"Poor Ivy”: August: Osage County’s Underappreciated MVP

Here's Andrew to celebrate the release of last year's embattled August: Osage County newly arrived on DVD. Significant spoilers ahead.

Each year there's at least one film which wins middling to good reviews and manages Oscar nods but is promptly forgotten as soon as it's released. August: Osage County was 2013's victim of that unfortunate annual tradition. Sure, it earned those two acting nominations it seemed assured early on but no one was particularly interested in talking about any aspect of August: Osage County, but for its Oscar belly-flop elsewhere and the Oscar queen at the centre. Perhaps, it was an automated response to Meryl Streep usually being at the centre of films with little else to offer than her star turn (The Iron Lady, Julie & Julia, Music of the Heart, etcetera). It's a shame because the former awards’ hopeful had so much more to celebrate than just the fire-breathing matriarch in the middle.

The strongest asset was undoubtedly that excellent cast. Aside from Streep and Roberts, only a few players picked up significant praise and even then the one most deserving was the one afforded hardly any attention: Julianne Nicholson as middle-child Ivy.

Click to read more ...

Women's History Month: Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke as Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller

Our coverage of Women's History Month continues with abstew on "The Miracle Worker" (1962)

Born: Helen Adams Keller was actually born with the ability to see and hear on the day of her birth in June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. It wasn't until she contracted an illness, most likely scarlet fever or meningitis, at the age of 19 months that she became both blind and deaf.

Johanna Mansfield Sullivan (she would always be known as Anne or Annie) was born April 14, 1866 in Massachusetts. After the death of her mother in 1874, Annie and her brother Jimmy were sent to an almshouse where she lived for 7 years. It was there, in 1880 (the year Helen was born) that she became blind after an untreated bacterial eye infection called trachoma.

Oscar winning performances after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Interview: Alfre Woodard on Her Favorite Roles

Alfre Woodard has been an American treasure on screens large and small since the early 80s when she first broke through in a big way with her Oscar nominated supporting role as "Geechee" in Martin Ritt's Cross Creek (1983). Yesterday we learned that Alfre will be co-starring in a new series pilot "State of Affairs" starring Katharine Heigl as a CIA Operative. Woodard is tapped to play none other than the President of the United States who Heigl counsels.

That'd be shocking given how slowly American politics moves toward inclusiveness, were it not for Woodard's natural gravitas. Last year, that formidable screen presence was put to uncommonly good use as the fascinating Mistress Shaw, a slave who married her master, in the Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave. We recently celebrated that small but pivotal role right here in our own awards.

With 12 Years now on DVD and the announcement of her new role, it seemed like a perfect time to look back on her career beginning with that amazing cameo and working our way backward to her favorite roles. They might surprise you...

Click to read more ...

The Winning Moment & The Loveable Losers

Oscar night is still rich with the thrill of victory but not, I'd argue, with the agony of defeat. At least not anymore. The Oscar race has never been as sports-analogous as some would like but the victory part in the modern awards season maybe. That requires true endurance... months of campaigning and appearance and interviews and people whisking you here and there. The agony of defeat is surely now lessened by way of expectations. There didn't use to be all these signposts along the way that you're never going to win which might account for how polite and calm the losers are in their little live-television grids. Nevertheless we still love to slow-mo the shit out of those moments.

We're doing three and a half categories (Supporting Actress, Director, Actress, and ?)  starting now...

Click to read more ...

The Beautiful People

The Class of 2013 via The 86th Academy Awards,  March 2nd, 2014!

Damn, that's a good looking bunch. It occurs to me that there was more than just a little bit more of a consensus this year behind "shoulds" when it came to acting winners, hence the repeats from ceremony to ceremony. That was true even here at The Film Experience. Though McConaughey didn't win his reader's poll here (he came in 3rd in a tight race for 2nd with Chiwetel, both behind Leo), the rest were your preferred winners as you can see on their percentage totals on the individual charts. And Cate and Lupita were also my gold medalists in the The Film Experience's long running Film Bitch Awards, too.

Group Tidbits & Trivia
• Cate and Matthew are the exact same age (44) and I wonder when or if that's ever happened before with the lead winners? It probably doesn't happen often given Oscar's double gender standards when it comes to what age its appropriate to honor male and female actors; generally speaking, women win most often when they're in their late 20s to mid 30s wherease men have much better luck in their 40s.
• The lead winners are both married and both have three children. The supporting winners are both single and keep publicly joking about the rumors that they're dating

Jennifer and Lupita reenact the last month of the internet backstage!

• another cute Lead/Supporting divide. The leads brought their spouses to the Oscars and both Lupita and Jared brought a sibling!
• Interesting gender divide in terms of origins. The women are international (Australia and Kenyan/Mexican) while the men are both from the Southern US (Texas and Louisiana)
• All four went to college --  so since Ellen went there with a joke: stay in school, kids

Jared Leto photobombing Anne Hathaway

• Cate is the old pro (6 noms / 2 wins) but the other three are all 'first time's the charm' winners
• I interviewed 75% of this group, alas not a perfect fab four: ICYMI my chats with Matthew, Jared, & Lupita
• Four different zodiac signs but we have two waters (Matthew & Lupita) and two earths (Cate & Jared) and yes, I have insomnia, or else why else would I be looking this up?!