Oscar Chart Updates: Cinematography

Previously: Production Design, Costumes, Screenplays, Visual FX, Animation & Docs, and Supporting Categories

News of the World

Where will Oscar voters turn for the Best Cinematography nominations this season. Will they be looking for evocative landscapes, genre polish, intimate dramas, gaudy musicals, or tour de force biopics? In an Oscar year that's been characterized by the near complete lack of the theatrical experience, the category that arguably most needs that to soar is a big question mark. With most voters not seeing the contenders on the big screen what will they make of, say, Dariusz Wolski's large open impressive vistas in News of the World? Will Hoyte van Hoytema's slick lensing of something expensive like Tenet have any thrilling sweep on television screens? Will Mandy Walker's work on Mulan have any takers since it fits both of those descriptions?

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Restoration @ 25: Honoring the great James Acheson

by Cláudio Alves

In 1995, Michael Hoffman's Restoration adapted the best-selling novel of Rose Tremain into a sumptuous dramatization of 17th century England. Despite some dumbfounding feats of miscasting and a disjointed structure upended by the advent of the Black Plague, the picture's quite beautiful to look at and features some of the best Baroque designs in film history. The scenography leans into the theatricality of Charles II's court, creating an airless world gilded in gold. The costumes, in turn, indulge in the absurdities of 1660s fashion, conjuring a world of radical contrasts between royal splendor and the austere rigor of Puritan charity.

Both achievements won trophies at the 68th Academy Awards. As usual, I'm more interested in the work of Oscar-winning costume design by the great James Acheson. Let's explore the man's genius, his filmography, and the Baroque stylings of the 25-year-old Restoration…

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Showbiz History: "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "The Wilhelm Scream"

8 random things that happened on this day, December 29th, in showbiz history

1933 Ernst Lubitsch's pre-Code threesome romantic comedy Design for Living starring Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, and Gary Cooper opens for the last weekend of the year as does the musical romantic comedy Flying Down to Rio starring Dolores del Rio. The latter film is best remembered for being the first onscreen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in (gasp) supporting roles. 

1939 'Hollywood's Greatest Year' concludes with opening weekend for the Jimmy Stewart/Marlene Dietrich western Destry Rides Again, the classic period romantic drama The Hunchback of Notre Dame (2 Oscar nominations), and the musical Swanee River (1 Oscar nomination)...

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Spellbound @ 75 and the cinema of Salvador Dalí

by Cláudio Alves

Alfred Hitchcock's third and final film for producer David O. Selznick was released 75 years ago. During a time when psychoanalysis was gaining popularity and notoriety, Hollywood was quick to cash in on the phenomenon. They created psychobabble Pablum like Spellbound and its view on dreams are both too literal and ephemeral. It's a message picture in the costume of a radical polemic, devoid of authentic psychic unrest even though Selznick brought his own therapist to act as an advisor. All in all, it's rather mediocre with some blindingly bright highlights... 

For starters, this was Hitch's first collaboration with Ingrid Bergman, a partnership that would bear majestic fruit one year later with Notorious. She's not nearly as good in Spellbound, but there's an interesting tension between her and a profoundly miscast Gregory Peck. The two even had an affair on the set of the movie. Then, we have the score by Miklós Rózsa, an experiment in the use of Theremin for soundtracks that proved influential on the development of horror movie sonority. Finally, one can't talk about Spellbound without mentioning the surrealist sequence in the middle of its runtime. It was devised by none other than Salvador Dalí…

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Year in Review: Top 10 First Watches of 2020

by Christopher James

Many people discovered new hobbies while under quarantine. I, however, re-discovered my love for movies. As many film fans can attest, it sometimes feels like you have to watch so many new films each year that it can be hard to find time to fill in classic blind spots. But with the 2020 quarantine (plus the fun of insomnia), I turned to the Criterion Collection and basically got a whole second film school education. As 2020 comes to a close, I’ve had over 120 new-to-me watches for the year, not counting films released in 2020. They span from silent era cinema through Camp (2003). 

Since the final week of December is always about lists, here are my top 10 favorite first-time-for-me watches from 2020...

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