Ned Beatty (1937-2021)

by Nathaniel R

Oscar, Emmy, and Globe nominee Ned Beatty (Network) passed away on Sunday, just a few weeks shy of his 84th birthday.  It's a mark of his sturdy career and reliability as as character actor that all three of those showbiz institutions honored him for different performances. Since he was always more of an actor than a celebrity, we thought it best to look to his characters to commemorate. After the jump, eleven key roles from his impressive career...

Click to read more ...

Almost There: Burl Ives in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

by Cláudio Alves

In 1958, Burl Ives won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Some cinephiles would, understandably, assume that the great honor came to him as a reward for his legendary turn as Big Daddy in the silver screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It wasn't so, however. Burl Ives did indeed win his Oscar for playing the impassioned patriarch of some portentous American clan, but it was for a story set in the arid landscapes of the Far West rather than the humid heat of Mississippi. The winning movie was William Wyler's The Big Country, a sublime epic of its genre whose taste for cruelty is only matched by the lushness of its score. It's not a well-remembered flick despite its quality, and, while great, Ives' supporting turn pales in comparison to what he did as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that same cinematic year...

Click to read more ...

Links: An Amy Adams Double, Nolan Rankings, and Homosexual Erasure

Must Reads
• Vulture Rachel Handler hilariously ranks Christopher Nolan's movies by how willing she would be to die for the privilege of seeing them in movie theaters.
• The Hollywood Report looks back at the making of X-Men (2000) and how it created a monster with young director Bryan Singer

More after the jump including Amy Adams-centric news, "Do You Have the Antibodies?" a hit waiting to happen, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof's failures, a new Brad Pitt project and more...

Click to read more ...

Did Paul Newman win for the wrong movie?

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the history of the Academy Awards, many a winner conquered their statue not because they were the best of the year, but because they had a grand filmography in need of golden recognition. Career Oscars are a bittersweet sort of honor, though. On one hand, it feels just to see living legends rewarded with Hollywood's most coveted trophy. On the other, the win sometimes comes from such a minor work it doesn't feel representative of the artist's true genius. In terms of acting prizes, Paul Newman is one of the most flagrant cases of a winner that was rewarded for his career rather than the merits of one performance. By the time he won a competitive Oscar, he had been nominated seven times already and had even won the first of two Honorary prizes. He might have agreed with those judgments, considering he wasn’t even present to receive the statuette.

At least, that's what most people seem to believe about the great star's Best Actor trophy for 1986's The Color of Money…

Click to read more ...

Streaming Roulette, June: Always Be My Gentleman Jack, Maybe?

As is our practice we've selected several random titles and frozen the films at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!) for this quick preview for titles streaming in the first half of June 2019. Please do let us know if you're dying to discuss any of the films.  Okay, let's go...

-Not in your traditional heteronormative sense. We're married spiritually... and sexually
-But not literally [awkward laugh] ! 

Always Be My Maybe (2019) on Netflix
Netflix is all about the romcoms though the quality tends to vary. We're so glad Crazy Rich Asians held out for a theatrical release last year since it was so deserving of being a big hit. We will definitely check this one out.

Click to read more ...