FYC: Lulu Wang for Best Director

by Cláudio Alves

With the advent of Awards Season, we have to contend with the disappointment that always comes hand-in-hand with the excitement and the joy. No matter how much great work is nominated and rewarded, there's always a snub to point out and cry over. The recent Independent Spirit Awards nominations perfectly exemplify such dynamics. This year, they decided to spread the wealth and ignored the Siren's call of just nominating Oscar-viable titles. All in all, it's a wonderful collection of honors and achievements, but even here there is cause to complain about the dreaded snubs.

Why didn't Lulu Wang score a nomination for Best Screenplay or Best Director? How can The Farewell be up for Best Feature and not for either of those awards?...

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"Three Colors: Red" at 25

by Lynn Lee

Transfixed.  Transported.  Exhilarated.  These are words I don’t use lightly when I’m talking about movies, but they all apply to my reaction the first time I saw the final installment of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy.  And in large measure they still do.  Even if the initial wonder has given way to a comforting familiarity, few films capture the universal human yearning for connection and kinship (or fraternité, the unifying theme of Red) as vibrantly yet delicately as this one.

I first saw Red some years after its initial release, at a special screening at the university I was attending.  I went in knowing very little about the film except that the friend I went with had seen it before and spoke of it in glowing terms.  He noted that in an ideal world I’d have seen the preceding chapters, Blue and White, but thought I’d enjoy Red even without having done so.

He was right. 

In fact, I occasionally wonder if Blue and White – both of which I admire rather than love – suffered by comparison when I saw them later.  Perhaps I’d have a different take if I’d watched the trilogy in the intended order.  But I don’t think it would have altered my strong personal affinity for Red, which quickly became one of my all-time favorite films...

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Best Picture / Director Oscar chart updates !

by Nathaniel R

Marriage Story would have been a true blockbuster like Kramer vs Kramer or Terms of Endearment in a different era. Now it will just stream but could still be a big player at the Oscars.

There’s still so much we don’t know.

That’s an important fact to start with because reading online discourse about Oscar predictions each year is like pretending we live in a perpetual January when the precursors are well underway and the template is already set which will only vary slightly from organization to organization/pundit to pundit. Oscar fanatics (and pundits) never know as much as they pretend to know early on. History is filled with films with breathless first screenings that didn’t amount to much at the Oscars and vice versa. These things take time and all parts of the cycle should be considered when making predictions. If your predictions are exactly the same as someone else's this early, take a risk. Then you can be wrong in different ways instead of in the same way. Haha.

Five Very Important Things We Don’t Yet Know...

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Oscar Trivia, Weekly. A Pop Quiz!

by Eurocheese

Since Nathaniel is flying to Toronto as we speak (TIFF kicks off tomorrow and runs through Sunday, September 15th), I volunteered to handle this week's Oscar Trivia column for him. I thought it might be fun to throw out a little quiz. THE ANSWERS WILL BE AFTER THE JUMP – no peeking! -- and be honest in the comments. How many can you guess correctly?

1. The highest number of Oscar wins for a single person is a whopping 22. Name the person who won them.

2. Last year, Roma won three Oscars. That means it missed the record for the most Oscars won by a foreign language film, a record currently held by which two films?

3. Have there been more female or more African-American Director nominees in the Academy’s history? (Both are sadly too few... bonus points if you can name all of those nominees)

4. The longest screen time for an Oscar nominated performance ended up netting the performer a win. The shortest nominated performance of all time did not. Can you name these two performances?

5. Which country has won the most Best Foreign Language Film Oscars? And which country has been nominated most often in the category? 

6. Name the only actor or actress that has multiple posthumous nominations.

7. Only one person has an Olympic gold medal and an Academy Award. Name that person.

8. No film has ever won all four acting categories. Can you name the two films that came closest to that mark?

9. Name the most Oscar nominated woman in the Academy’s history.

10. How many times has a debut performance won the Best Actor Oscar?

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"1917" Teases

by Nathaniel R

Sam Mendes burst on to the movie scene 20 years ago with a surprise blockbuster and Best Picture winner American Beauty as debut. There were diminishing returns thereafter, at least in terms of public opinion. Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, and Away We Go followed, each grossing less than their predecessor. A two film detour to the 007 franchise (Skyfall and Spectre) rescued him in the eyes of big picture Hollywood, though it should probably be noted that people rarely think of James Bond movies as belonging to their directors. 

Can Mendes return to major auteur acclaim with his World War I epic, 1917 ? If this tease is indication he very well might...

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