Newish Home Viewing: The Lady in the Van, The Oscar in the Franchises.

Here's what's new recently for your eyeballs.

Newish to DVD/BluRay
• Fifty Shades of Black. Marlon Wayans sends up the Grey S&M movie.
• The Force Awakens. Not available for rental yet but when it is we shall rewatch
• The Forest. In which Natalie Dormer enters Japan's Suicide Forest to confront true terror: the reviews of Gus Van Sant's 'Sea of Trees' which is also set there.
• Ip Man 3. For your completists. I haven't seen any of these since I figured The Grandmaster covered it for me. You?
• The Lady in the Van. In which Maggie Smith gets grittier and descends the economic ladder for once. Maintain high society snobbier via her delusions of
• Norm of the North. Animated. Though probably nothing we need worry about over here.
• The Revenant. That which did rob George Miller of his rightful Best Director Oscar in February.

new to streaming
• AJIN (S1) on Netflix. An anime sci-fi series about a teenager who realizes he is not human. Cue: suspenseful music, giant expressive eyes.
• Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (S2) on Netflix. I haven't started yet due to travels. Can't wait to see my Jane Krakowski again. Tell me NOTHING. 
• Mad Max on Amazon Prime. The original. Roughly 20 years before everyone realized Mel Gibson was also Mad.
• Kong, King of the Apes (S1) on Netflix. This is a kids sci-fi series about Kong battling robot dinosaurs or some such. Has Netflix been doing kids series for awhile and we're just now noticing?
• Tangerines on Amazon Prime. Not the awesome LA trans hooker comedy but the Estonian Oscar nominated drama.

A BURNING QUESTION: WHAT'S WITH OSCAR'S FRANCHISE FICKLENESS?
All the Bourne films (2002-2012 - 4 films thus far) and all the X-Men films (2000-2014 - five films thus far) have been reissued on DVD & BluRay for the obvious reason: new theatrical outing about to happen. This prompted head spinning when randomly thinking about their Oscar histories. Weirdly both series have been popular from the start with audiences but have just one film within them that Oscar responded to: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, 3 Oscar noms/wins) and X-Men Days of Future Past (2012, 1 Oscar nomination).

Rehearsing a fight scene for Bourne Ultimatum. Photograph by Greg Williams

Isn't it fascinating how non-patterned Oscar is with franchises as a general rule? Sometimes they're not into them at all and then all of a sudden they are (those franchises and James Bond of course). Other times it's steady if halfhearted interest (superhero films in particular categories). Often it seems vaguely disconnected to the particulars of individual films. Consider this: Batman Forever is easily the Academy's second most all time favorite Batman film? WTF.  They've also been weirdly sporadic in Harry Potter love ignoring one of the best entries (Order of the Phoenix) that actually worked hard for an Art Direction nomination while rewarding the film that took place mostly in a tent (Deathly Hallows Part 1).

On the broad surface of things you'd think that Oscar voters, many of whom are ordinary working people who just happen to be in showbiz (like Emmy voters) would treat franchises the way that Emmy treats TV... which is all franchises. Not that we recommend this! With Emmy if they don't notice you at beginning they almost never do -- and they're loyal to the point of stupidity if they like you at all! Oscar doesn't really equate with that at all in ongoing narratives. What do you make of that? I ask because I'm not sure. I don't have all the answers!!! Is it just happenstance involving the every shifting competition in each calendar year at the movies?

The Furniture: The Wonderfully Weird Production Design of the Wonderful World of The Brothers Grimm

With Tale of Tales and The Huntsman: Winter’s War both opening this weekend, we have a sudden double feature of fairy tale movies on our hands. That makes it an excellent time to revisit the only fairy tale film nominated for the Oscar Best Production Design, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. (That seems impossible, I know, but it's true.)

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm was the first narrative feature to be shot in the original 3-panel Cinerama process. The second, and last, was How the West Was Won, which I showcased two weeks ago. While the epic Western, or at least some its directors, tried to smooth over the unwieldy 3-camera process with landscapes and the occasional single-camera 70-mm shot, directors Henry Levin and George Pal really ran with Cinerama for their fairy tale epic. The results were a bit bonkers...

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Doctor Strange, Alexandra Byrne, and Superhero Oscar Trivia

'Last one to Oscar is a rotten egg!'

Doctor Strange (1 time nominee Benedict Cumberbatch) and Baron Mordo (1 time nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor) are running from or towards something in this set photo from the forthcoming Doctor Strange which opens November 4th, 2016. Also in the cast are other 1 time Oscar darlings Tilda Swinton and Rachel McAdams and future Oscar nominees (well, maybe... eventually) Mads Mikkelsen and Michael Stuhlbarg. 

After the jump more set photos, costume design, and Oscar prospects...

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Posterized: Saoirse Ronan

Since we forgot to celebrate Saint Patricks Day and since Brooklyn is fresh on DVD, let's talk everyone's favorite current Irish lass! Saoirse Ronan is only 21 years old (she turns 22 next month) but she's already logged over a decade of work having started as a child in a Irish television series called "The Clinic". Her first movie role was as Michelle Pfeiffer's daughter in the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman shot in 2005 though it took along time to emerge due to behind the scenes studio and distribution dramas. Her breakthrough Oscar-nominated performance in Atonement (2007) quickly followed. She's now ascended to a real movie star with her warm engaging film-carrying work in Brooklyn (2015).

Let's repeat a bit of Oscar trivia since it's quite impressive and important: Saoirse Ronan (nominated at 13 and 21) is only the 4th child star in history to received an Oscar nomination before and after turning 18. The very short list includes only the icons Jodie Foster (first nominated at 14), Natalie Wood (first nominated at 17) and Sal Mineo. (first nominated at 17) so that's astonishingly good company for Saoirse! (If you count "special" non competitive Oscars you can include Judy Garland, too, who received a "juvenile" statue for The Wizard of Oz when she was 17.) Most child stars peak when they're children, you see, but Saoirse is surely just getting started. 

How many of her films have you seen? (all posters after the jump)

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Ghosts of Ceremonies of Years Past

Manuel here. Love them (guilty!) or hate them (okay, sometimes I do), you have to admit that the Academy Awards are an institution, one with a long storied history. And while we've come down from last weekend's highs and lows and will soon wearily brace ourselves for what next year’s season might look like (first predictions April 1st as TFE does), whenever you need to scratch that Oscar itch take some time to look back on Oscar history before you start looking forward again.

Thankfully, the Academy is here to help. Finally embracing the 21st century they have slowly been building quite the digital archive over at oscars.org.

They now have video and photo highlights for ALL of their ceremonies. I’m sure Nathaniel and many others will cringe at the fact that they refer to this most recent ceremony as the “2016 Oscars” which as you know can sometimes get tricky. (This despite the Academy previously citing the film years (you can still see this at the tourist friendly Dolby Theater where each year the new Best Picture plaque goes up with the correct year noted (Spotlight is probably already up where the placeholder "2015" once was.)

Shouldn’t clicking 1950 give me access to the ceremony that awarded George Sanders his Best Supporting Actor win? It’s become common -- it's possibly IMDB's fault (and Jeopardy! now does it too possibly sabotaging Oscar purist trivia experts) to list by the ceremony year rather than the film year. We understand it (the 88th Academy Awards took place in 2016) but that doesn’t mean we have to like it; tying Spotlight to 2016 seems odd. 

It’s a small quibble but trust that there’s a smorgasbord of images and videos to keep you entertained should you want to leave dissecting the 2015 2016 Oscars for another day. So take a look and help us find the best/most amazing/randomest photo from ceremonies past you can find.