Doc Corner: 138 titles qualify for Best Documentary Feature

By Glenn Dunks

The Academy has released the longlist of titles in competition for the Best Documentary Feature category. The number is 138, a significant reduction from previous years that were well over the 200 mark. According to The Wrap, it is the lowest number since 2015. That certainly makes our job easier as well as that of the Academy’s documentary branch members who now have to get this down to a list 15 before the final five are announced on nomination morning.

Why is the number so much lower? Well, there are three good reasons for that... 

1. There’s still a pandemic happening, so fewer documentaries have been made let alone released.
2. The eligibility year is also shorter given those first few months of 2021 don’t count.
3. A new Emmy rule states that any film on the Academy’s viewing portal cannot then qualify for the television academy’s awards so if producers make this choice now they can't unmake it.

The full list, links to reviews, thoughts and other musings after the jump…

Click to read more ...

Showbiz History: Japanese hits, Harry Belafonte's birthday, and The Doors

6 random things that happened on this day, March 1st, in showbiz history...

1927 Harold George Bellanfanti Jr born  in Harlem. He later becomes globally famous in the 1950s as Harry Belafonte. Happy 94th (!!!) to the singer, actor, activist, and Honorary Oscar winner. He's one of the oldest living iconic American stars. 

1963 Akira Kurosawa's High and Low premieres in Japan. It snags a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film but Japan doesn't submit it to the Oscars.

a 1985 movie weekend, Shoplifters, and NSFW Javier Bardem after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Showbiz History: Three celebrity weddings and a biopic suggestion

4 things that happened on this day, December 31st, in showbiz history

1992 Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved and the Czech Republic and Slovakia both emerge from the split. Which means, for our purposes here at TFE that they started all new Oscar submission histories ;) Czechoslovakia had had six Oscar nominations and two wins from 23 submissions the bulk of which were in Czech (though one of their winners, The Shop on Main Street was Slovakian). Interestingly enough just after the split in 1993 only Slovakia submitted to the Oscars while the Czech Republic took a year off. The Czech Repubic has since won one Oscar (Kolya) and had two additional nominations (Divided We Fall and Zelary) and a finalist (The Painted Bird last season). The Czech submission this year is Charlatan. Slovakia has yet to be nominated though they have a Holocaust drama this year, The Auschwitz Report... 

Click to read more ...

The New Classics: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

By Michael Cusumano 

The best genre parodies are so full of affection for their targets that they can’t help but make a superior example of the very thing they aim to satirize. It can be fun to throw tomatoes at a genre’s contrivances and cliches from the outside, but titles such as Young Frankenstein or Down With Love circumvent your ironic detachment to provide the far more satisfying experience of playing with these tropes from inside a story you care about. 

This kind of rare pleasure is one of the reasons Shane Black’s crime caper comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has amassed the following it has since it underperformed in theaters back in 2005. Black’s film actually does double satirical duty, lampooning both the world of Raymond Chandler-esque noir and the world of the hyper-masculine, wise-ass body cop action movies of the 80’s and 90’s, a subcategory Black helped to inflate to absurd levels as the big gun screenwriter behind films like Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout...

Click to read more ...

Was 1993 the Best "Best Supporting Actor" Lineup Ever?

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of a rather amazing Oscar lineup, here's Ben Miller...

There have been several iconic Oscar nominee lineups throughout the years.  Best Actor 1967, Best Actress 1939, Best Director 1975... a wholly fearsome lineup comes around but once every couple of decades or so.  One of them is celebrating its 25-year anniversary this season: the 1993 lineup for Best Supporting Actor.

Before we get to the nominees, look at who just missed the lineup...  

Click to read more ...