Spain's big mistake

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the recent awards season, I wrote several pieces about the Best International Feature race, an Oscar category that's very dear to my heart. It's also a source of endless frustration for I am Portuguese and Portugal remains the country that holds the record for most submissions without getting a single Oscar nomination. To be fair, that's not always the Academy's fault. Sometimes, the choice submission is so mind-bogglingly misguided, it kills any hope of a nomination the minute it's announced. It's not always that the submitted films are lacking in quality, but, sometimes they're productions that were little seen outside of Portugal and received no buzz whatsoever.

This is by no means a strictly Portuguese problem, mind you. In fact, since we're celebrating the 2002 movie year, it seems like a good time to explore one of Spain's most misjudged bits of Oscar selection…

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Academy's New Governors: Whoopi Returns, Ava Rises.

by Nathaniel R

Ava DuVernay is now on a Governor in the Director's Branch of the Academy

As you might imagine, steering a behemoth institution like The Oscars is no small task. To do that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has about 8 "officers" (including the current President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson) as well as a 3 "Governors" from each of the 17 branches.

Each governor serves a 3 year term so there aren't huge upheavals from year to year since only 33% of a board might change). Some of the Officers are also Governors within their respective branches. The Academy recently held elections again for the 2020/2021 season and these folks will be helping to make the difficult decisions like "what to do about the upcoming Oscar ceremony given COVID-19" and such...

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The Furniture: Shirley and the Haunting of Her Own Grim House

"The Furniture" is our series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

by Daniel Walber

“A clean house is evidence of mental inferiority,” snaps Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) from her bed, annoyed by her husband for so many reasons. One of them is Rose (Odessa Young), the young bride that has just arrived to keep an eye on both the housekeeping and Shirley.  And with both husbands at campus most of the day, the two women will be spending a lot of time together in this beigely bewildering, story-haunted house.

After all, any house can be a haunted house. And while director Josephine Decker doesn’t send in any actual ghosts, Shirley is as spooky as much of Jackson’s own fiction...

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Curio: Nomi & Cristal 4ever

Curio is our fan art series, curated by Nathaniel R

I found myself seething with jealousy yesterday when Joey from Awards Daily received a Nomi Malone pin (left) in celebration of the release of the documentary You Don't Nomi (now available on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play and we'll have an interview about that movie soon.)

Today on the inimitable Gina Gershon's birthday,  I am more zen about the injustices of being denied Showgirls swag. Life is not fair. And I'm getting too old for that whorey look, anyway.

Nevertheless I was one of the original champions* of the movie's trash brilliance, and I am programmed to celebrate it every time it comes back around to public attention. After the jump some tees, crafts, and artwork honoring the iconic characters from that classic film...

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Samuel L. Jackson's Cannes glory

by Cláudio Alves

If the COVID-19 pandemic hadn't happened, Spike Lee would have presided over this year's Cannes jury.  When the festival made public their selections for 2020, I wondered which of those titles would have been rewarded by Lee's jury. It was particularly interesting to consider the director's jury presidency because he's had a somewhat contentious relationship with Europe's most prestigious film festival. Back in 1989, many believed Lee should have won the Palme d'Or for Do the Right Thing (they were right) and, when he came out empty-handed, there was a storm of controversy over the jury's decisions. Two years later, that polemic was still on people's minds as the filmmaker presented Jungle Fever at the Croisette.

Spike Lee would go on to win the Grand Jury Prize for his third film in competition, 2018's BlacKKKlansman, but that wasn't the first time one of his movies had won a Cannes prizes. 1991's aforementioned Jungle Fever managed to win a most unusual prize thanks to Samuel L. Jackson…

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