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...

Click to read more ...

Will "Call Me By Your Name" Be Ignored by Oscar?

The following article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It's reprinted here with some updates... 

Though you might feel like you’ve been hearing “Oscar buzz” for months, it’s always good to be reminded that timetables are askew and “buzz” is a lot faster/noisier than the real thing. Academy members don’t actually start filling out their nomination ballots until Friday morning!

They’ll have one week to determine which movies and performances are in the running for the industry’s most coveted golden statues. Each year some adult-oriented movies risk going wide without Oscar’s blessing while others lay in wait, banking on Oscar favor to help sell them to a wider audience. One of the pictures that’s trying the lay-low-until-Oscar game is the gay coming-of-age drama Call Me By Your Name. Though it’s been in theaters for six weeks it still hasn’t expanded past major markets and is only on 115 screens (stateside) at this writing. It’s poised to become either one of the biggest Oscar players or one of the most “snubbed”. So this seems as good a time as any to share some anxiety about it...

Click to read more ...

Blueprints: "Call Me by Your Name"

Wrapping up Call Me by Your Name week at The Film Experience, so Jorge takes a look at its screenplay to talk one of the biggest and most successful changes made from the novel to the screen. It’s peachy.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect about adapting a book into a movie is converting the literary language into something visual; show with images what in the page is being told with words. This is especially hard if the novel takes place within a single character’s mind and perception, like “Call Me by Your Name” does with Elio.

One of the easier solutions (sometimes merited, others not so much) is translating the thoughts that the character has on the book into voice-over. It’s a simple, straight-forward way to effectively convey ideas and feelings.

Call Me by Your Name, the film, has been lauded (among many other things) for avoiding this go-to trope, and instead using action and visual cues to convey Elio’s quiet longing for Oliver, and the intimacy and slow simmer of their romance. However, it wasn’t always like this...

Click to read more ...

Call Me With Kindness

by Jason Adams

Call Me By Your Name is turning out to be the sort of success none of us saw coming sixteen months ago when it was first announced that the director of I Am Love was tackling a little gay love story. It just broke the 2017 record for per theater average over the weekend, and its reviews have been unanimously stellar. It won Best Feature at the Gothams Monday night, it topped the Independent Spirit nominations, and it’s expected to stick around racking up such prizes all awards season long.

And yet there’s been one complaint that’s nagged at the movie from a determined bunch of folks (including the film’s own writer, legend James Ivory) since it first screened at Sundance in January – a supposed shyness about nudity and gay sex. Ivory told Variety it’s a “pity” there's no full-frontal nudity in the film, while The Guardian called the movie “coy” and Slate called it out for a “lack of explicit sex.” One shot in particular has rankled these folks the most – a seemingly old-fashioned pan out the window just as the characters finally approach their erotic consummation.

The film’s director Luca Guadagnino, who probably had to look up the word “coy” in the dictionary the first time it was lobbed at him for this, is nonplussed by the reaction – he told Vulture:

“It’s really something I don’t understand. It’s as if you said there are not enough shots of Shanghai. I don’t understand why there has to be Shanghai in this movie.”

I’m inclined to agree with him. Not only because I found the film sexy as hell, erotic in languorous, voyeuristic ways that movies don’t really approach anymore. Its sense of tactility, for sweat and fabric and skin, and its often-prurient stares – up the legs of swimming trunks, for example - are a welcome shock to the system that makes the forbidden seem commonplace, easy...

Click to read more ...

Middleburg Day 2: James Ivory & Various Fantastic Women

See Day 1 ICYMI

Friday. Another day in Virginia's horse country, two more fine films, and meeting a lifelong personal idol...

James Ivory speaking at the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, VA

James Ivory Legacy Award
The morning began with a moderated interview with four time Oscar nominee James Ivory. He was in Middleburg to receive this year's "Legacy" award. Speaking of legacy... when will the Academy come around to acknowledging that he's one of the most deserving artists out there for their annual Honorary Oscar pickings?

Click to read more ...