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Chris here. You may have missed awhile back but the MTV Movie Awards have added television into its ceremony. While that news may sound like a "Golden Globes for the Instagram set" proposition, the results are much more muddied.
For starters, outside of the top categories movies and television are nominated alongside each other - which makes for some headspining lineups like "Tearjerker". As if the current murky waters of what defines cinema and television weren't frustrating enough already for those of us that follow awards, this awards show has just thrown caution to the wind. They've always fallen on the populist and occasionally silly side but this is essentially bonkers...
Chris here. Now that the dust has settled from the Oscar telecast snafu, we can just linger in the joy of a black queer microbudgeted film like Moonlight having won Best Picture. And after the film's emotionally immersive success I think it's safe to say that of all of last year's lauded filmmakers, the one that we're most clammoring to see the next project is Barry Jenkins.
Well get ready for him to transfer Moonlight's episodic structure into some actual episodes: the Oscar-winner will be writing and directing an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad" for Amazon as a limited series. The novel follows Cora and Caesar, two slaves who find a literal subterranean train system on her journey to freedom in 1800s America. Already a National Book Award winner, the gorgeous prose is a perfect fit for Jenkins's attentive and comprehensive touch (I started the book this past weekend myself).
Considering Oprah selected it for her intermitent book club, one wonders if she'll also be lending her cache to at least the production team (the Moonlight producing team is also on board). For casting, while you can imagine actors lining up to work with Jenkins, but if there is one thing to hope carries over from Moonlight it's the sense of discovery he brings to a breakthrough ensemble. Have you read the novel yet?
Gone With the Wind is not remotely the longest movie to ever win an Oscar (O.J. Made in America just beat previously record holder in that regard, Russia's foreign film winner War & Peace, by pretending to be a "movie" when it was actually a TV miniseries). But Gone With the Wind remains, at 3 hrs & 58 minutes, the longest Best Picture winner. We published the list of running times of the Best Picture winners a few years back but since then the Academy has naturally added a few movies to this list so it was time to update.
The last three winners have all, thankfully, been comparatively succinct in their storytelling and all of them under the "average" in length for a Best Picture. Can we hope that running times will come back down again since they've been growing over the years? Moonlight, our latest champ, is the 15th shortest film to ever win Best Picture. You can pack a lot of greatness into 111 minutes as we hope future filmmakers will realize when they study Barry Jenkins amazing movie in film schools.
Here are all 90 Best Picture winners from longest to shortest. The new entries in bold...
Vanity Fair's Emma Watson cover story (with a really cool photoshoot by Tim Walker that of course is getting flak due to one semi-topless photo) Daily News JJ Abrams says Mark Hamill will be up for an Oscar for The Last Jedi next year. Uff, we're going there already? (What is it with blockbuster teams especially that like to make these predictions. Remember when Vin Diesel was sure Fast & Furious was going to be a Best Picture nominee?) Variety a movie theater in London plays a prank, showing a bit of La La Land before a Moonlight screening Variety a movie theater in Alabama, one of those states that just can't help being a stereotype of itself, won't show Disney's new Beauty & the Beast due to... TFE ...the earlier announcement that there'd be a gay character
PlaybillHairspray Live!'s directing duo will reunite for the live version of Bye Bye Birdie -- that's good news as I really think Hairspray Live was by far the best of these productions yet THR strange cast assembled for what's billed as a romantic drama that has something to do with death. Irreplaceable You will star hotties with star hotties Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Michiel Huisman as well as Christopher Walker and Steve Coogan i09 filmmakers discussing why video game movies always suck /Film Disney may reboot Tron for... Jared Leto. Hrmmm.
Oscar Crumbs Jezebel an Oscars story we accidentally didn't cover but for a brief mention on the podcast - Oscar winner Patricia Arquette is understandably upset that Alexis Arquette was left out of the In Memoriam montage AV Club Sir Ian McKellen's advice to awards show presenters to avoid the Beatty/Dunaway fiasco
Off Screen The Hairpin "Everyone wants to be this raccoon" Amen Theater Mania Sondheim and Bernadette Peters attend the opening night of the new Off Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, with the theater transformed into a pie shop. The show has already extended its run all the way through December. Wheeee
Mark Harris's Book Gets a Documentary Version Yes, I wish we were talking about Pictures at a Revolution (because we can never get enough Oscar lore) but it's his book about Hollywood directors during World War II which is also fascinating. Here's the trailer for Five Came Back which premieres at the end of the month
Yes, I'm trying to stave off the annual Post Oscar Depression. It's a real thing even if the medical community doesn't yet recognize it. So herewith some random final screengrabs from Oscar night and accompanying thoughts on topics we haven't totally covered yet over the past 3 days of Oscar reactions, recapping, post-mortem. (I promise we'll quit with Oscar 2016 by tonight and move on to other topics for those of you who've already moved on)
Thursday, April 6, 2017 at 6:32PM 
