Back to Five? Back to Reality. (On the Best Picture Problem)

Back from a fantasy, yes...

By now you have read the rumor that the Academy is considering going back to only five Best Picture nominees per year. I've been amused by the headlines about this as they're extremely telling before you even get to the editorials. Consider Awards Daily's jaded / defeated "As They've Always Wanted" (Sasha likes the expanded field) or In Contention's even angrier / more insulting "Wants to Go Backward" (Gregory also likes the expanded field). Oscar bloggers have, for the most part, enjoyed the expansion because it gave us more to write about.

I never personally liked it. Oh sure it was fun the first couple of years in the way sudden upheavals in any tradition can feel thrilling in either an adventure film or horror film way. It also prompted fun guessing games about what might have been nominated in years past. But as a lover of Oscar history who enjoys comparing all eras too each other in out-of-time conversation, it was ultra-disruptive. How to compare years with 5 versus years with 8 versus 9 versus 10? Pick a number and stick with it. I understand that people have enjoyed the diversity of genres that the expanded field brought us but that only worked the first two years. [Lots more...]

Click to read more ...

RPDR: Thou Shalt Not Take The Name of Thy Tilda in Vain

Katya, an actual original!Did you catch the premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race S7? Underwhelming! It's that time in competitions before you've had any time yourself during which to fall in love / hate / conspiracy / indifference / lust with any players. 

I eagerly await the moments each episode when the names of showbiz divas or pop culture properties are dropped but that usually comes from either the smartest or most seasoned queens or the judges who tend to have a better grasp of showbiz history than the competing queens each year whose pop awareness often seems disappointingly limited to Beyoncé waking up flawless. RuPaul dropped "Mitzi Gaynor" while commenting on a queen (I forget who). I'll bet you ten dolla and 33 cent that that queen will be googling it, like, "What's a Mitzi Gaynor?"...

Click to read more ...

MTV Movie Awards Nominations

Manuel here pretending not to be baffled and utterly fascinated with the just-announced MTV Movie Awards nominations. As much as I’d like to bemoan their crass youth pandering, their lineup for Movie of the Year (a "category that honors the most loved theatrical release of the season") is quite a respectable one while any awards that nominate Kristen Wiig & Bill Hader for their tour de force lipsync for their lives on The Skeleton Twins is fine by me. 

New Movie Awards Logo designed by Dabs Myla,

You’ll note that Neighbors (which netted Rose Byrne THREE nominations!), Guardians of the Galaxy and The Fault in Our Stars led the pack with seven a piece while Oscar favorites American Sniper, Selma, Boyhood, Whiplash and Birdman found some love. No such luck for Wes Anderson’s big Oscar winner The Grand Budapest Hotel nor for Oscar winners Patricia Arquette & Julianne Moore. Implausibly seeing as she's such an awards juggernaut, you may be surprised to hear that Meryl Streep garnered her second (!!) nomination ever at these awards (Best Villain for Into the Woods). She was previously recognized for her work in The Devil Wears Prada. She shares the category with J.K Simmons (Whiplash), Peter Dinklage (X-Men), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street) making it precisely the type of hodge-podge category MTV so enjoys putting together. Don't forget to vote, and maybe we can collectively nab ScarJo a win for Lucy and pretend it's for Under the Skin.

Check the full list of nominations after the jump:

Click to read more ...

Visual Index ~ The Sound of Music (1965) "Best Shots"

Each Tuesday night we ask anyone with a pinterest, blog, tumblr or what have you to post their favorite shot from a preselected movie. To kick off Season Six: The Sound of Music (1965) for its 50th Anniversary.

Unlike its obvious counterpart in belovedness, The Wizard of Oz (previously featured in this series) it was wildly popular from the day it opened. If you adjust for inflation it remains the third highest grossing film of all time after Gone With the Wind (1939) and Star Wars (1977). Like GWTW, its production trouble seems to have magically made it a stronger film rather than torpedoing it. Funny how fate works. For example Christopher Plummer's contempt for the project (he turned it down several times and loudly denounced it afterwards) bleeds through but affects the movie in surprisingly perfect ways, balancing the sweet with just enough sour. 

In short, it's one of 'Our Favorite Things'. 

Best Shots from
THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Click to read more ...

Introducing... Fraulein Maria

Season 6 of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" Begins!

The original premise of the Best Shot series was a short essay on ONE screen capture from a film, "best" being in the eye of the beholder, and thus the fascination since movies are communal but we see them individually. Everyone cheats with multiple shots and full movie reviews -  I'm the worst ! -- so In an altogether herculean effort to pare it back to the premise (*he begins to sweat*) I will only allow myself two screenshots today and one topic (gulp). For my sanity I've restricted myself to the film's first half, pre-intermission. We can always write about The Sound of Music again. 

Let's talk about the act of opening your heart up wide to fall in love, with all the risks that that entails... such as loving a movie that sophisticated cinephiles are not supposed to love, and loving a stranger who you don't yet understand. [More...]

Click to read more ...