What should have been Meryl's third?

by Cláudio Alves

Daniel Day-Lewis may be the best triple Oscar winner among actors, but that doesn't mean he's the best performer of the bunch. It just means that he's had the luck of getting awards for his very best efforts. Historically, if we can count on the Academy for something it is to award the right people for the wrong movies. That started early -- Katharine Hepburn won her first Oscar for Morning Glory in the same year she was eligible for George Cukor's Little Women?

In any case, neither Hepburn or Day-Lewis are the subjects of this piece. That would be Meryl Streep, the most nominated actor ever and proud winner of three Oscars. Her first two victories, for Kramer vs Kramer and Sophie's Choice, are usually considered among the best in their respective categories, but the same can't be said for her third triumph...

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Is Daniel Day-Lewis the best triple Oscar winner?

by Cláudio Alves

In the past 92 years, only a handful of performers have managed to win more than one Oscar. More than two is even rarer and more than three is a feat only ever achieved by Katharine Hepburn. In the relatively exclusive club of three-time Oscar-winning actors, we can find six names, four men and two women. Despite their golden prizes, perusing their winning performances can be a sad affair with most of them having at least one terrible victory in their collection. For Meryl Streep it's The Iron Lady, for Ingrid Bergman Anastasia and Murder on the Orient Express. Jack Nicholso's win for As Good As It Gets isn't very well-regarded and Walter Brennan's first two victories are rather dire.

Only one rises above the others as a perfect case of the Academy honoring an actor for the right performances. It's Daniel Day-Lewis, of course…

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Almost There: John Lone in "The Last Emperor"

by Cláudio Alves

Parasite made history by becoming the first non-English-language production to win the Best Picture Oscar. Its many victories marked a series of firsts for the Academy, but there's a couple of feats that Bong Joon-ho's masterpiece shares with other winners. As it happens, Parasite is the third film with a majority Asian cast to conquer Best Picture. The Last Emperor and Slumdog Millionaire are the other two. Another thing they share is a glaring lack of acting nominations, which is rare for Best Picture champions. It's difficult to peruse the data and not smell a whiff of systematic racism.

John Lone's absence from the Oscar line-up for his starring role in The Last Emperor is particularly odd… 

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Star Wars and the Oscars, a History.

Get away from Natalie Wood, Darth Vader, we're warning you!

Over at Vulture this weekend, yours truly has a piece up about the history of Oscar's affection (and lack thereof) for the Star Wars saga. I'm glad they liked my Diane Keaton / Annie Hall intro (though they added the Woody Allen bits -- I left him out as I didn't want to distract people) because I couldn't get the image of Diane callously "la-di-da"ing while wielding the Death Star out of my head. Anyway, it was great fun to write so I hope you enjoy. It was also a trip to source the FYC ads -- if only more of them were available online. I couldn't find a single FYC ad for The Empire Strikes Back or The Phantom Menace (among other films).

One thing I didn't have space for  that I could have written much more on was the individual categories over the years -- isn't it strange that Star Wars (1977) is the only time the series has ever been up for Costume Design?!? -- and the individual presentations. Look how excited Farrah Fawcett was to find out who won Best Editing!

And why did Oscar producers pair her with Marcello Mastroianni for a prize that was clearly going to Star Wars? The mysteries that emerge from history... even history as well documented as pop culture.  

Streaming Roulette, Oct: High Life/Noon and Handfuls of Dust.

As is our practice we've selected a handful plus of new-to-streaming titles and frozen them at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!). After those selections we've listed all the movies from each of the streaming channels. What should you queue up for OCTOBER 2019 ? (★ means we definitely recommend catching them and bold titles are buzzy things we haven't yet seen) 

Let's get started...

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HIGH LIFE (2019) on Amazon Prime
Funnily enough this empty shot is exactly as I recall High Life, so much atmosphere and isolation. Humanity is over. (Except for Juliette Binoche who is just living for her disturbing role.) We expect this will end up on some top ten lists at year's end...

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