If either The Artist or Hugo wins the Best Picture Oscar, it will say something interesting about how the Hollywood community accepts the technical changes around them. If Hugo wins, it will be the first 3D movie, and the first shot digitally, to win the prize. If The Artist wins (which would please me far … Continue reading Changing Film Technologies Reflected in Best Picture Nominees
Category: Awards
Oscars at the Cerrito
I discovered just how fun an Oscar party can be. It happened last night at the Cerrito. But I must confess: I did not, after all, come costumed as a lesbian gardener ballet dancer with an eye patch. A few people were costumed as movie characters, however, and a great many dressed up formally for … Continue reading Oscars at the Cerrito
Oscar Parties
The rule used to be that you watched movies in theaters and TV at home. Today, so many of us watch movies at home that we need to get out once in awhile to watch TV in the theater. And why not do it with the biggest movie night on television: The Academy Awards? Comedy … Continue reading Oscar Parties
Technical Formats and the Best Picture Oscar
If The Social Network wins the big prize this month, as many think it will, it will be the first picture to do so not shot on film. The Mark Zuckerberg biopic was shot digitally. A year ago, a lot of people thought that Avatar was going to win, and it would have achieved that … Continue reading Technical Formats and the Best Picture Oscar
Academy Award-Nominated Live-Action Shorts
B+ As I promised in my last post, here are my thoughts on the five films nominated for the Best Live-Action Short Subject Oscar. They're playing, as a single feature, next week at various theaters around the Bay Area. These are, overall, a bit better than this year's animated shorts. They're also longer on average. … Continue reading Academy Award-Nominated Live-Action Shorts
Academy Award-Nominated Animated Shorts
B Collection of animated shorts Various theaters around the Bay will screen the Oscar-nominated short subjects next week. I got to screen them early. I'll tell you about the animated shorts here, and the live-action ones in a later post. The animated shorts vary from conventional to creative, hilarious to poetic, and masterful to mediocre. … Continue reading Academy Award-Nominated Animated Shorts
Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations
They're out, and there are no real surprises. But I still have a couple of comments: Like everyone else, I'm assuming that either The Social Network or The King's Speech will win Best Picture and its almost constant companion, Best Director. Both of them could win Best Screenplay, however. The King's Speech, based on historical … Continue reading Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations
For Your Consideration
I missed a festival: For Your Consideration. Well, I didn't quite miss it. It opens tomorrow at the Rafael, and runs for eight days. But I didn't catch it in time to include it in last week's newsletter. The festival will screen ten foreign-language films that have been submitted, by their countries of origin, into … Continue reading For Your Consideration
The Oscars
Hey, didn’t I predict last week that Cameron would lose to Bigelow? Really, the give-away was that Avatar wasn’t even nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Just as the Best Picture winner usually takes Best Director, it also generally gets one of the two screenwriting awards. Although my favorite nominee was actually Precious, I’m delighted that … Continue reading The Oscars
Oscar Report 3
Technical problems kept me from live blogging throughout the Academy Awards, so let me hit the high and low spots: Just my luck! When Best Picture finally goes to the low-budget, heavily subtitled movie that normally wouldn't stand a chance, it's a picture I don't even like. Yes, Milk was more conventional, but it was … Continue reading Oscar Report 3
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