Eye Candy Predix Pt 1: Who will be nominated for Best Cinematography?

by Nathaniel R

F1 The Movie - shot by Claudio Miranda

Eye-candy. It's a good chunk of the reason we obsess over cinema, a gloriously visual artform. Films which don't maximize the capabilities of cinematography, costumes, and production design often risk looking dull or under-thought by comparison to those that use everything the cinematic toolbox has to offer. It should go without saying that Oscar predictions do not necessarily mean that these are the titles which will excel in any given craft area -- we all know that Best Picture heat gets you further than it ought to  in every category... yes, even the ones you deserve to be competitive in! All categories should be judged on their own exquisite merit. Neverthless here is some guesswork about what Oscar voters might respond to this year in terms of these visual arts...

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Last night I caught an IMAX screening of Joseph Kosinski's latest all quadrant hopeful, F1: The Movie. It's received a bit of breathless Variety hype for Chilean DP Claudio Miranda's work...

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Spike Lee's underrated gems

by Cláudio Alves

It seems like Spike Lee's on everybody's mind these days. First and foremost, we have the release of the director's latest feature, Da 5 Bloods, to thank for such cultural prominence. However, it would be irresponsible not to mention how current events are also bringing people to this filmmaker's oeuvre. In a time when racial injustice is being actively protested on the streets, the Black excellence and political vigor of Spike Lee's movies seem more relevant than ever…

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Beauty Break: ASC Tributes + Best Cinematography Honors

The American Society of Cinematographers will hold their annual awards dinner tonight where they'll be honoring Jeff Bridges with their Board of Governors Award, three-time Oscar winner Robert Richardson (Hugo, Aviator, JFK) with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and two time Emmy winner Jeffrey Jur (Carnivàle, Bessie) for the Career Achievement in Television Award. They'll also hand out some competitive prizes and presumably give Alfonso Cuarón yet another trophy for his mantle (let's hope he has steel reinforced shelving at home given this season's worth of hardware.) UPDATE: oops we were wrong and Cuarón lost for practically the first time this season.

Let's look at that beautiful imagery from the winners and nominees again with a few bonus gifs... 

• WINNER: Łukasz Żal, PSC for “Cold War” 

What an incredible DP Żal is. After the consecutive Pawel Pawlikowski's successes of Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018), will he be in demand in Hollywood or just stick to work across the ocean? While his best work has been in black & white in Poland he does color and cinema from other countries as well...

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More Guild Nominations: Cinematography & Sound

by Nathaniel R

Lukasz Zal's exquisite black and white cinematography for COLD WAR has been somewhat overshadowed by Cuarón's ROMA. Can Zal score his second Oscar nod?

It's that Oscar nomination voting week when the awards just don't stop, everybody getting boosts via the Globe wins, the BAFTA nominations (soon), and multiple guild announcements. Here's two more after the jump with commentary for cinematography and sound categories... 

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Yes No Maybe So: A Star is Born

by Nathaniel R

When the trailer for the fourth version of A Star is Born hit yesterday everyone was all surprised like "omg this looks... good. Could it be good?" Dear reader, we been saying that via the Oscar charts! It certainly helps that Bradley Cooper enlisted DP Matthew Libatique (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream, Tigerland, Iron Man) to shoot it and from early images it looks like Libatique knew what an attention grabber this could be and is really going for broke. So much color and beauty. Yes! Let's do a quick Yes No Maybe So™ on this (and a few more trailers) after the jump...

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