My Oscar Completism Project: An Introduction

by Cláudio Alves

Sadly, my Best Actress journey may never be complete as THE BARKER, starring Betty Compson, only exists in the UCLA archive.

Are you an Oscar completist? I'm trying to be, having already seen all the winners in the big five categories and making my way through the rest. However, this year, I'll focus more on the acting races and the nominees that didn't get the gold. After talking with some friends, I realized I'm only 133 films away from having watched every performance ever nominated for an acting Academy Award, from 1928 to 2024. So, that shall be my challenge until December 31st, to check those titles and, hopefully, share my journey with you. This won't be a regularly scheduled series but something more erratic, bound to unravel in fits and starts, free-wheeling to the very end. What matters is that deadline and writing about everything I see until then. To start things off, I decided to take a sample of each category…

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Almost There: Robert Mitchum in "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" and "The Sundowners"

by Cláudio Alves

This month, the Criterion Channel has programmed a collection called "Robert Mitchum: Playing It Cool," dedicated to the star of classics like Out of the Past and The Night of the Hunter. This movie star wasn't always the easiest person to work with – he was even declared the Least Cooperative Actor by the Golden Apple Awards – but his talent was undeniable, as was his screen presence. That quality would make him an iconic face of postwar film noir and, consequently, a perfect fit for 'Noirvember'. However, we're not here to discuss that part of his filmography. Unfortunately, those flicks seldom got awards traction, and the Almost There series is about performances with Oscar buzz but no nomination. 

Instead, the focus shall be on a couple of Deborah Kerr vehicles that costarred Mitchum and resulted in multiple Oscar nods. They were John Huston's Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, and Fred Zinnemann's The Sundowners…

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Almost There: Hattie McDaniel in "In This Our Life"

by Cláudio Alves

The Criterion Channel is currently featuring an extensive collection of John Huston movies. Considering his directorial debut, The Maltese Falcon, was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, it's fair to say that Huston's films have always been on the Academy's radar. Consequently many of his actors gained Oscar buzz though just as often they were egregiously snubbed. With that said, I'd like to focus on a performer that was already an Oscar winner before she starred in a Huston flick, a Black actress whose career was limited by institutional racism and confined to playing second fiddle to white stars, often in peripheral roles. Nevertheless, Hattie McDaniel always spun gold from straw, injecting complicated humanity, humor, and pathos into the tiniest of parts. Such is the case of In This Our Life…

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Showbiz History: Regina King, Happy Days, and Meryl's sixth Globe win

6 random things that happened on this day, January 15th, in showbiz history

1948 This date is iffy (the internet can't seem to agree) but some say John Huston's classic The Treasure of Sierra Madre had its premiere in Los Angeles. At any rate, factually, it came out in sometime in January. A year later it will be up for four Oscars including Best Picture and win Best Supporting Actor for Walter Huston, the director's father. Later Huston will direct his daughter Anjelica to an Oscar win for Prizzi's Honor making him the only person in Oscar history to direct two family members to Oscars. The Hustons were the first three-generation Oscar winning family. The Coppolas followed later...

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"The Dead" and the end of John Huston

by Cláudio Alves

Few cineastes can count their last film among their greatest works. Fewer still finish a career, a life, with their best cinematic effort. As much as I admire such gems as Ophüls' carnivalesque Lola Montès, the amorous musings of Dreyer's Gertrud, the bittersweet self-reflections of Akerman's No Home Movie and Varda's Varda by Agnès, I wouldn't classify any of those pictures as their director's crown jewels. John Huston's a whole different matter. 

The American filmmaker, whose career spanned six decades, finished his last picture in 1987. Faithfully adapted from a short story by James Joyce, The Dead may not be as influential as The Maltese Falcon, as exciting as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, nor as tragic as The Misfits, but, as far as I'm concerned, it's Huston's most ravishing creation…

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