Deborah Kerr @ 100: The legend, the legacy, "The Innocents"

by Cláudio Alves

For decades she held the record of being the most Oscar-nominated actress never to have won the statuette, with six unsuccessful nominations. In a piteous gesture, the Academy granted her an honorary award in 1994. How fitting that Deborah Kerr received such tribute from the hands of Glenn Close, the current holder of the older actress' erstwhile record. Considering this trivia, it'd be easy to remember Kerr's legacy through the prism of Oscar history. That would be a mistake. I state it as someone who first encountered the British thespian through her nominated roles, constructing a mental image limited by AMPAS' taste. As it turns out, despite her numerous nods, the most outstanding Kerr performances weren't so highly celebrated by the Academy. Simply told, that Oscar-y sextet doesn't do her justice. 

To celebrate Deborah Kerr's centennial, let's remember her range beyond golden laurels, her incandescent talent, the power she brought to her films. Let's honor her by reflecting on the actress' greatest work - the nightmare that is The Innocents…

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Little Gold Men on 1934's "It Happened One Night"

by Nathaniel R

The year of guesting on podcasts continues (after no invites forever I'm suddenly mouthing off everywhere!) with Vanity Fair's "Little Gold Men" podcast. I join Katey and Joanna to talk about the early Best Picture winner It Happened One Night. The story of Clark Gable's bare chest sending undershirt sales plummeting is old school famous, of course, but Joanna's additional research nuggets kind of blew my mind. I'd seriously never heard the bit about Bugs Bunny before (whaaa?!). We also talk briefly about the 2021 Academy invitees previously discussed right here. 

Have a listen and even a watch (the movie is streaming free on Crackle with ads). What a great film.

The Academy Welcomes 395 New Members

by Nathaniel R

Harry Yoon (Editor), Lee Isaac Chung (Writer/Director) and Christian Oh (Producer) were all invited to the Academy post MINARI

Each year the Academy releases the names of their potential new members. Reports range a bit at how many voting members the Academy actually has. Deadline suggests that if all 395 of the new invitees accept membership, AMPAS will be around 9,750ish members while the LA Times places the number around 10,700. We're not sure where that discrepancy of nearly a 1000 voters comes from but let's just say it's hard to track. We rarely learn who declined membership, for example, and of course people die from year to year since many longtime members are elderly. 

As per usual, even before the Academy's largely successfully diversification and gender parity drive, a good portion of the invitees go out to fresh winners and nominees from the previous season. If they accept Youn Yuh-jung, Maria Bakalova, Steven Yeun, Paul Raci, and H.E.R. (to name a handful of examples) will now be Oscar voters. 46% of the new invitees are women and 39% are from underrepresented groups. One really interesting number is that over half of the new invitees, 53% to be exact, are international invites. Whether that translates to more international titles winning Oscar favor, who knows...

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ICYMI - Ann Roth reacts to her Oscar win

This has been making the rounds but perhaps you missed it as we initially did. Veteran costume designer Ann Roth, who we've discussed at length before, wasn't at the Oscars. Like Hopkins, the oldest man ever to win Best Actor, she's the oldest to win in her field and the second oldest of all time; only James Ivory, Call Me By Your Name, was older in winning a competitive Oscar and by just a matter of weeks.

Roth seems very happy about the second Oscar, which was almost a quarter century coming after The English Patient. Her daughter wrote about it, saying...

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What's Oscar's all-time favorite Costume Design era?

by Cláudio Alves

The legendary Ann Roth is our reigning Best Costume Design Oscar queen, having won her second statuette for the jazz age designs of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. I'm ecstatic about her victory. Both because it's an outstanding artistic achievement and because hers is a filmography that undoubtedly deserves more than one Oscar. That being said, this year's Costume race (which I previously reviewed in depth) did remind me of a pet peeve I've long had with the category—namely, the overwhelming predominance of period films and the rarity of recognition for contemporary-set narratives. As usual, all of this year's nominees featured period costuming, with even the lone fantasy film, Pinocchio, basing most of its look in mid-19th-century fashion.

With all this in mind, I decided to do some research and find out what era is most common in Best Costume Design Oscar winners. From Ancient Egypt to post-war London, this category has rewarded many styles, though some do stand out as AMPAS' favorites… 

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