"Patton" opened 50 years ago today

by Nathaniel R

Here's a timeline to marvel at. The war biopic Patton (1970) opened a half century ago today. The following Monday the Oscars celebrating 1969 were held. And an an entire year and a fortnight later, Patton would win Best Picture at the following Oscars. Isn't it crazy how slowly the movie world buzz used to turn? Now Hollywood never dreams of launching its big Oscar intendeds in the spring (not that they could at the moment but you understand). The only time we witnessed a long stretch from release to Oscar win like this in our moviegoing lifetimes was The Silence of the Lambs which won the Oscar in March 1992, a year and a month and a half after its initial release. 

Which nominee would you have voted for in 1970?

• Airport
• Five Easy Pieces
• Love Story
• MASH
• Patton

We would've been a MASH voter among those five but that's not a stellar vintage. We assume that Women in Love was in the dread sixth spot.

Emmy Watch: What will be up for Drama Series?

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

The current state of world affairs is undoubtedly going to have an effect on the movie year and the ensuing awards, with new streaming eligibility considerations announced for the Golden Globes. The Emmy Awards, on the other hand, won’t be affected to the same degree. While the nominations announcement has already been pushed back two weeks and how, when, and where trophies will be handed out needs to be figured out, the actual content that will be rewarded has, for the most part, already been seen. While a few shows that aren’t major category players these days – like Grey’s Anatomy, The Walking Dead, and The Flash – won’t be able to finish filming their seasons, and the fourth season of Fargo will no longer premiere this spring, almost everything else aired as planned.

The most interesting Emmy category this year is one of the top races: Best Drama Series. In an unprecedented case created in part by the Emmy eligibility window, there are eleven (!!!) programs nominated for their most recent seasons vying for a repeat nomination, and that doesn’t even take into account any new shows for the seven available slots…

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Today's Must Read: Pedro Almodóvar talks Madonna and Oscars

by Nathaniel R

Pedro quarantined and tripping through memory lane.

You can keep all those celebrity sing-alongs or other social media attempts to cheer us up collectively. Instead give us gossip to chew on. More juicy shared "diaries" of stir-crazy stars, please!

The occassion for this request is that we've just finished reading a new article by Spanish genius Pedro Almodóvar. He wrote a piece for the Spanish website el diario about... well, a lot of things. It begins with memories of getting dressed up to go on an errand during quarantine and segueways into other memories of getting dressed up for movie events. Lots of fun anecdotes follow including a night with Jane Fonda (!). But the bulk of the piece centers on 1990-1991 when Madonna entered his life via Dick Tracy through the essential documentary Truth or Dare (1991). You must read the whole thing -- Spanish readers will probably enjoy it most but the rest of us will have to suffer through a google translation.

I've excerpted the Dick Tracy story after the jump...

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Streaming Roulette, April: The Blazing Perks of Molly's Xanadu

by Nathaniel R

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful or two of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating.  Ready? Let's play...

VO: And since I heard that having a girlfriend makes you happy I tried hard to love her like I love Sam.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) on Netflix
Sweet movie. Remember Logan Lerman? We had such a good interview with him for this movie. Sad that he's trapped on a tv series with bad reviews at the moment (Hunters). 

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Toshiro Mifune @ 100: Red Beard

Our Toshiro Mifune centennial tribute has come to its final day. Here's Cláudio Alves...

Throughout his career Toshiro Mifune worked with some of the best Japanese directors ever, becoming the face of that country's cinema in the aftermath of World War II. He gave great support to Mizoguchi's leading ladies, provided emotional intensity to Naruse's deepfelt dramas, was perfect in Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion and utterly iconic in many a Hiroshi Inagaki production. Still, his collaborations with Akira Kurosawa remain the most important. From 1948 to 1965, they made 16 films together, ranging from crime thrillers to action spectacles, from melodrama to historical epics, and the great majority of them are either considered classics or should be.

While I find High and Low to be their best film and Throne of Blood to feature Mifune's greatest performance, when it came time to choose, I knew there was no other option than to write about Red Beard. Released in 1965, it was the last film the Emperor and the Wolf ever did together. It's also an absolute masterpiece that deserves much more love than it usually gets... 

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