Academy's New Governors: Whoopi Returns, Ava Rises.

by Nathaniel R

Ava DuVernay is now on a Governor in the Director's Branch of the Academy

As you might imagine, steering a behemoth institution like The Oscars is no small task. To do that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has about 8 "officers" (including the current President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson) as well as a 3 "Governors" from each of the 17 branches.

Each governor serves a 3 year term so there aren't huge upheavals from year to year since only 33% of a board might change). Some of the Officers are also Governors within their respective branches. The Academy recently held elections again for the 2020/2021 season and these folks will be helping to make the difficult decisions like "what to do about the upcoming Oscar ceremony given COVID-19" and such...

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By a nose...

by Cláudio Alves

When presenting the Best Actress Oscar during the 75th Academy Awards, Denzel Washington famously said "by a nose" before announcing Nicole Kidman as that year's winner for her work in The Hours. It was a reference to the way that, throughout that awards season, the actress's prosthetic enhanced transformation into Virginia Woolf had caused much controversy. Some people appreciated how Kidman left vanity at the door and allowed herself to be made unrecognizable, while many others found it to be distracting. In any case, it was a good booster to her Oscar campaign. The quality of a performance notwithstanding, there are few things that the Academy loves more than beautiful celebrities de-glamming.

Unfortunately, as it sometimes happens, while the performer was showered in gold, the team of makeup artists that made the physical transformation possible was left unrecognized. In the case of The Hours, they were even made ineligible…

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Linkmaids

• Variety The Venice Film Festival will commence (not cancelling) on September 2nd
• IndieWire does some myth-busting by looking back at an historic movie weekend in 1977, when both Smokey and the Bandit and Star Wars opened
• Variety on how Carole Lombard becamse the first Hollywood casualty of WW II

After the jump including the first drag queen Emmy nominee, fight challenge, Michel Piccoli RIP, no Bridesmaids sequel, trivia and Brokeback reminiscences with Oscar pundits, Diva, and more... 

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Japanese cinema and the Best Costume Design Oscar

by Cláudio Alves

The Academy has always had a certain difficulty in recognizing excellence from films made in any language other than English. When it comes to Asian cinema, that is especially true. Parasite's recent grand victory may be a sign that times are a-changing, but there are still branches of AMPAS that remain quite closed-off and insular.

Thankfully that hasn't been the case with thee design branches. For a long time they were the only place where you could hope to find any sort of honor given to the works of masters like Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. Japanese cinema, in particular, has found success in the Costume Design category. Overall, five pictures from Japan have been nominated for the prize and two have won. Since all those films are currently available online, most of them streaming on the Criterion Channel, it's a good time to take a look at this peculiarity of Oscar history…

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Announcement: Weekly Trivia!

Hey, everyone. Michael Cusumano here with an exciting announcement. My company Whiskey Cat LLC recently launched a weekly Movie Trivia night on Zoom and The Film Experience has come aboard as a sponsor! It's 5 rounds with 50+ question with a variety of questions and games including audio and visual clues. Rest assured I am taking care to craft questions that The Film Experience audience will enjoy. Oscars and actresses will no doubt abound. Nathaniel will be writing one of the 5 rounds this week!

Here's an example of one ten minute round last week. Within that time limit, how many of these could you answer correctly (no googling allowed obviously)

How do you play? The event is held every Thursday at 7:30 PM EST on Zoom and runs about 2 hours. It’s $5 per person payable through Venmo or PayPal. Send a team name along with the payment and I will reply with the ZOOM information. You can include your information in a comment along with the PayPal or Venmo payment or contact me one of these ways: 

Email: WhiskeyCatProd@gmail.com
Twitter: @TriviaWhiskey
Facebook: Whiskey Cat presents: Zoom Movie Trivia  

Hope to see you there this Thursday!