Almost There: The cast of "A Raisin in the Sun"

by Cláudio Alves

The 1950s and 60s marked a time when the Academy Awards loved few things more than prestigious stage play adaptations. This was particularly true of the acting categories, where dozens of such movies scored multiple nominations. Comparing the Tony nods with the Oscars' is to find many of the same roles, like Tennessee Williams' heroines, Eugene O'Neill's human wrecks, Clifford Odet's tragic characters, and Edward Albee's domestic demons. For a short period, the Tonys were even better precursors for an Oscar victory than the Golden Globes. Still, even these trends have exceptions and one of the saddest was the 1961 movie based on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun…

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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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And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

by Cláudio Alves

Some days ago, as part of our 1981 coverage, we talked about Katharine Hepburn's famous Oscar record. She's the only actor to ever have won four statuettes, all of them in the Best Actress category. In that piece, the idea was put forward that, despite her amazing career, the actress wasn't deserving of most of those victories. She might have merited four Academy Awards, but not for those particular works. We didn't explore who should have won in the years Hepburn triumphed, mainly because there isn't a lot of consensus about the matter. Still, while that's true regarding the 1933, 1968 (a tie!) and 1981 Oscars, the same can't be said about the 1967 awards. In that Best Actress race, one performance has shined brighter than all others, gaining a legendary status that goes way beyond the Oscars. 

Since her movie is newly available to stream on Hulu, it seems like a good time to talk about Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate…

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Did Katharine Hepburn deserve four Oscars?

By Cláudio Alves...

Before we wrap up our coverage of 1981, we must talk about the Oscar record that was established that season and has never been broken since.

By winning the Best Actress trophy for On Golden Pond, Katharine Hepburn became the most awarded actor in Academy Awards history, with four victories. That's not the only factor that makes her awards run so interesting. Famously, she was part of the only Best Actress tie when she and Barbra Streisand both won in 1968. Then, there's the fact that her first win came from the biggest Oscar eligibility period ever (17 months, 1932-33) and that the gap between her first win and her last is the longest for any actor (48 years). All this and she was never present to accept her little golden men. Whether you love her or not, this Old Hollywood star was truly one of a kind...

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50th Anniversary: The strange case of Gig Young's Oscar

As a sequel to our recent look-back at the 42nd Oscars , please welcome guest contributor Orrin Konheim...

Fifty years ago, the Academy Awards marked an odd milestone when they awarded a Best Supporting Actor Oscar to Gig Young for They Shoot Horses Don’t They (1969) although they didn’t know history was being made at the time. Eight years later, Gig Young would shoot his wife of three weeks (and then himself) in the only known instance of an Oscar-winning actor committing murder.

His tale is a disturbing one with few answers...

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