Almost There: Hattie McDaniel in "In This Our Life"

by Cláudio Alves

The Criterion Channel is currently featuring an extensive collection of John Huston movies. Considering his directorial debut, The Maltese Falcon, was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, it's fair to say that Huston's films have always been on the Academy's radar. Consequently many of his actors gained Oscar buzz though just as often they were egregiously snubbed. With that said, I'd like to focus on a performer that was already an Oscar winner before she starred in a Huston flick, a Black actress whose career was limited by institutional racism and confined to playing second fiddle to white stars, often in peripheral roles. Nevertheless, Hattie McDaniel always spun gold from straw, injecting complicated humanity, humor, and pathos into the tiniest of parts. Such is the case of In This Our Life…

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Category Analysis: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

By Abe Friedtanzer

The Handmaid's Tale hogged the nomination in this category with three of the eight nominees.

This category is once again selected from the most-populated ballot, with 311 eligible men, one of only two acting races that had more than 200 eligible contenders. While there’s one show dominating the nominated field with three of the slots again, this year there are actually six shows represented, up from five. Michael K. Williams won the Critics Choice prize but none of these men were even nominated by the HFPA or SAG, so it’s possible that things are a bit more open and unpredictable this time in terms of a winner.

I’ll try to avoid major plot details in my analysis – but if you’d like more spoiler-filled descriptions, click on the episode titles. Let’s consider each nominee… 

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Introducing the Smackdown Panel for '86

On Thursday August 26th, the next Supporting Actress Smackdown and its companion podcast arrive, with a discussion of the 1986 Oscars and the Supporting Actress nominees. You know what that means. For maximum enjoyment (re)watch Best Picture nominees A Room With a View, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Children of a Lesser God as well as The Color of Money and Crimes of the Heart and send in your votes by Tuesday, August 24th. Let's meet your fellow panelists, shall we? 

PLEASE WELCOME...

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Would you rather?

Would you rather...

• resist pasta with Henry Golding?
• practice hula hoop skills with Catherine Zeta-Jones?
• do yoga with Kerry Washington?
• get tatted with LaKeith Stanfield?
• cosplay Audrey with Illeana Douglas?
• weightlift with Taron Egerton?
• suck on something blue with Yoo Ah-in?
• consider the zucchini with Sutton Foster?
• skinny dip with Orlando Bloom?
• or eat Chris Hemsworth's cake?

Pictures are after the jump the help you decide.

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1986: Straight Best Friends

Before each Smackdown, suggestions for alternates to Oscar's roster... 

Tilda Swinton in "Caravaggio"

1986 was, from the digging I've done, a fascinating year for queer cinema. Some of the films originated in '85 but belatedly hit the US  in 1986, disparate efforts such as Desert Hearts, My Beautiful Laundrette, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and What Have I Done To Deserve This?!. Meanwhile, Working Girls premiered at that year’s Cannes but didn’t get a US release until February 1987. All of these films showed up in one form or another alongside pure-cut ‘86 releases like Parting Glances and Caravaggio, indicating a shifting tide of indie and mainstream cinema with vested, complex, even sympathetic interests in LGBT themes and characters, often made by queer filmmakers. Not only that, but the films themselves are risky and provocative. Save for the deeply unpleasant Mala Noche, all are worth real engagement, and you couldn’t go wrong checking out any of them.

Still, it must be asked - what about the straight people? What is their contribution here? What about the S.B.F.? Y’know, the Straight Best Friend?

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