Simone Signoret @ 100: A love letter to a great actress

by Cláudio Alves

This week, we've been celebrating Simone Signoret's centennial, an unlikely sex-symbol of the midcentury and an even more atypical Oscar champion. Previously, Daniel wrote about the French actress' brief appearance in La Ronde, and Eric paid tribute to what's probably her most excellent vehicle, Casque d'Or. Now that it's my turn to wax poetic about Madame Signoret, I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. You see, even before the centennial celebrations, the actress had been on my mind. Though, it wasn't because of a film she starred in or individual performance. Watching the animated film No. 7 Cherry Lane, I can't help but think that no one will ever be able to create a more beautiful homage to this star than director Yonfan…

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Where are the docs in the technical categories?

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Almost two weeks after the Oscar nominations and one snub still stings: Welcome to Chechnya in Visual Effects. After making it in the shortlist, hopes were high that its life-saving use of facial replacements could catapult it to Oscar history as the first documentary to be nominated in this category, one largely dominated by Hollywood blockbusters (which were mostly missing last year) Only a year like 2020 could have brought a documentary film close to this category and it still did not happen. 

This begs the question: why are documentaries routinely ignored in categories outside of Documentary Feature? 

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Showbiz History: Do the Right Thing's snub and American Beauty's big win

On this day, March 26th, in Oscar history only...

1938 Jezebel opens in movie theaters. We discussed it in the Smackdown of '38. The movie will win Bette Davis her second and sadly final Best Actress Oscar. 

1958 The 30th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1957...

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Simone Signoret in "Casque d'Or"

by Eric Blume

Today is the centennial of French Oscar-winner Simone Signoret.  Daniel paid lovely tribute to her last night for her brief role in 1950's La Ronde.  Her next big film, director Jacques Becker's 1952 movie Casque d'Or, made her a star six years before Oscar embraced her with Room at the Top. Becker captures all of Signoret's magic in this turn-of-the-century Paris underworld story.  It doesn't hurt that he has his cinematographer, Robert Le Febvre, lighting her in a gloriously celestial way throughout the movie...

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Jessica Walter (1941-2021)

by Nathaniel R

Showbiz lost another great this week as Jessica Walter passed away at 80 years of age. Her sensational and much-memed performance of smug, biting, privileged Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, will live forever but it was just a small portion of her long career...

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