Oscar Charts: Will "Best Actor" be Peter Dinklage vs Will Smith?

by Nathaniel R

Peter Dinklage in the 2019 stage production of Cyrano. Photo from Jeenah Moon for the New York Times

Jose Ferrer won the Oscar playing Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and forty years later French movie star Gérard Depardieu was nominated for the same role. Thirty-one years later will Peter Dinklage prove lucky number three while having a go at the classic big-nosed role? About that big-nose, though. In the pre-COVID stage run, the production got people talking partially because it made significat alterations to the material, the most visible of which was the lack of that infamous nose. The thinking was that we all have things that make us insecure so the world-famous nose might be a stand-in for anything.

The other major alteration was that it was a musical with songs by The National. What will Joe Wright make of all this for the big screen?

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Doc Corner: Three new dance documentaries

By Glenn Dunks

Dance is such a physical art. It is a beautiful medium, of course, but one that doesn’t always allow for great documentaries about it. Watching it can be a divine experience (Wim Wenders’ Pina, for instance), but to get into the nuts and bolts of the craft is difficult. A trio of new documentaries highlight these strengths and weaknesses. All three put their focus on black dancers, and all have strong queer themes as they navigate a creative space emerging through the pain of racism and the AIDS epidemic. Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters by Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz, Jamila Wignot’s Ailey, and Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra by Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin each highlight the bodies and the stories. But it’s the former about the iconic titular choreographer and one of his most famous works that best captures the athleticism, the drama and the intimacy of dance...

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The Best Costumes of 1998

by Cláudio Alves

It's time to say goodbye to 1998 and move on to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown year, 1986. However, before that, let's take a look at the Best Costume Design race that saw Sandy Powell receive her first double nomination, a face-off of Elizabethan fashions, two movies whose only nod was in this category, and a riff on midcentury sitcoms. The ceremony's host, Whoopi Goldberg, even modeled pieces from each nominee, opening the show in Queen Elizabeth I drag.

All in all, it's a rather conventional costume design lineup seeing as it's entirely composed of period work. However, some of these individual achievements deserve special attention for their playful glamour, radical visions of marginalized histories, and parodical referentiality. The nominees were:  

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Yes No Maybe So: The Last Duel

Please welcome new contributor Patrick Ball...

Jodie Comer in "The Last Duel"

One of the more anticipated fall releases, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel finally got a trailer. A medieval swords n’ beards tale, it boasts the first joint screenplay from Matt Damon and Ben Affleck since their Oscar winning effort on Good Will Hunting (1997), this time joined by Nicole Holofcener. Starring Matt and Ben, Adam Driver (having yet another big year with this and Annette and House of Gucci) and Killing Eve breakout Jodie Comer, let’s raise the drawbridge on another installment of Yes No Maybe So... 

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Oscar Prediction Charts: Three questions about Best Supporting Actor

by Nathaniel R

We're not predicting Richard E Grant Oscar buzz for the drag musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie but we're sharing his picture because we're in this kind of cheerful mood and because he was ROBBED in his Oscar year and we've been fans for as long as we can remember. Wasn't he fun on Loki this month? 

The supporting categories at the Oscars are always hard to read this early. Supporting roles are rarely the focus of pre-release buzz. What's more they can have a tough time finding awards love since leading movie stars have a super gross and predictable way of constantly crashing the party for those lower on the call sheet (last year's "supporting" race arguably had just one 100% no debate supporting player). So we threw one lead into the predictions (Jesse Plemons in Power of the Dog) but it's more than likely that some other lead will be pitched here, too. We don't care to guess about who that will be right now. For first attempt at predicting nominations in this category for 2021 we're saying...

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