Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 9:00AM 6 random things that happened on this day, March 3rd, in showbiz history...
1887 Anne Sullivan begins teaching the deaf and blind Helen Keller, a success story which becames even more wll known due to the hit play turned hit movie The Miracle Worker...
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 8:00PM by Nathaniel R
don't despair ladies, you're the only two locks in "Best Supporting Actress"
We saw a tweet yesterday that implied that the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress is now between Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy) and Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian) which felt a bit insane to us. That's a Globe induced fever. Nevertheless the shock of Foster's win for a movie people have barely noticed does maybe tell us that the Supporting Actress competition is more fluid than assumed. So who is leading and who is going to be left out on the 15th when the nominations are announced? The way we see it there are 9 women left standing for various reasons (which is a lot going into voting since it's usually only 6 or 7 by now). Only two of them (Glenn Close and Olivia Colman) feel locked up for honors. Curiously despite the sure-thing feel of Colman's soon to be second nomination, it's unlikely she has ANY shot at a win. Her Oscar win is very recent and The Father isn't quite the contender it should be (qualitatively speaking) given its quiet campaign. But the nomination battle is always different than the battle to win.
Who gets the other three spots?
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 4:40PM a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope
Alas, this is most we see of our dearly departed subject of Gay Best Friend this week, Sebastian Venable.Not all gay best friends get a lot of screen time, but they always know how to make an impression. Admittedly, I’m broadening the definition of the trope a bit with this latest entry. Sebastian Venable’s face is never seen. However, he is the coded mystery and the spectre that looms over the entirety of Suddenly Last Summer. The word “coded” is used both strongly and loosely. Gore Vidal’s adaptation of the Tennesse Williams play does everything but say the word “gay” to communicate that Sebastian prefers the company of other men. You’d be hard pressed to find a gayer movie from 1959 (though the Best Picture winner, Ben-Hur, could give it a run for its money).
What makes Sebastian Venable, a man who is talked about and not seen, a candidate for Gay Best Friend?
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 4:01PM by Nathaniel R
Chocolate ice cream. I want chocolate ice cream.
Golden Globe winner Andra Day stars in United States vs Billie Holiday (reviewed), currently streaming on Hulu. Have you seen it yet? That Best Actress nomination race sure is intense, isn't it?
We've decided to do our streaming roulette feature a bit differently and weekly. It's too overwelming to list everything that's going to be available for an entire month and who checks back three weeks later anyway? Instead we'll highlight 5-10 viewing recommendations and/or curiousities each week when they're fresh or about to leave. Naturally the first day of the month is always crazy with the movie dump so this might feel like a monthly roundup, anyways...
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 1:30PM ;)
To celebrate the recent centennial of sound mixer turned movie producer Saul Zaentz, I decided to revisit my favorite of his projects, the glorious marvel that is Amadeus (the second of his three Best Picture winners). On paper, the movie may sound like the most airless and insufferable of Oscar champions. It's a musician's biopic, probably my least favorite of prestige subgenres, whose take on history is closer to feverish invention than thoughtful analysis. With a theatrical cut running for nearly three hours, the movie's a behemoth of excess in a decade when the Academy was prone to shower such things with undeserved accolades. Nevertheless, I find myself besotted by Milos Forman's 1984 Best Picture winner, its meditations on mediocrity and spiritual discontentment, its celebration of opera, the lushness of its emotions...
