In defense of "The Artist"

by Cláudio Alves

For Oscar obsessives, it's no news that to win big at the Academy Awards can be a curse rather than a blessing. The reigning champions are more discussed and overtly scrutinized than the defeated, their triumph like sweet nectar, attracting the bees of discontentment, resentment, and retroactive bashing. The tides of time can also make an atypical choice seem like a perfunctory one. Notice how some of our strangest Oscar champions of recent vintage have gained the fame of being boring winners when they're anything but. You might not like The Shape of Water, for instance, but a love story between a mute woman and a fish-man is not your run of the mill Best Picture winner.

The same can be said about The Artist, a romantic tale with comedic overtones that, in 2012, became the first silent film to win the Oscars' top honor since 1928…

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April Foolish Predix Pt 4: Best Picture Contenders?

We'll finish up our April Foolish' work with the acting categories this week but for now all the other pieces of the prophetic (or not) puzzle are in place. You can see it all at the Prediction Index. We're usually about half right about Best Picture this early on but... which half? And of course this year is wildly different. It's the only time we've ever had a nationwide movie theater shutdown. Georgia plans to reopen movie theaters this month (medical experts think any such reopenings of crowd venues are premature) but most States aren't eager to risk it just yet.

About the current crisis and the Oscars....

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Choose Your Quarantine House

These memes have been ubiqutious on twitter the past few days with everyone getting stir crazy but since you might not be on Twitter and you love movie-madness as much as us, we thought we'd share some of the best and most difficult choices in these movie-centered editions of 'Choose Your Quarantine House'

Starting with the A24 which has always had a tremendously inspired social media department. Witness:

Hee. Every house has something wondrous and something highly objectionable or downright terrifying. But it's your choice. And on to the Oscars...

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"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.

Posterized: Harrison Ford

by Nathaniel R

Harrison Ford has been a major star for our whole lives but Call of the Wild (2019), opening today nationwide, is actually the first time in many years that studios have trusted his name alone to sell a picture. Well, that and a CGI dog, but the solo name (no pun intended) above the title is still worth noting. 

Ford, who is now 77, has been a regular on movie screens for over 50 years and his films have amassed over $9 billion dollars globally. But he wasn't always a superstar. In the 1970s he wasn't just acting for filmmakers but also doing carpentry jobs to support his then wife and sons (Francis Ford Coppola famously hired him as a carpenter before casting him in The Conversation and Apocalypse Now). The rest, of course, is showbiz history.

How many of his 49 pictures (excluding uncredited appearances and voice only roles) have you seen? All 49 posters are after the jump as well as a breakdown of his career in chapters...

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