Soundtracking: The Oscar Performances

by Chris Feil

Isn’t it lovely that full performances of the Original Song nominees are here to stay? Well, hopefully here to stay. We’re not far enough removed from the Oscar telecast cruelly jettisoning less known tracks from the evening’s performances to breathe easy when we get to delight in each of the nominees. Off years or no, past omissions have been a decidedly bad look.

And the performances largely kept their spectacle simple and straightforward, providing some nice grand emotion in an otherwise mostly even keel evening. In one of the few upset's of the night Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez got their second Oscar for Coco's "Remember Me" (my favorite of the nominees). Coco’s triumph was so richly deserved particularly for how inextricable it is from the film’s narrative, criteria that the songwriting branch has famously demanded of late. But the telecast allowed for some reassessment of the nominated lineup...

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Interview: James Ivory on "Call Me By Your Name" and the Merchant Ivory Legacy

by Nathaniel R

Highlight of 2017: Meeting one of my true gay heroes, James Ivory.

They say you should never meet your heroes. But "they" haven't met James Ivory. The legendary director, currently nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars for Call Me By Your Name (2017) is 89 years old but you wouldn't know it. He's sharp and talented and thoughtful as ever. It's his fourth nomination in a rich career that extends way back to the late 1950s though he's best know for the popular costume dramas he made in the 1980s and 1990s with his producer and life partner, the late Ismail Merchant (1936-2005).

I had the pleasure of meeting with Ivory at the Middleburg Film Festival earlier this season.  I didn't quite intend to begin gushing but it couldn't be helped. He was deeply formative in my life, one of the first two or three directors that made me fall in love with the medium that became my whole life. I groused about his lack of an Honorary Oscar and I eagerly told him about a couple particularly memorable trips to see his movies with my parents. He shared a few amusing stories he's heard from other fans. Then we settled in for our discussion of his rich career, the restoration of some of his films, and Call me By Your Name. Our interview is after the jump...

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WGA Goes For "Get Out" and "CMBYN"

Chris here. One of the final major set of prizes before the Oscar ceremony was handed out over the weekend, the Writers' Guild of America awards. The WGA awarded their screenplay honors to Get Out in original and Call Me By Your Name in adapted. Even though the latter's Oscar competition is now even further in the dust, its safest-bet-of-the-night odds to win the big prize will still be an exciting victory lap for its never-awarded legend screenwriter James Ivory.

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Quick Links: Jordan Peele, Italy Dance Party, Nipplegate

• Collider why you should keep buying movies on DVD/Blu-Ray
• Vanity Fair wonderful account of Jordan Peele's visit to a UCLA class studying Get Out and how Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost inspired his career
• E! on the rise of RuPaul's Drag Race. Is it mainstream now despite RuPaul's protestations?
• select/all a terrific piece on "Nipplegate" at the Superbowl (since Justin Timberlake is headed there again) and on viral content before YouTube
• EW pandeomonium in Italy when Armie Hammer, Luca Guadagnino and Timothée Chalamet arrive. Dancing with fans, etcetera

Blueprints: The Nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay

Jorge continues to dive into the Oscar writing nominees.

Last week we dove into the nominees for Original Screenplay, which was an incredibly crowded category from the start, and there’s not a real frontrunner at the moment; more than one candidate has strong chances. The race was always very different with Adapted Screenplays. From the very start, only Call Me by Your Name truly felt like lock, and the four other slots were anyone's guess for months. Let’s take a look at each of the scripts, and see what was it that got them here...

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