Daily Archives: April 25, 2021

My Final 2020 Oscar Predictions

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since today is Oscar Sunday and all, I guess it’s time for me to make my final predictions for what will win tonight! Here we go! No guts, no glory!

Best Picture: Nomadland

Best Director: Chloe Zhao for Nomadland

Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya in Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Youn Yuh-jung in Minari

Best Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman

Best Adapted Screenplay: Nomadland

Best Animated Film: Soul

Best International Feature Film: Another Round

Best Documentary Feature: Collective

Best Documentary Short: A Concerto is a Conversation

Best Live Action Short Film: Two Distant Strangers

Best Animated Short Film: If Anything Happens I Love You

Best Original Score: Soul

Best Original Song: Husavik from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Best Sound: Sound of Metal

Best Production Design: Mank

Best Cinematography: Mank

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Costume Design: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Editing: The Trial of the Chicago 7 (bleh)

Best Visual Effects: Tenet

If I score 100% accuracy on my predictions, here’s how the night will end in totals:

3 Oscars — Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Nomadland

2 Oscars — Mank, Promising Young Woman, Soul

1 Oscar — Another Round, Collective, A Concerto is A Conversation, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, If Anything Happens I Love You, Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, Sound of Metal, Tenet, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Two Distant Strangers

In another few hours, we shall discover how good I am at guessing.

6 Directors Who I Hope Win An Oscar In The Next Ten Years

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater, the cinematic poet of Texas life, spent 12 years making one film. He took an enormous risk, starting an ambitious project with no guarantee of how it would end or that if would even end up being anything worth releasing. He assembled twelve years of footage and turned it into Boyhood, one of the best films of the century so far. For that, Linklater received the greatest acclaim of his career and, in 2015, he received his first Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Unfortunately, he then lost to a guy who made a gimmicky and pretentious movie about an actor producing a bad play.

My sincere hope is that Richard Linklater will get another chance. Though Last Flag Flying and Where’d You Go Bernadette? didn’t exactly live up to the hopes that some had for them as far as the Oscars were concerned, Linklater is a director who seems to have more than few great films ahead of him. Here’s hoping that, by 2031, the Oscars will have honored Richard Linklater.

Here are five more filmmakers who I hope will soon win their first directing Oscar.

The Safdie Brothers

Good Time and Uncut Gems are two of the most intense films ever made. In fact, they were probably too intense for the Academy, as neither one got the Oscar recognition that they deserved. Hopefully, the Safdies will continue to shock audiences while making great films and the Academy will eventually honor their efforts.

Joe Wright

Joe Wright is a veteran director, one who has directed two best picture nominees — Atonement and Darkest Hour — but who has yet to pick up a nomination for best director. (Personally, I would have nominated him for both Hanna and Anna Karenina.) Wright has two films coming out this year — the long-delayed Woman In The Window and the intriguing Cyrano. Of the two, Cyrano seems like the most likely Oscar contender. I can’t wait to see both of them!

Joanna Hogg

Joanna Hogg is a British director who was responsible for one of the best films of 2019, The Souvenir. She’s got a sequel on the way, The Souvenir Part II, and a murder mystery called The Eternal Daughter. With The Souvenir, she proved herself to be a sensitive director who has a great eye for detail and the ability to capture unforgettable performances. I can’t wait to see what she does in the future.

Debra Granik

Winter’s Bone and Leave No Trace are two films that get better each time that I watch them. Debra Granik was responsible for both. In Winter’s Bone, she directed Jennifer Lawrence in what is still Lawrence’s best performance. In Leave No Trace, she introduced the world to Thomasin McKeznie. Much as with Joanna Hogg, I look forward to seeing everything that she does in the future.

Kelly Reichardt

One of the most consistently interesting and challenging directors around, Kelly Reichardt deserved a nomination this year for her fantastic work on First Cow. Though Reichardt may have been snubbed this time, it’s hard not to feel that the Academy will get another opportunity to honor her.

Finally, I want to mention Emerald Fennell. I didn’t include her on this list because she’s nominated this year. Regardless of whether she wins tonight or not, Emerald Fennell is a filmmaker whose future work I will always make it a point to seek out.

Six Actresses Who I Hope Will Win Their First Oscar In The Next Ten Years

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing the theme from my previous post, here are 6 actresses who I sincerely hope will have won their first Oscar by the time that the 2031 ceremony rolls around.

Saoirse Ronan

Admittedly, Saoirse Ronan is an obvious pick. She’s only 27 years old and she’s already been nominated for four Academy Awards and five BAFTAs and she’s got the type of filmography that most performers can only dream of. For a while there, it looked like she was running the risk of being typecast as everyone’s demure girlfriend but, ever since she starred in Brooklyn, she’s proven that she’s capable of playing a lot more and she’s established herself as one of the best and most consistently interesting actresses around.

Personally, I would have given her the Oscar for Brooklyn. I also would have given her an Oscar for Lady Bird. This upcoming year, she’s going to appear in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and in an as-of-yet untitled murder mystery, in which she’ll co-star with Sam Rockwell. It’s really not a question of whether Saoirse Ronan will win an Oscar. It’s a question of when. She’s already overdue.

Scarlett Johansson

Much like Saoirse Ronan, Scarlett Johansson feels a bit inevitable. She’s both a star and an artist and she’s shown good instincts when it comes to picking both commercial and challenging material. She can be just as credible in an MCU film as she is in films like Lost in Translation, Marriage Story, JoJo Rabbit, and Under the Skin. Admittedly, Black Widow doesn’t seem like an Oscar film but still, it seems like only a matter of time until she gets the right role.

Jessie Buckley

Buckley deserved to win an Oscar last year for her performance in Wild Rose. This year, she deserved a nomination for her performance in i’m thinking of ending things. She’s got the Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed The Lost Daughter coming up this year, in which she’ll be playing a younger version of a character played by Olivia Colman. Buckley seems to be destined to get her first nomination sometime soon.

Thomasin McKenzie

I was a bit surprised that Thomasin McKenzie wasn’t nominated for either Leave No Trace or JoJo Rabbit. Seriously, her performance in JoJo Rabbit held the entire film together and prevented it from just becoming another awkward comedy about Hitler. This year, McKenzie will be appearing in Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, opposite Anya Taylor-Joy. Last Night in Soho has been described as being a “psychological horror film.” Horror is a genre that, the recent success of Get Out aside, traditionally struggles with getting Academy recognition but, still, anything is possible and McKenzie has proven herself to be one of the most talented actresses out there.

Zoe Kazan

Zoe Kanzan may not be as well-known as some of the actresses on this list but she’s given two of the best performances of the last ten years, in 2012’s Ruby Sparks and 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. She may not appear in a lot of movies but the ones that she does appear in are always better due to her presence. If that’s not awards-worthy, then what is?

Aubrey Plaza

If this seems like a strange pick to you, you obviously haven’t seen Ingrid Goes West.

Agree? Disagree? Do you have a pick of your own you’d like to mention? Let us know in the comments!

6 Actors Who I Hope Win An Oscar In The Next Ten Years: 2021 Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We talk a lot about which performers and directors have been snubbed at Oscar time.  For movie lovers, that’s an important subject.  We all know that great actors like Peter O’Toole, Cary Grant, Albert Finney, and others all went to their grave with several nominations but not a single competitive Oscar to their name.  Just last year, Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103 without having ever won a competitive Oscar. And certainly, over the past few months, the pandemic has made us far more aware of the fact that everyone is going to die someday.  We always talk about how certain actors are overdue for their first Oscar but sometimes we forget that being overdue doesn’t always translate into an eventual win.

With that in mind, here are 6 actors who I sincerely hope will have won their first Oscar by the time 2031 rolls around:

  1. Bill Murray

Bill Murray is not only a beloved cultural icon. He has also, in later yeaes, developed into a really good actor. He was previously nominated for Lost In Translation and he probably should have won. (He lost to Sean Penn, who was good in Mystic River but who would also later receive a second Oscar for Milk so it’s not like Penn would have never won an Oscar if Murray had won in 2004.) There was a lot of talk that Murray would be nominated for On The Rocks and, if not for this year’s extended eligibility window (which allowed Judas and the Black Messiah to compete with 2020 films despite being released in 2021), he probably would have been.

Bill Murray probably would be a popular winner and I know everyone would look forward to seeing what type of speech he would give. Standing in Murray’s way is that he tends to be pretty mercurial when it comes to accepting roles and he often seems to be more content to do brief cameos than to play the lead or even a major supporting character. Still, hopefully, either Sofia Coppola or Wes Anderson will write a perfect role for him in the next few years and Murray will get his shot. (They’ve never worked together but I’ve always felt that Murray and Paul Thomas Anderson would be an interesting combination.) Murray is 70 years old and not getting any younger so let’s get this done.

2. Jesse Plemons

It sometimes seems as if Jesse Plemons has come out of nowhere to suddenly become one of the busiest character actors around. Of course, that isn’t quite true. He started out on television, appearing in Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad. (He was terrifying in Breaking Bad.) He’s gone on to become a very busy character actor, appearing in everything from Game Night to The Irishman. Over the past few months, he’s appeared in Judas and the Black Messiah and i’m thinking ending things, giving shockingly good performances in both. (Interestingly enough, both roles were the type of characters that Philip Seymour Hoffman used to specialize in playing.) It honestly feels like it’s less a case of whether Plemons will win an Oscar as much as it’s simply a case of when.

3. Oscar Isaac

Oscar Isaac is a perennial on this list. Again, he just seems like one of those actors who is destined to win eventually. Someone just needs to give him the right role.

4. Ben Foster

The fact that Ben Foster has not only never won an Oscar but that he hasn’t even been nominated is somewhat amazing, to be honest. He’s been giving good and unpredictable performances for so long that I think there’s probably a danger of people taking him and his talent for granted. He deserved a nomination for his fascinating villain in 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma. He deserved an Oscar for his turn in 2018’s Leave No Trace.

5. John Goodman

Again, this is another actor who I’m always surprised to be reminded that he has never received an Oscar nomination, despite appearing in important supporting roles in several acclaimed films. Goodman, like the before-mentioned Bill Murray, isn’t getting any younger so someone needs to write this actor an award-winning role and they need to do it now.

6. Michael B Jordan

I almost didn’t include Jordan on this list, just because it seems so obvious that the man is destined to win an Oscar someday. He may get his chance next year with his lead role in Denzel Washington’s Journal for Jordan.

Who would you put on the list? Who would you take off? Have an opinion? Let us know in the comments and have a wonderful Oscar Sunday!

Book Review: Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!: Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time by Stephen Rebello

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Do you want to read a very good book about a very bad film?

If the answer’s yes, Stephen Rebello’s Dolls! Dolls! Dolls!: Deep Inside Valley of the Dolls, the Most Beloved Bad Book and Movie of All Time tells you just about everything you could possibly want to know about the production of the 1967 cult classic, Valley of the Dolls. Starting with the Jacqueline Susann and her decision to write the book that scandalized America and caught Hollywood’s imagination, Rebello offers up information on every bit of the process that brought Valley of the Dolls to cinematic life. From the search for the right director to the effort to turn Susann’s novel into a filmable script, it’s all here. Everything from casting to recasting to the costumes to the music to the release to the film’s subsequent status as a camp classic, none of it is left out.

Perhaps not surprisingly, to anyone who knows me, my favorite part of the book were the two chapters that dealt with the casting of “the dolls” and “the dopes.” A truly impressive number of performers were considered for the roles that were eventually played by Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate and, as I read about the casting process, I found myself thinking about all of the alternate casts that could have been assembled. Some of the possibilities feel inspired. Others boggle the mind.

Imagine, if you will, the famous fight scene between Patty Duke and Susan Hayward if the roles had been played by Barbra Streisand and Bette Davis. It could have happened! Imagine Raquel Welch as the tragic Jennifer North and Elvis Presley as her talented but simple-minded lover. Again, it could have happened. Among those who make appearances — some extended and some just as cameos — in the casting chapters: Candice Bergen, Ann-Margaret, Debbie Reynolds, Natalie Wood, Lee Remick, Mary Tyler Moore, Marlo Thomas, Shelley Winters, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Angela Lansbury, Millie Perkins, Tony Curtis, Christopher Plummer, James Garner, Adam West, James Caan, Martin Sheen, Tom Selleck, James Brolin, Robert Reed, Richard Beymer, Alain Delon, Richard Chamberlain, Anthony Perkins, Kevin McCarthy, and hundreds more. That’s quite an impressive list for a film that no one was apparently expecting to be very good!

The book devotes quite a bit of space to Judy Garland’s casting as Helen Lawson, a character who may have very well been based on her. Garland was infamously fired from Valley of the Dolls and replaced with Susan Hayward. The book explores all of the conflicting accounts about what led to Garland’s firing. On the one hand, if you’re into old Hollywood gossip, you’ll find a lot of it here. At the same time, Rebello shows a good deal of empathy and sensitivity in describing the situation that the phenomenally talented but emotionally insecure Garland found herself in when she was cast as Helen. For all the space that this book focuses on the sometimes unbelievable drama that went on during the shoot, Stephen Rebello is never less than sympathetic to the performers who worked on Valley of the Dolls. Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate are all brought to vibrant life in Rebello’s account. (Rebello is especially to praised for reminding readers that Sharon Tate was more than just the tragic victim of a terrible crime. She was also an actress of great promise and, from everyone’s account, a wonderful human being as well.) In fact, perhaps the only person who really comes across badly in the book’s account of the production is director Mark Robson, who is portrayed as being the type of manipulative showbiz hack that you would expect to find in a sordid, Hollywood roman à clef. Perhaps one like Valley of the Dolls!

Along with telling you everything you could possibly want to know about Valley of the Dolls, the book is also a sometimes humorous and sometimes thought-provoking portrait of Hollywood at the end of the studio system. Trying to keep up with the popularity of television and the permissiveness of European cinema, Hollywood tried to prove that it wasn’t culturally out-of-touch with its version of Valley of the Dolls. Of course, the end result was a film that showed just how out-of-touch Hollywood actually was. That’s one reason why Valley of the Dolls continues to be such a beloved bad film. Stephen Rebello’s informative book tells you everything you could want to know about it. Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! is a must-read for anyone who loves movies or who is interested in the history and development of American trash culture.

Welcome to Another Oscar Sunday!

Posted on by Doc Bowman

It’s Oscar Sunday!

Can you tell how excited I am?

Yes, cats don’t really care about the Oscars or the movies. But some humans do! And if you’re one of those humans, the Shattered Lens has you covered today! Though the flame-haired one is up at her lakehouse lovenest right now, I know that she has several reviews and other bits of Oscar trivia that she’s planning on sharing throughout the day. Here at the TSL Bunker, I’ll be keeping a eye on all the humans to make sure that they’re ready for the Oscars tonight!

Happy Oscar Sunday to those who observe. If you watch the ceremony, don’t forget that the cat needs some attention too!

As for who I think is going to win this year …. meh. I haven’t seen any of the nominees but I’m sure they needed more scenes featuring hunting, stalking, and napping. Lots and lots of napping.

Lisa’s Week In Television: 4/18 — 4/24

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jeff and I finally got to go to the lake this week! This was something we had been planning on doing since Valentine’s Day. Our plans were originally put on hold by the big winter storm and then after that, we decided to wait until Spring Break was over so that we could have some peace and quiet.

We went up to the lake on Monday and, though we have a TV up here, we decided to watch it as little as possible. As a result, there’s not a lot listed below but that’s okay. Sometimes you need a break from all of that!

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

Bit of a disjointed episode this Sunday but Allo Allo appears to have been a show that was at its best when everyone was scrambling around for various reasons. Herr Flick was looking for the painting. The Resistance stole a lawnmower engine. Rene just tried to keep things calm at the café. It was a funny episode, even if I did find it next to impossible to follow what was actually going on.

Baywatch (Weeknight, H&I)

Because I was on vacation, I only watched Sunday’s episodes of Baywatch this week and I have to admit that I was busy packing at the time so I didn’t really pay much attention. The first episode featured David Hasselhoff being stalked by a psychotic Australian lifeguard. Oddly enough, the first season of Baywatch also featured a self-centered Australian lifeguard, who Hasselhoff was constantly reprimanding. You have to kind of wonder what Baywatch had against Australian lifeguards.

The second episode featured Mitch’s son falling in love with a terminally ill girl. That was sad but, then again, that also seems like something that happened fairly frequently on Baywatch. There was one episode, if I remember correctly, where Mitch’s son fell in love with a homeless girl and then another where he was in love with a babysitter who was being stalked by a gangster or something like that.

The drama never ends on the beach.

The Floor Is Lava (Netflix)

I watched three episodes of this silly Escape Room-style game show on Netflix. Then I realized that the contestants weren’t actually falling in real lava and I lost interest.

Hell’s Kitchen (Fox, Thursday Night)

Even though we had a general no network TV rule in effect for most of the week, Jeff and I did watch the finale of Hell’s Kitchen on Thursday. Unfortunately, the supercool Mary Lou lost to the superbland Kori. I’m guessing Kori won because she’s older and has more experience than Mary Lou but it was still an extremely disappointing way for an otherwise good season to end.

The Old Guys (Sunday Night, PBS)

On Sunday’s episode, the old guys were extremely excited when Sally had to temporarily move in with them while some work was being done at her house. They even bribed the man who had been hired to do the work to drag things out so that Sally would have to stay with them for more than a week. Unfortunately, it didn’t really work out as Sally found the old guys to be too formal and the old guys were upset by Sally’s habit of blurting out the news after reading it online, therefore spoiling the 10 O’clock News. Finally, the old guys tried to finish the work on Sally’s house themselves and things got screwed up even further. As usual, the performances of Jane Asher, Roger Lloyd-Pack, and Clive Swift did a lot to make up for a generally predictable storyline.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Another episode, another 30 minutes of waiting for Granville to snap and kill Arkwright. This time, Arkwright deliberately misspelled the word “special” to encourage people to come into the shop. Granville looked like he was on the verge of snapping but he stopped himself at the last minute.

The Rookies (Sunday Morning, H&I)

This week’s episodes were a bit boring. The first one dealt with four cops going undercover at a singles complex to catch a serial killer. Unfortunately, the identity of the killer was revealed during the first minute of the show so there wasn’t much suspense. The second episode featured Andy Robinson (he played the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry, which came out a year before The Rookies started to air) as a criminal trying to harass the wife of one of the police officers. One of the things that I’ve noticed about The Rookies is that each episode is self-contained. There’s no continuing storylines, like we’ve come to expect from television shows today. Instead, every episode is some new, huge drama that will last an hour and will never be mentioned again. The main characters are continually getting shot at, kidnapped, and threatened but apparently, it has absolutely no effect on their psychological well-being. It’s good to be them, I guess.

Saved By The Bell (Sunday morning, MeTV)

A girl named Christy wanted to join the wrestling team! GASP! Zack helped to get her a spot on the team but then got embarrassed when she beat up two Valley High bullies who were giving him a hard time. Jessie went from supporting Christy to condemning her when she thought Christy was trying to seal away Slater. Fortunately, by the end o the episode, everyone had learned a valuable lesson and had become a better person. Christy was never seen again.

South Park (Sunday Morning, Comedy Central)

The gang went to the rain forest and discovered that it totally sucked! I know people who actually find this episode to be incredibly offensive. Personally, I think it’s hilarious because being trapped in the rain forest probably does suck.

Unsolved Mysteries (Netflix)

On Wednesday, me, Case, and Leonard live tweeted an episode of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries. It was about whether or not people in Japan were being haunted by ghosts following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It started out a bit depressing but, by the end of it, it was actually rather touching and life-affirming. Personally, though, I don’t believe in ghosts.

Upstart Crow (Sunday Night, PBS)

William Shakespeare was nearly humiliated by his rival, Robert Greene, and Kit Marlowe stole another play. All in all, it was just another day in Elizabethan London.

Yes, Minster (Monday Morning, PBS)

Poor Jim Hacker! On this week’s episode, Jim again tried to cut back on government waste and Sir Humphrey again conspired to keep him from doing that. This time, Sir Humphrey’s scheme was to distract Hacker by telling him about the sorry state of the UK’s nuclear fallout structures. Jim went on another crusade, one that was going well until he accidentally insulted the Prime Minister during a television interview. The thing that makes Yes, Minster such an interesting show is that you’re natural inclination is to be on Jim Hacker’s side (he means well) but, at the same time, there’s something delightfully entertaining about watching Sir Humphrey thwart all of those good intentions.

Music Video of the Day: Fly by Sugar Ray (1997, directed by McG)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Back in the day, when I first heard this song, I liked it but I also felt it was presumptuous to brag about about “statues crumble for me” when you’ve only had one big hit. Eventually, though, I smartened up and I realized that the song’s upbeat sound was hiding the fact that this is actually a very downbeat song about someone who just wishes that he could fly away from all of the world’s troubles. Statues crumble for me was a reference to Ozymandias. Who knows how long I’ve loved you was an homage to the Beatles. Almost all of the lyrics that sounded like they were bragging were actually referring to something else.

“My mother God rest her soul,” is a reference to the song “Along Again (Naturally)” by Gilbert O’Sullivan. At least at the time that Fly was recorded, all of the mothers of the members of the band were still alive. In fact, they all appear at the end of this video.

This video was directed by McG, who later went on to direct several feature films. You know that famous recording of Christian Bale yelling at a cinematographer on the set of Terminator: Salvation? McG was the director who had to listen to all of that.

Enjoy!