All posts in Oscars

5 Ways to Make the Oscars Better

By Ann Mamie | February 27, 2013 | Film, Oscars, TV | 1 Comment

wallis_oscars

Without question, the highlight of Sunday night’s Academy Awards show was cute little 9-year old Quvenzhané Wallis flexing her muscles. Shirley Bassey (who sang Goldfinger), Jennifer Hudson (And I Am Telling You), and Adele (Skyfall) also put on a show with their standout vocal performances. Yet as usual, the program ran entirely too long at 3 1/2 hours (or more if you watched the red carpet), with all awards the 40 million viewers really wanted to see happening in a short span of 30 minutes.

The 2013 Oscars can very well be described as 3 1/2 hours you’ll never get back, though most viewers probably didn’t have anything better to watch since their favorite shows were running reruns.

If you thought the Oscars were a yawn or didn’t watch, here are five ways we suggest would make the annual award ceremony better:

Netflix Instant: Black Oscar Nominees and Winners

By Ann Mamie | November 30, 2012 | Film, Lists, Oscars | No comments

It doesn’t happen everyday that an African American or person of African descent gets nominated for an Oscar. Because so many great performances are passed over, the Academy Awards fall short of representing the gold standard for all great film performances or accomplishments – though occasionally the voters do get it right.

Here’s a list of movies, available to watch on Netflix Instant, for which people of African descent have received Academy Award nominations.

Ben Affleck Ups His Stock With ‘Argo’

By Ann Mamie | October 31, 2012 | Film, Oscars, Reviews, Trailers | 2 Comments

With his third feature Ben Affleck is fast approaching the status of must-see director. His latest film Argo is an entertaining depiction of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of Iran.

Wearing a scruffy beard and mustache, Affleck plays CIA agent Tony Mendez, who goes into Iran under the guise of being a film producer who is shooting a movie with a “Canadian” film crew (comprised of the six Americans). Sneaking them out won’t be easy — none of them has a smidgen of film experience and only one speaks a lick of the native tongues.

The ending, like any based on a true story film, is predetermined. In Titanic, you knew the ship would sink. Argo’s, ending is similarly predestined, first by history and second by the commonsense understanding that any Hollywood film featuring Americans being defeated by a foreign country would never make it out of development.

Octavia Spencer Nabs Oscar for ‘The Help’

By Ann Mamie | February 27, 2012 | Film, News, Oscars | 9 Comments

Montgomery, Alabama native Octavia Spencer brought home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Help… or in The Help language, ‘Minny don’ won her an Oscar!’

And Viola Davis, although losing Best Actress to Meryl Streep for Iron Lady, made an even bigger statement by ditching her wigs and rocking a stylish natural ‘do.

See the look:

Do Movies Rely Too Much On Dialogue? Lessons from ‘The Artist’

By Ann Mamie | January 31, 2012 | Film, Oscars, Trailers | 1 Comment

It’s a weird thing to watch a silent film in 2011. You might get the urge to ask the movie theater crew to crank up the volume. Yet, French director Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist has received much critical acclaim for its innovation and artistry. It received accolades for Best Picture and Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, took Best Actor (for Jean Dujardin’s performance) at the Cannes Film Festival, and received a whopping 10 Oscar nominations.

One lesson we as an audience or as filmmakers might glean from The Artist is not how to save money on sound, but rather how might other elements of film, besides dialogue, command our attention?

In a silent film, the mise-en-scène becomes especially important because that is the only way of communicating information to the audience. And some of the best screenshots, allow us to understand the conflict that ensues in the plot without having watched the film.

‘My Week With Marilyn’ – Michelle Williams’ Oscar Screaming Display

By Ben Daité | November 18, 2011 | Film, News, Oscars | 8 Comments

Suffice it to say that Michelle Williams delivers an Oscar-winning performance. Her accomplishment will remain a screen siren. For one second, I thought Marilyn Monroe passed in 1962 at a tender age of only 36, but there she was – in all her seriousness, sensitivity, fragility and splendor – in full view, driving an animated and troubled Michelle Williams.

The vehicle is director Simon Curtis’ thoughtful adaptation of Colin Clark’s diaries. At the age of 23, Clark worked as third assistant director to Laurence Olivier for his 1956 romantic comedy The Prince and the Showgirl.

The film came between Bus Stop, (1956) and the all-time classic screwball comedy Some Like it Hot, (1959). Eddie Redmayne movingly portrays Colin, the star-struck young Brit who momentarily wins the heart of the most sensual creature in his world while serving as Marilyn’s hand-picked liaison to the British theatrical world she encroaches upon with the aid of her acting coach, Paula Strasberg.

[2012 Oscars] Predicting The Race For The Upcoming 84th Academy Awards

By Ben Daité | November 14, 2011 | Film, News, Oscars | 5 Comments

BEST ACTRESS?

1. Jessica Chastain, “Tree of Life”
2. Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
3. Adepero Oduye, “Pariah”
4. Felicity Jones, “Like Crazy”
5. Emma Stone, “The Help”
6. Michelle Williams, “My Week with Marilyn”

The Oscars love a pretty new face, especially when the attention for the actress helps raise the overall profile of her movie. Last year there was Jennifer Lawrence with Winter’s Bone. The year before that, there was Carey Mulligan in An Education. Then think of Ellen Page in Juno or Amy Adams in Junebug.

Like Crazy

My Week with Marilyn

The Help

Spike Lee Says Oscar Voters Make Bad Calls

By Ann Mamie | July 3, 2011 | Film, Oscars | 16 Comments

“There are many times in history where the best work does not get awarded,”
Spike Lee told The Hollywood Reporter. “And I’m not even talking about my own work.”

But talking about his own work, Lee said…

In 1989, Do the Right Thing was not even nominated [for best picture]. What film won best picture in 1989? Driving Miss Mother F—ing Daisy! That’s why [Oscars] don’t matter. Because 20 years later, who’s watching Driving Miss Daisy?

James Franco ‘ 127 Hours’ Parody

By Ann Mamie | May 12, 2011 | Film, LOL, Oscars | No comments

Check out this parody of the Oscar-nominated film 127 Hours (2010). The film starred James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara and was directed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later, Trainspotting).

‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ & The Oscar Drought for Comedy Films

By Ann Mamie | May 11, 2011 | Film, Oscars, Trailers | 2 Comments

If you damage someone’s property, it’s good to show some dedication to it. -Banksy

In Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), camera-happy French shopkeeper Thierry Guetta takes you deeper and deeper into the elusive world of street artists, capturing the transient graffiti art on film before it is erased from public memory. In the process, we meet infamous graffiti artists like Shephard Fairey, Invader, and Banksy — Britain’s most-wanted street artist. The film will have you questioning: What makes art art? How do you evaluate its authenticity? Is this film even authentic? And of course, who is this Banksy character?

Watch the trailer below:

Should Hollywood Make ‘The Killing Of Bin Laden’?

By Ben Daité | May 4, 2011 | Film, News, Oscars, Reviews | 7 Comments

Do you see a big commercial play on Osama Bin Laden? Hollywood has seen reverberating stories about turning the news into a fascinating movie. Independent financiers like Larry Ellison’s daughter Megan Ellison are already putting together a crew and as much as $20-$25 million to shoot as early as this summer.

So what makes the Bin Laden story attractive to filmmakers around the world? First of all, he’s quite a character with a rich family and national history hanging down his neck. Second of all, the killing of Osama Bin Laden marks one of the most satisfying military tales in US forces’ history.

Many pundits such as CBS’ Lara Logan are willing to make the connection between Bin Laden’s death and the film world, comparing it to Black Hawk Down and Valkyrie. But isn’t it tough to make a story suspenseful when everyone on the planet knows how it ends?

‘Frankie & Alice:’ Halle Berry’s Oscar Miss

By Ann Mamie | April 23, 2011 | Film, Oscars, Reviews, Trailers | 8 Comments

Director: Geoffrey Sax
Stars: Halle Berry, Stellan Skarsgård, Phylicia Rashad, Chandra Wilson
Runtime: 100 minutes
Genre: Drama

Even with a surprisingly good performance by Halle Berry, Frankie & Alice makes a great melodrama-of-the-week but never proves itself Oscar-worthy.

Watch a sneak peek below:

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