Here’s the trailer Moon Knight!
Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke both should have an Oscar by now. Well, they won’t win any for Moon Knight because it’s a miniseries. They might get some Emmy love but eventually, everyone wins an Emmy so it’s not as big of a deal. I mean, I’ve got an Emmy somewhere around here. It arrived in the mail and I was like, “Cool, I guess I won something.”
My point is, Oscar Issac and Ethan Hawke should both be in a lot of stuff. Anyway, here’s the trailer:
Best Picture — CODA
Best Director — Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Best Actor — Will Smith, King Richard
Best Actress — Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Supporting Actor — Troy Kostur, CODA
Best Supporting Actress — Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Best Adapted Screenplay — CODA
Best Original Screenplay — Belfast
Best International Film — Drive My Car
Best Documentary Feature — Summer of Soul
Best Animated Film — Encanto
Best Cinematography — Dune
Best Costume Design — Cruella
Best Film Editing — Dune
Best Makeup and Hairstyling — Eyes of Tammy Faye
Best Production Design — Dune
Best Sound — Dune
Best Visual Effects — Dune
Best Original Score — Dune
Best Original Song — No Time To Die
Best Animated Short Film — The Windshield Wiper
Best Live Action Short Film — The Long Goodbye
Best Documentary Short Film — The Queen of Basketball
Right now, you might be watching the Oscars and asking yourself, “I wonder what will be nominated next year.”
Well, it probably won’t be Michael Bay’s The Ambulance. Still, the film itself looks like it could be fun. Here’s the second trailer:
To be honest, I can’t really say that we need a fictionalized miniseries about the making of The Godfather. I say that as someone who is a Godfather fanatic and who eagerly reads anything that she can get her hands on that has to do with the production of the film.
I mean, the film’s production is an interesting story, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a story that should be told by the people who were involved, people like Coppola and Pacino and Duvall and Caan and …. well, you get idea. What it really doesn’t need is a fictionalized miniseries, one that will inevitably be more concerned with appealing to Twitter than with getting the facts right.
That said, my concerns aside, it looks we’re going to get at least one miniseries about the making of the film. (Maybe two.) Here’s the trailer for Paramount Plus’s The Offer. For the record, this is the miniseries in which Miles Teller replaced Armie Hammer in the role of the film’s producer, Al Ruddy. Hopefully, this will be good because a lot of people are going to assume it’s telling the genuine story of how The Godfather came to the screen, regardless of how many liberties it takes with the truth.
David Cronenberg
The master of the Canadian independent film, David Cronenberg, has never been nominated for an Oscar. He’s been honored by the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars but the Academy itself has never seen fit to nominate him.
Some of that is because Cronenberg’s early films were all of the horror genre and that’s usually the kiss of death when it comes to the Oscars. (Though that has started to change in recent years….) But, even as Cronenberg moved more into the “mainstream,” the Academy still seemed hesitant to embrace him. After Map of the Stars, it was rumored that Cronenberg had retired from filmmaking and it seemed like the Academy’s only hope would be to eventually give him an honorary award, as they did for David Lynch last year.
Well, it turns out that the rumors of Cronenberg’s retirement were premature. He’s got a film coming out later this year. Now, I realize that David Cronenberg is about 80 years old and, in another ten years, he’ll be at an age when most people are very much retired. That said, I hope he does have a few more films in him and I would love to see David Cronenberg win his first Oscar between now and 2032! Seriously, I think his acceptance speech would be killer. If nothing else, he deserves it for being such a good spot about appearing in Jason X.
Here are five other directors that I would like to see win their first Oscar within the next ten years:
2. Wes Anderson
He was previously nominated for Grand Budapest Hotel. That this year’s French Dispatch was both praised and criticized as being “the most Wes Anderson film that Wes Anderson has ever made” is a sign of why he sometimes struggles with the Academy. Anderson is one of those directors who people either love or hate. You either respond to his trademark quirkiness or you sit there with a permanent frown on your face. My hope is that enough people will love him that he’ll pick up his first directing Oscar in the next ten years.
3. Fran Kranz
Mass was one of the best and, in its low-key way, bravest films of 2021 and I can’t wait to see what Kranz is going to do next. Somehow, it seems appropriate that the stoner from The Cabin In The Woods just might be our next great director.
4. Emma Seligman
Shiva Baby was one of the best films of 2021, with director Emma Seligman deftly mixing comedy, horror, drama, and even a little romance with the surest of hands. Much as with Fran Kranz, I can’t wait to see what she does next.
5. David Lowery
Like Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater, David Lowery is a Texas filmmaker who has emerged as one of the best independent voices working today. A Ghost Story and The Green Knight both deserved a bit more Oscar consideration than they were given.
6. Sofia Coppola
Get with it, Academy!
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 far too many others all went to their grave with several nominations but not a single competitive Oscar to their name. Just two years ago, Kirk Douglas died at the age of 103 without having ever won a competitive Oscar. And certainly, over the past two years, we have been made 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. Sometimes, it translates into people watching a movie on TCM and saying, “How did that person never win an Oscar?”
With that in mind, here are 6 performers who I sincerely hope will have won their first Oscar by the time that 2032 rolls around:
Seriously, if you look up overdue in the dictionary, there’s a chance that Bradley Cooper would be used as the example. He’s been nominated so many times and he has yet to win, though I do get the feeling that he may have come close a few times. He deserved a nomination this year for Nightmare Alley and, if his role had been bigger, you could probably argue that he deserved one for Licorice Pizza as well. One gets the feeling that Cooper is taken for granted, in the way that many effortlessly good performers are. Maybe his upcoming biopic of Leonard Bernstein will finally do the trick.
2. Rachel Sennott
Rachel Sennott’s performance in Shiva Baby was one of the best of 2021 and it’s one for which she deserved to be nominated. It’s impossible to imagine that film working without her performance. Hopefully, it’ll lead to more worthy roles for her.
3. Chaske Spencer
Chaske Spenser gave one of the best performances of 2021 in Wild Indian. Though the film may not have been widely seen, Spenser’s performance was powerful and unforgettable and, much as in the case of Sennott, I hope it leads to more worthy roles for him.
4. Ann Dowd
It’s hard to believe that Ann Dowd hasn’t even received an Oscar nomination yet. Her performance in Mass was one of the best of 2021. In a role that others probably would have used as an excuse to overact and show-off, Dowd gave a quietly devastating and emotionally honest performance. Perhaps because Dowd disappears so effortlessly into her role, the Academy took her work for granted. Perhaps the film’s subject matter was simply too grim for the voters. Regardless of why the Academy didn’t respond to Mass, Dowd deserves an Oscar.
5. Adam Driver
It’ll happen soon. And I bet this former Marine will give the best acceptance speech of the night.
6. Scarlett Johansson
Much as with Driver, it’ll happen soon. Picking up both a lead and supporting nomination in 2020 was definitely a good start.
I can’t wait to see all six of these performers win their first Oscar! Don’t disappoint me, Academy!
On a distant planet, the Llamas march through the desert, their eyes glowing red and their hearts full of murder. One of the Llamas (played, according to the credits, by Louie the Llama) ends up in a trailer that turns out to be a spaceship. And when that trailer gets off course and crashes onto Earth, it’s time for a Llamageddon!
A nice couple in the country spot the Llama standing on the edge of their property. It must belong to the neighbors, they say. They consider chasing the Llama back to its home but they decided not to. After all, it’s about rain and who wants to chase a wet Llama in the rain? Not me!
Later that night, the Llama claims its first two victims.
Well, you can see where this is going, right?
After the funeral of that nice couple, their children decide to throw a party at the house. They call their friends and their friends bring beer, weed, and a lot of attitude. However, the Llama brings the horror. It turns out that the Llama can not only stomp you to death but it can also shoot red laser beams out of its eyes. Soon, the party is in chaos as person after person falls victim to the Llamageddon….
(And one poor soul actually turns into Llama which is horrific in theory but kind of cute to watch.)
Llamageddon is a film from 2015 and it has a running time of 69 minutes. (“Nice,” someone out there is saying.) Considering that the end credits are padded with a rap and also a fast-forwarded presentation of the film that the viewer has just watched, I’m going to guess that running time was deliberate. And actually, I respect that. Llamageddon is a film that knows exactly what it is and it has a sense of humor about its very existence. It’s a film that fully embraces the silliness of it all.
So, look …. I could sit here and I could go on and on about the acting and deliberately cheap special effects and the way that the film hints that even the cutest of animals can actually be deadly and dangerous but here is what you need to know.
It’s about a Llama from space and the Llama has the power to blow people up.
In other words, this is a film that was made for a very select audience of people who are amused by the idea of killer space llamas. I happen to be one of those people so I enjoyed the film. I respected the fact that the filmmakers stuck with their silly idea and they didn’t try to fool the viewers into thinking that the film was meant to be anything more than what it was.
Will you enjoy Llamageddon? Well, like I said, it’s only 69 minutes and it’s specifically made for people who laugh out loud at the term “space llama.” If, like me, you’re one of those people, check it out. It’s on Prime and Tubi and if you’re currently watching the Oscars but you’re desperate for some counter-programming, you can watch it right now with the knowledge that the movie will end before the Academy Awards.
Ah, the 2010s. Social media made anxiety the norm and Americans became obsessed with “red states” and “blue states.” Americans fetishized politicians and the Academy decided that it would be cool to do away with the idea of having a set number of best picture winners. One bright spot, for me at least: Arleigh invited me to write for this site! And the rest, as they say, is history!
I have to admit that I don’t agree with any of the Academy’s choices for Best Picture during this decade but I do appreciate a good deal of their nominations.
This is still one of my favorite nominations and again, this is one of those films that probably never would have been nominated during the previous century. In 2010, it not only picked up a Best Picture nomination but it also won Natalie Portman the Oscar for Best Actress.
2. The Academy Nominates Mad Max: Fury Road
Again, this is another film that probably wouldn’t have been nominated during the previous century, just because of its genre and its status as being a sequel. However, it full deserved to be nominated and it was nice to see the Academy embrace it. Remember when, at the start of the ceremony, it won all of those technical awards and it looked like Mad Max: Fury Road might actually go all the way? We were so excited! Of course, then Spotlight won.
3. The Academy Nominates Boyhood and Richard Linklater
It took the Academy long enough to show some respect to one of the most important indie filmmakers of the past few decades! Unfortunately, neither Linklater nor his film won. How Birdman was selected over Boyhood, I’ll never know. But, at least it was nominated.
4. The Academy Nominates Michael Keaton For Best Actor
I may not have liked Birdman overall but I do think that Michael Keaton gave a wonderful performance and, by nominating him, the Academy reminded people of just how good (and underrated) an actor Keaton truly was. Now, Keaton is one of our busiest character actors and I don’t think anyone would have expected that, pre-Birdman and the Academy.
5. The Academy Nominates Bruce Dern For Best Actor
Like Michael Keaton, Bruce Dern is a good but underrated actor. The Academy nominating him for Nebraska reminded people of that. It’s just a shame he didn’t win because, if anyone was going to give a memorable acceptance speech, it would have been Bruce Dern.
6. J.K. Simmons Wins Best Supporting Actor For Whiplash
“Not my tempo.” Agck! That line still gives me nightmares. Still, this was one of the most deserved Oscars of the 2010s and J.K. Simmons gave a wonderfully sincere acceptance speech. I always love seeing a good character actor get some recognition.
Well, that’s it. Will the Academy get six things correct tonight? They’ve already gotten 8 incorrect as a result of moving those 8 categories off of the live show. Still, even when they screw up, I always have hope that the Academy will learn from their mistakes. I’m an optimist.
We’ll see what happens! Enjoy the show!
Ah, the aughts. The new century started out with the terror of 9-11 and it ended with the collapse of the world’s economy. In between, a lot of films were released. Some of them were really good. A few of them were nominated for Best Picture. Most of them were not.
Still, let’s not focus on the negative. Instead, here are 6 times that the Academy got it right in the aughts!
A fantasy film winning best picture!? Before this decade, that would have been unthinkable. The Academy might be willing to nominate the occasional fantasy or sci-fi film but it would have been nearly impossible to imagine that they would actually honor one of them. The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, however, changed that.
Now, of course, the legacy of LOTR has been damaged by far too many imitations and also by the lukewarm response to The Hobbit. People tend to roll their eyes whenever they hear that a movie is going to be split into multiple parts. That said, Peter Jackson’s original epic still holds up marvelously well.
2. Bill Murray Is Nominated For Best Actor
Murray received his first, long overdue Oscar nomination for his performance in 2003’s Lost in Translation. Personally, I wish he had won. But, even though he didn’t win, the nomination still transformed the way that people viewed Bill Murray and help him go from being a somewhat erratic comedic actor to being one of our best interpreters of 21st century ennui.
3. Martin Scorsese Finally Wins Best Director
Though it’s really not even his best film, The Departed is the film for which Martin Scorsese finally won the directing Oscar that he should have previously won for Goodfellas. No longer would cinema lovers have live in a world where Sam Mendes had an Oscar but Martin Scorsese did not. And, of course, Scorsese being presented his award by his three biggest friend in the industry — Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola — only made the moment all the more special.
4. Kathryn Bigelow Wins Best Director….
….and makes history as the first woman to ever win the Oscar for Best Director! Even though I wasn’t a particularly huge fan of The Hurt Locker (my favorite films that year were An Education and A Serious Man), I cheered out loud when Bigelow’s name was called. That her main competitor was her ex-husband made her victory all the more satisfying.
Mulholland Drive (2001, dir by David Lynch, DP: Peter Deming)
5. David Lynch is Nominated For Best Director
It will always be interesting to me that one of the most acclaimed films of this century, Mulholland Drive, was originally meant to be a pilot for a television show. Only David Lynch could direct an Oscar-worthy pilot. The Academy, to their credit, acknowledged that with a deserved Best Director nomination in 2001.
6. No Country For Old Men Wins Best Picture
Based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy and directed by the Coen Brother, 2007’s No Country For Old Man was a masterpiece. It had some fierce competition and there’s still some debate today as to whether or not it should have defeated There Will Be Blood. Personally, I think that Paul Thomas Anderson is one of our greatest living directors but I also think that, in this case, the Academy made the right choice. Plus, the Coens finally won the Oscar that they should have won for Fargo!
Up next: the 2010s!
Ah, the 90s.
Some would say that this was the last good decade that the world would ever experience. It was certainly a good decade for films! Though I don’t agree with the majority of the Academy’s winners from this decade, I do agree with most of their nominations. Here are 6 things that Academy got right in the 90s!
Way back in 1994, it actually probably took more than a little bit of courage to not only nominate a film like Pulp Fiction for Best Picture but to also honor its director as well. Still, by doing so and also giving Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary an Oscar for their screenplay, the Academy not only announced that Tarantino had arrived but they also embraced an entirely new, pop culture-driven sensibility. Of course, this led to a number of very bad films that were directed by people hoping to be the next Tarantino but it led to some pretty good films as well. It is certainly cemented Tarantino’s place in the culture.
2. Nominating The Thin Red Line and Terrence Malick
The 90s may have begun with Tarantino and the combination of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction but it ended with the return of Terrence Malick and his own idiosyncratic but unforgettable aesthetic. Though 1997’s The Thin Red Line may not have won best picture and Malick did not win Best Director, the Academy still deserves some credit for nominating both of them.
3. Nominating Fargo and the Coens
Like Pulp Fiction and The Thin Red Line, Fargo didn’t win Best Picture. However, by nominating the film, the Academy was announcing that times had changed. Directors like the Coen Brothers were no longer destined to be on the outside looking in. Much like Pulp Fiction and Thin Red Line, Fargo has gone to be much more influential than the film to which it lost.
4. Steven Spielberg Winning Best Director for 1993’s Schindler’s List
It took Spielberg a while to win his first Oscar. When he finally did when, it was for one of his best and most important films.
5. Clint Eastwood Winning Best Director For 1992’s Unforgiven
The 90s were about two things: independent films and unexpected comebacks. After years of being dismissed as just an action star who rarely spoke, Eastwood made a critical comeback and proved that he was a masterful director with Unforgiven. He also proved that, as an actor, he was capable of more than just snarling. Unforgiven remains one of the most powerful explorations of violence ever put on film.
6. The Silence of the Lambs Wins Best Picture
The Silence of the Lambs is often described as being the first horror movie to win Best Picture. I consider it to be more of a thriller than a horror film but still, one cannot deny it’s influence. The character of the erudite and manipulative serial killer has become such a trope that it can be surprising to go back and rediscover just how Anthony Hopkins was in this film.
Up next: the 2000s!
Through the Shattered Lens 