.

1928: Metropolis
Best Picture, Cinematography, Production Design
Released in January of 1927 in Germany and two months later in the U.S., this landmark was just too early for consideration in the inaugural awards (handed out in May, 1929). So I’m giving this early 1927 release a clear playing field with its own Oscar year: Academy Awards Year Zero. Sure, science fiction isn’t a big player with the Academy, but otherwise it has all the hallmarks of an Oscar favorite: epic canvas, astounding sets, visionary visual design and the timely theme of man struggling to find his place in the rapid spread of technology and machinery, all under the firm control of filmmaker Fritz Lang. Hollywood had never seen anything like it before. The film was soon edited down for and the original cut was lost for decades. The 2010 restoration restores scenes, characters and story lines unseen since opening night and confirms just how grand Lang’s vision was.

Continue reading at Keyframe

Blu-ray, by Sean Axmaker, Contributors, DVD, lists

Get your Oscar flick fix without leaving the house

Written by Sean Axmaker February 16, 2014

By the time the Oscars air on March 2, most moviegoers will not have been able to get to theaters to see all the nominees. But thanks to the era of DVD, Blu-ray, streaming video and movies on demand, those who really want to cram for Hollywood’s big night can catch up on a bunch of the films at home.

Some of the front-runners still require a theater trip (more on that later), but for those of you who want to order in and prep for your office pool from the comfort of your own couch, it’s possible to cover a lot of ground.

The biggest talkers

“Dallas Buyers Club” picked up six nominations, including best picture and best original screenplay, but its best chances are in the acting categories, where Matthew McConaughey is a front-runner for best actor and Jared Leto is up in the supporting actor category. The two already took home Golden Globes for their performances. It’s available on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD, and On Demand.

“Captain Phillips” also received six nominations, including best picture, adapted screenplay, and actor in a supporting role for Barkhad Abdi, a non-actor who made a vivid debut in the role of a Somali pirate. Star Tom Hanks was overlooked for his equally strong performance. It’s available on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD, and On Demand.

Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” earned Cate Blanchett her sixth Oscar nomination and she is a wonder as a Blanche DuBois in contemporary San Francisco. That would make fellow nominee Sally Hawkins (up for best supporting actress) the film’s Stella. It’s available on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD, and On Demand.

Continue reading at Today.com

by Richard T. Jameson, Contributors, Essays

Oscar perspective

Written by Richard T. Jameson February 27, 2013

[originally published on Straight Shooting]

Best Pictures ‘Argo’ is better than
The Broadway Melody, Cimarron, Cavalcade, The Great Ziegfeld, Gentleman’s Agreement, The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, The Sound of Music, The Sting, Rocky, Gandhi, Driving Miss Daisy, Braveheart, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Pictures ‘Argo’ can orbit with
Wings, Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Life of Emile Zola, Mrs. Miniver, All the King’s Men, An American in Paris, From Here to Eternity, Marty, Gigi, Ben-Hur, West Side Story, Tom Jones, My Fair Lady, A Man for All Seasons, In the Heat of the Night, Oliver!, Midnight Cowboy, Patton, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Terms of Endearment, Out of Africa, Platoon, Rain Man, Dances With Wolves, Forrest Gump, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, Crash, The King’s Speech

Best Pictures ‘Argo’ can’t touch
All Quiet on the Western Front, It Happened One Night, You Can’t Take It with You, Gone with the Wind, Rebecca, Going My Way, The Lost Weekend, Hamlet, All About Eve, On the Waterfront, Bridge on the River Kwai, The French Connection, The Godfather, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs. Kramer, Amadeus, The Last Emperor, The Silence of the Lambs, Schindler’s List, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Departed, The Artist

Best Pictures ‘Argo’ can’t see with an astronomical telescope
How Green Was My Valley, Casablanca, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Apartment, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather Part Two, Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker

Best Picture nominees that lost (top shelf)
Grand Illusion, Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, The Maltese Falcon, The Magnificent Ambersons, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sunset Blvd., Shane, Anatomy of a Murder, Dr. Strangelove, Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, Nashville, All the President’s Men, E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial, The Right Stuff, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Saving Private Ryan, Brokeback Mountain, Winter’s Bone

Best Picture nominees 2012: a ranking
Zero Dark Thirty, Amour, Lincoln, Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, Life of Pi, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Les Misérables

by Richard T. Jameson, Contributors, Essays

Oscar night: halfway measures

Written by Richard T. Jameson February 27, 2013

No miserables here: Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway, Christoph Waltz

For an Oscar year in which several big awards were foregone conclusions, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences soiree this past Sunday included its share of surprises.

It also featured an equable, perhaps accidental, distribution of the prizes among a range of movies. When we consider how set the Hollywood community appeared to be on anointing the sixth-best nominee as best picture, it’s gratifying that 2012 won’t go down in Oscar history as a sweep year.

Yes, as predicted here and just about everywhere else, the George Clooney–Grant Heslov–Ben Affleck production Argo copped the big one. But it won only two others, tying with the execrable Les Misérables and running one behind Life of Pi. Scoring two each on the tote board were Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, the James Bond movie Skyfall, and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.

It was Django that drew first blood, with the second supporting-actor win by Christoph Waltz in a Quentin Tarantino movie. As in Inglourious Basterds (2009), Waltz was really a costar rather than supporting player. And once again Waltz gave an impeccably gracious acceptance speech, naming and literally bowing to his esteemed fellow nominees and praising his writer-director through artful repurposing of Tarantino’s own words.

Did Waltz’s sorta-surprise win foreshadow an evening of academy voters taking pointed stands against pinched-face controversy? Django Unchained, an outrageous historical revenge tale framed as a spaghetti Western, had been deplored (especially by people who refused to see it) for its ballsy, N-word–laden take on slavery. What about Zero Dark Thirty—only the for-real best movie of 2012—glibly maligned for endorsing the efficacy of “enhanced interrogation” even though it hadn’t done so?