Interview: Sue Kim on "The Speed Cubers" her Oscar finalist

by Nathaniel R

After screening the moving and very engaging doc The Speed Cubers we were shockd to learn that it was a debut Figuring there was a story we sat down with director Sue Kim and as it turns out, we were right. Though she comes across as genuinely humble, twenty years of experience on sets helped her to be fully formed as a filmmaker the first time out of the gate. She'd been producing commrcials for 20 years before directing her first short The Speed Cubers. As the mom of a cuber, she knew the world intimately and knew how she wanted to frame the story. After a pitch to Netflix and the benefit of a few years of archival footage from The Cubicle, to help shape the backstory, "we were able to focus our filming efforts pretty precisely."

Kim and her team shot for six months up leading up the Speed-Cubing World Championships. We were delighted to hear what convinced Sue to try her hand at directing and what it was like to make a movie with no antagonists and two heroes, speed cubing champs Max Park and Feliks Zemdegs...

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Lunchtime Poll: What were the 5 best "Best Picture" vintages?

by Nathaniel R

2003 & 2000. what a typical Oscar vintage looks like in terms of spread of quality.

It's 5 days until Oscar nominations are announced so let's have fun with the classic number 5... AKA the ideal size of an awards category. Most Oscar categories have varied in size at one time or another but for the bulk of the 93 year Oscar history five has been the preferred category size for the Academy. For fun let's name the best Best Picture quintets of all time (so only years 1944-2008 are eligible).

The average Best Picture lineup across many decades looks a lot like 2000 and 2003 pictures above, in that they're composed of the following: 2 perfect classics, 1 movie that's quite good, 1 respectable if unexciting choice, and 1 dud stinking up the room.

In short, it's quite difficult to pick the best vintage overall. Here are five BEST PIC shortlists I personally have a lot of affection for for various reasons...

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Showbiz History: Buffy, Muriel's Wedding, and the most Glamourous Globes night?

9 random things that happened on this day, March 10th, in showbiz history...

1938 The 10th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the films of 1937. The Life of Emile Zola wins Best Picture, the second consecutive biopic to win, cementing the agonizing fact that Oscar then and now obsesses over the snooziest of all film genres, the biopic, more than any of its far more interesting cousins. It beat screwball classic The Awful Truth, the actressexual bliss of Stage Door, the non-musical Janet Gaynor version of A Star is Born, and other superior films. Meanwhile Luise Rainer became the first actor in movie history to pull off a two consecutive year Oscar coup with her second win for her yellowface performance in The Good Earth...

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Joan Crawford's long road to Oscar

by Cláudio Alves

I make no secret that I'm a Joan Crawford fan. After all, I've already waxed poetic about the star's stellar 1947 and her turn in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. However, I've never written about Crawford's career pre-Oscar win. Since we're celebrating 75 years since that victory, it feels like an appropriate time to examine the actress' long road to Oscar, the misconceptions about her legacy, the complexities of her contemporary popularity. If you want to read more about the 18th Academy Awards, check out Baby Clyde's wonderful overview of the ceremony and the race for gold. Now, it's time to focus solely on that year's Best Actress champion…

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Interview: BAFTA nominee Mikkel E.G. Nielsen on finding the balance and structure of "Sound of Metal"

by Nathaniel R

Talking to film editor Mikkel E.G. Nielsen (A Royal Affair, Beasts of No Nation), is a bit dizzying. His conversation moves around our subject, Sound of Metal, in circular fashion regularly bringing up both the films beginning, a raucous noisy concert where we first experience Ruben (Riz Ahmed's) hearing loss with him, and the films very quiet yet symmetrical ending. It doesn't surprise us then when he describes his job holistically. "My job is to try and create a whole from start to finish where you feel that you've been on this journey. Either it's revealing or it's fulfilling or emotional."

Nielsen divides his time between movies, music videos, and commercial work and though he loves the immersive challenge of cinema, he appreciates the mix. "Molding a movie" for months, he explains, becomes all encompassing. Working on a spot for three weeks, though, "Wow, that was almost like a vacation!'"

Another 'vacation' will have to wait. We're deep in awards season and Nielsen's fine work, honing the film's structure, and finessing the movies internal and external rhythms alongside its much praised sound design, has been honored with a Critics Choice Award for Best Editing and, this morning, a BAFTA nomination as well. We recently spoke to him about his work and international career...

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