Last year, Natalie Portman made a political statement by calling out the fact that all five nominees for Best Director at the Golden Globes were men. It was a bit annoying, because it didn't matter whether or not a woman actually did a directing job worthy of consideration (Patty Jenkins, perhaps?), what mattered in her … Continue reading Oscar Gold 2019 – Best Director
Just like the Documentary branch of the Academy seems to have a seething vendetta against films that engage with mass audiences, so to do the Foreign Language voters seem to have an innate bias against one particular country. South Korea has been submitting off and on in this category since 1962, with 30 films put … Continue reading Oscar Gold 2019 – Foreign Language
It's time! It's finally time! Time to debate and debase the thinking of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, because the nominees for the 91st Oscars have arrived! Will I have to scramble to see multiple films I missed over the course of 2018? Will it just be a casual trip to the … Continue reading 3, 2, 1, BLITZ! – 91st Academy Award Nominees Announced!
Now that the Golden Globes are out of the way, and Awards Season is in full swing, it's time for the rest of the minor ceremonies to announce their nominees. We've already had the Independent Spirit and SAG nods for a while, but in the last few days we've also accumulated announcements from the Writers … Continue reading Let the Undercard Bouts Begin! – Guild and BAFTA Nominees Announced
Three years ago, Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski won the Oscar for Foreign Language for his film, Ida, about a Catholic nun who wants to experience sexual relations before officially taking her vows, and who learns from her only living relative that her parents were actually Jewish. In keeping with the mid-20th century European aesthetic, the film … Continue reading Across the Iron Curtain and Between the Sheets – Cold War
I Actually Paid To See This 