121 sea-faring days 'til Oscar

Oscar night will be here before you know it! It's time for your daily Oscar trivia. Today's is Biblical epic style... sort of.

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
-Genesis 1:21

Oscar's favorite sea-faring and/or sea-creature adventures are after the jump but soon we will have to add The Shape of Water (now opening December 1st -- one week earlier than as originally planned) to this list. Where do you think it will land in the following list:

OSCAR'S DOZEN FAVORITE 
SEA-FARING or SEA-CREATURE MOVIES

01 Titanic (1997) - 14 nominations | 11 wins including Best Picture

02 Life of Pi (2012) - 11 nominations including Best Picture | 4 wins

03 Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) - 8 nominations | 1 win for Best Picture (and by extension it's remake Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) 7 nominations including Best Picture...

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A "Four Weddings & A Funeral" Revamp!

Chris here. As Mindy Kaling wraps up the final season of The Mindy Project, she is probably about to be on our minds more than ever before. In the next year, she will be in two of our most anticipated movies: Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time and gay oasis Ocean's Eight. But she is currently lining up another project to fawn over: a television series revisit of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Kaling will executive produce with the film's Oscar-nominated screenwriter Richard Curtis for Hulu, and the idea is to craft each season around a different group of friends. While it may seem like yet another revisit for the offing, Kaling has exactly the point of view to make something very special out of this particular reboot. And a rotating cast allows for all different kinds of possibilities for romantic pairings - not to mention Andie MacDowell as different wedding guests / white wine connoisseurs.

Is it maybe time for a reassessment of the original? I admittedly haven't seen it in some time, but it's worthwhile to remember that it ushered in the era of 90s romantic comedies and also was a rare contemporary Best Picture nominee for the genre. And let's not forget the hats! Have you any fond Four Weddings memories?

Review: "Thor: Ragnarok"

by Chris Feil

The hilariously self-absorbed God of Thunder returns for Thor: Ragnarok, a top tier addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to the smart and snappy voice of director Taika Waititi. Even though the film is comedy first and action second in its priorities, it is like getting stuck in the best game in the arcade for two hours.  

This time around, Thor faces the unshackling of his apocalypse-hungry sister Hela, played by a horned and horny Cate Blanchett. Hela aims to make good on her prophecy to destroy Asgard in retribution for her banishment, and presents Thor’s greatest physical threat to date. Once Thor is cast off himself to the technicolor planet Sakaar, he finds a cast of characters that might help him save his home, including lost Avenger Bruce Banner.

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Blueprints: "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

This week on Blueprints, Jorge Molina takes a drive to the pride of the inland empire to talk about musical numbers in screenplays, only two hours from the beach. 

Fundamentally, scripts serve as a blueprint for what has to appear on screen, hence the name of this series. A blueprint that some people choose to follow more closely than others. However, there are instances where following a script meticulously is vital not only for the benefit of the story, but for the costs and efficiency of an entire production. There are times when a script is a literal choreographed dance, gigantic pretzel and all.

So let’s take a look into the idyllic suburban fantasy of the The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where if every location, note, and twirl hadn’t been precisely mentioned in the script, there may have never been a show...

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Honorary Oscars: Agnès Varda's "The Gleaners & I"

We will be revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Chris on Agnès Varda...

Agnès Varda is getting some long-overdue recognition this year. With prominent profiles being written with the coming of her Honorary Oscar and the release of her documentary with photographer JR Faces Places, you could practically call her a cineaste’s It Girl. While this recent film is earning her new fans enamored with her unique point of view, they will find something equally as layered and holistic in 2000’s The Gleaners and I.

The documentary begins as a study of modern day gleaning, the ancient practice of searching harvested fields for leftover crops - but it quickly becomes so much more...

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