How Had I Never Seen... "Splash"

by Cláudio Alves 

From time to time, there's talk of creating new Oscar categories. Just this year, Brad Pitt spoke about the need to give stunt coordinators some love and appreciation during his acceptance speech. Maybe he's right, maybe there should be a stunts category. Another arguably necessary addition is a casting award that reflects that job's importance in creating the movies we love – it's much more crucial than original songs, for instance. Casting is not just a matter of hiring good actors, but the challenge of getting the right people for the right roles. It's knowing how to capitalize on a star's persona and energy, the performer's fame, the tonal register they bring and the audience's perception of them. In the right circumstances, a limited actor can be a better choice than a consummate thespian with a greater range.

Ron Howard's delightful Splash (available on Disney+) is a pertinent example of the importance of good casting for a movie's success, humor, and dramatic functionality. With different performers, it probably wouldn't work half as well as it does…

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The first Oscars I lived through

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout my life, I've always had trouble remembering numerical data, be it phone numbers or birthdays. Curiously enough, that never stopped me from being able to memorize movie's release years or various tidbits of Oscar trivia. That's why I started associating Best Picture winners to people's ages, to remember them. Some people have astrology; I have the Oscars. For instance, my sisters are Terms of Endearment, Dances with Wolves and Gladiator and my parents are West Side Story and The Sound of Music.

Although, maybe I shouldn't have chosen such a systemsince I've always detested my Best Picture, which won the Oscar precisely 25 years ago today. It was none other than 1994's maudlin hymn to political passivity and dumb luck known as Forrest Gump…

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Links

The Guardian wonders if dog actors are a thing no more after Call of the Wild. This makes us sad. Though wild animals as CGI makes sense, dogs actually love training/performing/playing with humans.
/Film Bong Joon Ho has floated the idea that he'd like to make a musical. Unlike /film, we don't approve given his comments. We've been saying this since the days of the early Aughts 'filmmakers who are non-fans or embarrassed by the musical form SHOULD NOT make them.' Periodt.

after the jump more on the coronavirus and Hollywood, Lyle Waggoner RIP, and more...

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Third Annual 'Ranking the Acting Clips' Post

by Ben Miller

For the third year, Nathaniel has been nice enough to let me rank the Oscar clips.  I was so excited to write this heading into Oscar night, until I saw the first clip package.  The Academy decided to shake things up and present a montage of clips for the group of nominees, so we have to work with what they gave us.  Presenting, the 2019 Oscar clips (sort of), ranked by quality.

That’s…a choice

Don't you EVER talk to your mother like that!

If something were to happen to my boss's car, well then I'd get in trouble."

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The Tom Hanks Challenge

by Jason Adams

Last night in the middle of telling us about the forthcoming Academy Museum the actor Tom Hanks, father to Chet Haze, started joking about Scarlett Johansson operating an orbital sander. Nothing like a good orbital sander gag. And pivoting the gag over to ScarJo's plus one slash the head-writer of Saturday Night Live, Hanks continued:

"Brad Pitt was on the roof working with his shirt off. As was Colin Jost. And dude, that was no contest."

Is it no contest, though? Needless to say, given my brain's far reaching and encyclopedic thirst archives, I had an immediate flash of that time that Colin Jost got photographed at the beach taking off his wetsuit in September of 2018 (more here), and the immediate question presented itself...

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