Posterized: Disney/Pixar

My review of Monsters University will be up tomorrow but for now, let's revive our supposedly weekly (ahem) series Posterized to look back at all 13 Pixar Features and discuss their chronology and, the fun part, their hierarchy. AND... I just keep gilding this CGI lily,  how they compare to the first 13 DISNEY Animated Features. Yep, throwing a little curveball into the frequent "ranking Pixar" conversations, I am.

Toy Story (1995) 3 Oscar nominations. Won an Honorary Oscar. Basically changed the (showbiz) world forever. [my ten favorite moments from this classic]
A Bugs Life (1998) 1 Oscar nomination (Score, Musical or Comedy)
Toy Story 2 (1999)  1 Oscar nomination (Song). It was right about here that people started arguing for an Animated Feature Oscar category (Tarzan and The Iron Giant were also released this year) but that wouldn't happen for another couple of years. 

And then...

Click to read more ...

"I'd like to thank the Academy..."

...for uploading this video of the 1994 costume Academy Award presentation when I asked them to. Here's how it began...

I had found myself in one of those YouTube wormholes of watching Oscar clips at 3am. I am sure we've all been there. I've watched them all so many times that I honestly don't know why I keep going back - especially since rights issues force The Academy's YouTube channel to delete the acting nominee clips (boo! hiss!) Alas, like a masochist I just keep going back. Don't we all?

Nevertheless, I am always frustrated at the selection of videos that The Academy choose to upload. I always want to watch costume designers, art directors, special effects artists, and so on. I like hearing the applause for left-of-centre selections. I think it's fun to see how the writers and presenters represented these categories and people. So, in a joking fashion I tweeted The Academy stating that, gosh, I really just want to see the 1994 costume design category.

AND THEY UPLOADED IT. FOR ME!

"Ask and you shall receive", so they say. And quickly, too. Well, who can say no to The Academy uploading a video just because you ask? This is inarguably one of my favourite Oscar moments and I was so sad when the original video got taken down years ago, but now it's here again for us to watch and marvel whenever we feel like. Watching it now and I still grin from ear to ear when Sharon Stone (a rare Oscar presenter who surely doesn't feel like the telecast's dodgy writing is beneath her) announces a low-budget Australian movie about drag queens as the winner of an Academy Award. When winner Lizzy Gardiner gets on the stage in a dress made of American Express credit cards. When lovably weird Lizzy shoves her co-winner aside: "Shut up, it's my turn!" When they joke about going to "cry with some dignity" and "get a drink." Who can deny it was an amazing moment and now it's there to watch again and again.

"And the Oscar... goes to... And the Oscar goes to Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." - Sharon Stone.

The video has already been viewed some 1300 times in just a matter of days, so there are clearly plenty of people out there that want this stuff. Are they all Film Experience readers?If you could ask The Academy to upload one category from what year, which would it be? Maybe they'll read this and upload it for you! And don't forget to watch the Priscilla video over and over again. Maybe then we'll get more like it.

Ruth Wilcox’s May Flowers

They’re arriving so late in the day because Mrs. Wilcox is a nymph who travels at night.

As far as evocative film openings go this lush green opening for Howards End ranks among the top for me. Really, though, many films would be vastly improved if they open with a strolling Vanessa Redgrave. more...

Click to read more ...

The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley.

Last night I posted the Best Shot group roundup of The Talented Mr Ripley, but not my own choice. Why? Well every time I began I wanted to start over. If this blogpost were a passport I would have been defacing my own photo. I chose eight shots - at least -- but each one seemed to beg for a wholly different article to accompany it. Which is not to say that the film is any more gorgeously shot than others we've covered in this series (though John Seale easily deserved the best Cinematography nomination he was denied) but that it is several films at once. Which is why I've titled this post with its less condensed but truer title. Those sixteen extra shuffling adjectives in the brilliant title design say it all. 

Light bulb! 

Not actual light bulbs but figurative ones (we'll get to the actual ones in a minute) though actual lights figure into this perfect shot of Marge, backing through a hallway in what would handily be my choice if I thought of this film as only a thriller. This moment is just terrifying, aided immeasurably by a virtuousic turn by Gwyneth Paltrow. [more...]

Click to read more ...

Visual Index ~ The Talented Mr Ripley's Best Shot(s)

For this week's edition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, we stayed another summer in Italy. We didn't follow an American spinster this time but a young shapeshifter known as The Talented Mr Ripley. He was sent to Italy to fetch trustfund baby Dickie Greenleaf but he likes Dickie's life so much he fetches it for himself instead. 

Outside the film's actual narrative, based on the famous novel by Patricia Highsmith (whose work is oft-adapted - The Two Faces of January is next) things were just as dramatic. The movie was a Prestige Event since it was Anthony Minghella's (RIP) follow-up to his Best Picture winner The English Patient (1996). It wasn't quite a slam dunk with Oscar, despite the pedigree and the quality (I prefer it to Patient, myself), though it sure was a thing of beauty. The Talented Mr Ripley featured one of the most impressive collections of young stars at seemingly simultaneous points in their careers ever assembled; the world had just fallen for Gwyneth Paltrow (hot off Shakespeare), Jude Law (hot off stealing Gattaca), Matt Damon (still glowing from Good Will Hunting), and Cate Blanchett (hot off Elizabeth) and writer/director Anthony Minghella (RIP) managed to corral them all for the same movie.

Here are the 15 images that the 17 wide Best Shot club went a little mad for. Click on the link for the corresponding article and refresh your screens since more articles are bound to come in (including my own). Next week's film is Disney's grand 40s experiment Fantasia (special instructions here) and you should join us.

BEST SHOT(S)

Click to read more ...