Almost There: Marlene Dietrich in "Witness for the Prosecution"

by Cláudio Alves

1957 was a fascinating year when it comes to the Oscars' acting categories. Thanks to the stultifying Sayonara, Miyoshi Umeki became the only Asian actress to ever win an Academy Award, while silent era Asian-American sex symbol, Sessue Hayakawa, received his first and only Oscar nomination for The Bridge on the River Kwai. In that same year, the Best Actress race saw Elizabeth Tayor receive her first nomination, and Deborah Kerr coming the closest she ever was to win an Oscar, for Heaven Knows Mr. Alison. She lost, but was, at least, nominated, unlike the cast of Best Picture nominee 12 Angry Men. It seems insane to think so, but none of that picture's astounding performances got any love from AMPAS, not even for Henry Fonda's star turn.

That being said, no snub hurt more than that of an actress so confident she had earned Oscar gold, that there was a prerecorded introduction to her Vegas show that mentioned a 1957 nomination. We're talking about Marlene Dietrich in Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution…

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Review: "Hamilton"

by Eric Blume

Disney+ made a shrewd and smart move by releasing the filmed-stage movie musical Hamilton over the July 4 weekend, at a time when the country really needs it.  The themes and ideas of this Pulitzer Prize-winning theater phenomenon from five years ago seem even more relevant and powerful than they did upon arrival, and the movie version, which debuted this weekend, is a stage capture of the principal original Broadway cast, edited together from three live performances filmed in June 2016.  

Filmed versions of staged material always have their limitations:  one can never capture the visceral pump of energy that’s happening in the Richard Rodgers Theater before and during a performance of this show in particular.  As such, the Hamilton movie ultimately succeeds best in preserving an unbeatable group of actors in the biggest show of this century, exactly as the original creators intended it to play...

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Lana Turner. Because movie stars need love, too.

We've been celebrating 1957 these past few weeks. Please welcome our new contributor Baby Clyde...

Lana turner in "Peyton Place" and the closest she came to Oscar - presenting Red Buttons with his that same year

After nearly two decades as a topflight Hollywood star Lana Turner finally grabbed Oscar’s attention for her performance as the uptight mother Constance Mackenzie in the smash hit 1957 soap opera Peyton Place. It was to be their only serious encounter. Nobody argues that Lana was a great actress but by god was she a great Movie Star. Maybe the greatest of all in my estimation. There is no one in film history who ticks so many boxes or encapsulates so many Hollywood tropes and clichés. 

Young Judy Turner went to Hollywood High School before literally being discovered at a soda counter by the editor of the Hollywood Reporter at age 16 (See how many times I’ve used the word ‘Hollywood’ already).  Now named ‘Lana’ she made one of the most iconic debuts in movie history as the ill-fated murder victim in They Won’t Forget (1937) and was dubbed "The Sweater Girl" for the way her ample charms filled out said item of clothing...

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Halfway Mark Links

A Must Read
• Tom & Lorenzo "One Iconic Costume" a fascinating funny and poignant piece on Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz

More Links
• Paper terrific piece on the new generation of queer comedy: Matt Rogers, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Alex English, Cole Escola, and many more. 
• Cartoon Brew despite Academy efforts toward gender parity the animation and visual fx industries are still struggling with inclusion of women. (Only 1 in 8 people invited to join the visual effects Academy branch are women this year.)

More after the jump including Hamilton, Netflix hit 365 Days, best of the first haf of the year and more...

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Aussie Cinema Spotlight: 'Relic' and 'Babyteeth'

By Glenn Dunks

Did you see Letterboxd’s highest-rated film list for the first half of 2020? The film database site used by cinephile types to log and rate everything they see noted that this time last year the comparative 2019 list was topped by Avengers: End Game, none other than the highest-grossing movie of all time. This year’s top title on a newly lockdown affected list? Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau! Quite a change of pace to intergalactic superheroes, you have to admit. And followed by titles like And Then We Danced, Corpus Christi, First Cow and Vitalina Varela? As the kids say, you love to see it.

As audiences cannot rely on a regular stream of American content to plug into their necessary expanded viewing schedules, it is encouraging to consider that some people’s eyes may have been newly opened. I thought of this when watching two new Australian releases: Natalie Erika James’ haunting generational horror Relic, and Shannon Murphy’s perversely entertaining cancer drama Babyteeth...

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