99¢ rentals to fill in the Oscar gaps

UPDATE 10/23 Sadly these deals have all expired and they're back up to $3.99 per film.

While we wait (impatiently) for the major Oscar contenders to show themselves to general audiences, why not check out an older Oscar nominees for kicks and to fill any gaps in your Oscar knowledge. Here are a few that iTunes is offering to rent for just 99¢... naturally I have to share the posters for the ones with exclamatory taglines.

• Sunrise (1927)/ Street Angel (1928) for Janet Gaynor, the very first Best Actress winner and the only Best Actress winner to win for multiple roles simultaneously (they changed the rule thereafter)
• In Old Chicago (1938) Tyrone Powers in a six-time nominated film which won Alice Brady supporting actress
• The Rains Came (1939) starring Myrna Loy and up for six Oscars
• Blood and Sand (1941) this torreador drama starring Tyrone Power won Best Cinematography
• This Above All (1942) a romantic drama starring Joan Fontaine and Tyrone Power received 4 nominations and a win for Art Direction
• The Snake Pit (1948) Olivia de Havilland in an asylum (!) in one of the original 'deglam' roles. Six nominations including Best Picture
• Pinky (1949), a racial drama about a woman who can "pass" as white received 3 acting nominations

• Come to the Stable (1949) a comedy about nuns which was up for an inexplicable 7 Oscars losing all of them -- we recently wrote about it
• The Young Lions (1958) three nominations including cinematography for this Marlon Brando / Montgomery Clift World War II picture.
• The Best of Everything (1959) three nominations including costume design for this Joan Crawford picture that January Jones hated so very much in that one episode of Mad Men

Podcast: Smackdown '43 Companion

Nathaniel R welcomes the panel Yaseen Ali (cinephile), Kristen Lopez (critic), Rebecca Pahle (critic) and Kieran Scarlett (screenwriter) to discuss 1943 at the movies with recommended favorites and our favorite switch-the-actresses around game. We had previously reviewed the supporting actress nominees.

We talk about the three actresses (Claudette Colbert, Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard) in WW II women's picture So Proudly We Hail. The running time slog of For Whom the Bell Tolls which doesn't showcase Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman well, the hit play turned message movie Watch on the Rhine and its place as a "homefront" movie when the war barely touched our soil, and religious epic The Song of Bernadette which won Jennifer Jones the Best Actress Oscar. 

You can listen to the 1 hour podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

So Proudly We Hail Bernadette on the Rhine

Smackdown 1943: Gladys, Paulette, Lucille, Anne, and Katina

Presenting Oscar's Chosen Supporting Actresses of the Films of 1943.

A cruel nun, a flirtatious nurse, a gypsy rebel, a harried mother, and a wealthy hostess. It's not the elaborate start of a joke, but the nominated characters from the Best Supporting Actress race of 1943.  There was only one returning nominee (Gladys Cooper) but in the 1940s all newbie lists were common since the supporting categories had been around less than a decade! Anne Revere and Cooper would eventually become three time Supporting Actress nominees (Only 23 women in history have accomplished that feat, Octavia Spencer the most recent to join the list just last season) but for Paulette Goddard, Katina Paxinou, and Lucille Watson this was their one and only time in Oscar's golden embrace. 

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS   

Here to talk about these five nominated turns and either agree with the Academy or crown a new retrospective winner are, in alpha order: Yaseen Ali (cinephile), Kristen Lopez (critic), Rebecca Pahle (critic), Kieran Scarlett (screenwriter) and Nathaniel R (your host here at TFE). Readers (hey, that means you!!!) form the collective final panelist each month. Okay, time for the main event... 

1943
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN 

Click to read more ...

Best Casablanca Quotes

Tomorrow is your last day to vote on the Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1943. Casablanca wasn't nominated in that category but it took the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. In addition to being economically constructed -- those 102 minutes fly by every time (in fact, it's the 8th shortest Best Picture winner ever) -- it's got generous helpings of contenders for 'best line ever'. So I asked this month's panel to share their favorite line or exchange from that immortal classic.

Here's what we all chose...

Click to read more ...

Vintage '43

Let's soak in some 1943 since the Smackdown is but one week ago. Here's a look into what was hot hot hot that year in many fields and categories for context...

This is the Army (1943)

Great Big Box Office Hits 

1. For Whom the Bell Tolls
2. This is the Army
3. The Song of Bernadette
4. Thousands Cheer
5. Star Spangled Rhythm
6. Casablanca
7. Air Force
8. Destination Tokyo
9. A Guy Named Joe
10. Coney Island

Oscar's Best Picture List  

Click to read more ...