4 days til Oscar. With 4 nominations let's talk "News of the World"

by Nathaniel R

News of the World is the only movie with exactly four Oscar nominations this year. That quartet of nods for Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Original Score, places the movie squarely in the greatly admired but not-quite-loved camp we see each year. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom met a similar fate with five nominations; both movies stood a reasonable chance in a few other categories but missed suggesting solid support but perhaps not passion. We'd argue that Paul Greengrass' western is easily the least discussed of the dozen most nominated movies this year (that would be the 8 Best Picture nominees plus News, One Night in Miami, Ma Rainey and Soul). That's true even here despite the film landing in my personal top 20. Why was that exactly?

We'd guess there are probably three reasons...

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John Waters @ 75: Pink Flamingos (1972)

This week Team Experience pays tribute to John Waters for his 75th birthday.

by Nathaniel R

Unlike eggs and fresh meat, both of which are memorable supporting characters in John Waters Pink Flamingos (1972), movies don't come with expiration date. Nor should they. The expiration dates for movies are theoretical, figurative, and cultural, and are thus almost never agreed upon. Some movies magically live forever losing little of their original flavor. Some become even more flavorful and would be better suited to a wine analogy than this ill-advised animal byproducts one we're pursuing. We call these expiration-date busting films, classics. Whether they make you sick, these "old" movies, is entirely up to you. Can you remove yourself from the now while watching them or do you expect all movies to cater to the accepted opinions, values, and mores of the right now (which will have its own expiration date)? These are questions we might ask about any classic especially in our current very volatile and angry social climate, where everything is being reevaluted (which is a good thing) and mostly branded unacceptable (an unfortunately reductive thing, especially when it comes to art from previous eras).

But since our subject tonight is Pink Flamingos (1972) which wants to make you sick, it's the wrong question altogether. Maybe we don't have a question at all. Our eyes are still wide, heads still spinning, and feeling slightly nauseous...

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Gay Best Friend: Hedy & Graham in "Single White Female" (1992)

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope   

You wanna hear a story about how me and this bitch fell out? It’s kinda long, but it’s full of suspense.Gay Best Friends aren’t often paired with gay panic. Especially in movies made more than 10 years ago, we either were taught to laugh at queer characters, cry for them or fear them. Single White Female asked us to do two of the three. The 1992 thriller didn’t just settle for giving our jilted protagonist, Allie Jones (Bridget Fonda), a supportive gay best friend (Graham, played by Peter Friedman). They also paired her with a roommate nursing a lesbian crush on Allie and refining her murderous skills (Hedra Carlson, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh).

Broad doesn’t begin to describe the movie. While it swings for the fences with its queer characterizations, a large degree of camp shines through. This makes for a pleasurable “turn-your-brain-off” wild thrill ride...

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5 days til Oscar. Will Ann Roth win again for her 5th nomination?

by Nathaniel R

Ann Roth on the set of "Ma Rainey"

With five days until Oscars we were looking for a way to celebrate the number five today that related to this year's Oscars. The only fifth time nominee we could find (though perhaps we missed someone) is Ann Roth who we've celebrated before. The 89 year-old costume designer has somehow won only one Oscar and one Tony despite a prolific and eye-poppingly rich career on both stages and screen. Her Tony win came for the Nathan Lane play The Nance (which we think would make a pretty great movie) and these are the film designs for which she was nominated...

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Borat and Wanda Maximoff lead the MTV Movie & TV Award Noms

The hits just keep on coming. This very strange and elongated awards season just keeps adding chapters and sidebars that aren't usually there because it's lasted so long. Hell, if Broadway had reopened by this point we'd also have Tony campaigning happening during Oscar campaigning (Speaking of which, why did they announce Tony Award nominations five whole months ago if they weren't going to name winners or schedule a date to do so? Strange.). Anyway, here's something diametically opposed to the Tony Awards and sometimes the Oscars: the MTV Movie and TV Award Nominations.  As usual though this is a fan vote awards show so it's literally the popularity contest that all awards shows sort of are, only more nakedly so! Borat Subsequent Moviefilm an Judas and the Black Messiah lead the movies in nominations while WandaVision, Emily In Paris, and RuPaul’s Drag Race lead in the television shows but at the MTV Awards, moveis and TVs share several categories like "Best Hero", "Best Fight" and "Best Kiss" and the like. 

The complete list is after the jump (NOW UPDATED WITH WINNERS AS OF 05/17). That Carey Mulligan and Maria Bakalova's are both nominated is fun but doesn't instill confidence that they'll be able to pull off upsets at the Oscars...

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