In Defense of "Jojo Rabbit"

Please welcome guest contributor Rita Maricone-Dorsch...

Last night, I sat down to revisit Jojo Rabbit, this time with my son, who is equal parts World War II aficionado, Marvel fanboy, and already-pretty-woke tween. Taika Watiti's self-labeled 'anti-hate satire' seemed custom made for his sensibilities. But why do you like this movie so much, he asked me. 

I've been wrestling with this question since the film's release, and since my own impression of it differed so drastically from most reviews, including the positive takes. I didn't see a too-tame provocation that poked easy fun at Nazis. I didn't see a project intended to humanize bigoted white men. I'm not sure it's even best described as an anti-hate satire. To me, Jojo Rabbit was a sweet little allegory about a dangerously underrepresented and urgent subject: the emotional education of boys...

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Oscar Ceremony: The Presenters

by Murtada Elfadl

Today the Academy and the show's producers Lynette Howell Taylor and Stephanie Allain announced the latest batch of presenters: Jane Fonda, Josh Gad, Tom Hanks, Oscar Isaac, Sandra Oh, Natalie Portman, Chris Rock and Taika Waititi.

We are especially excited to see Fonda...

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1999 with Nick: "Stuart Little" and Visual (and Animated) Effects

This week, in advance of the Oscars, Nick Davis is looking back at the Academy races of 20 years ago, spotlighting movies he’d never seen and what they teach us about those categories, then and now.

This year, The Lion King joins Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) as only the third fully animated feature to be nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. I’ve read that tidbit in several places and assume that it must be true, according to people who know better than I do. I wasn’t sure why the movie that defeated Kubo, the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book, did not belong on this list, until I remembered that Mowgli was played by a living, breathing actor, Neel Sethi. Actually, what I mean is that I remembered Mowgli was in the movie, period. And I actually didn’t remember, I had to look it up. The Jungle Book, like an incredible number of films nominated for Best Visual Effects since the category got expanded to a five-wide field in 2010, made almost zero lasting impression on me. Like Best Original Song, it’s a division where I gladly release myself from seeing all the nominees. So, sorry, Lion King. Sorry, Endgame. Don’t get smug, Rise of Skywalker, you weren’t much better. And, until I proposed this series to Nathaniel, which partly exists to fill my own viewing gaps, sorry to Stuart Little, a movie that really tested my sense of the line between animation and visual effects, especially in the context of 1999. That line only gets blurrier as time goes on, so I thought I’d dig in a little...

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Can Thelma Schoonmaker beat her own record?

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the History of the Academy Awards, two filmmakers have received eight nominations in the Best Editing category. They are Michael Kahn and Thelma Schoonmaker. They also happen to be among the four people currently tied for the title of 'most awarded film editor of all-time'. Daniel Mandell and Ralph Dawson as well as Kahn and Schoonmaker have all won three statuettes (though Schoonmaker and Kahn lead the nomination tally). Both of those champion editors are still active, so one of them may beat these Oscar records. As of the moment, Martin Scorsese's most important collaborator is in contention to win her fourth Oscar for The Irishman.

If it happens, she'll become the undisputed queen of film editing in Hollywood. In regards to the Academy Awards, that is…

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Interview: Joker's Costume Designer Mark Bridges

by Nathaniel R

Mark Bridges with Joker costumes

Mark Bridges film career began, as so many have, rather inauspicously. His debut was a now forgotten horror film called Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992) but there's no keeping talent like his down... though it never hurts to attach yourself straight away to a future god-level auteur like Paul Thomas Anderson. Bridges was on board for Anderson's feature debut Hard Eight (1996) and the celebrated auteur wisely never let go of him thereafter. Inbetween Anderson films (and on them in point of fact) Bridges established himself as a world class costume designer of tremendous versatility, with a gift for not just memorable clothing but character-building.

His latest film, Joker, became his most widely viewed work and then an Academy favourite. We had a chance to talk to the two-time Oscar winner (Phantom Thread, The Artist) this past week about his design process, his favourites from his own filmography, and why he loves his job so much...

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