My Oscar Predictions

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, let’s do this!  Here are my predictions of what will win at the big show tonight!

Best Picture — Anora

Best Directing — Sean Baker, Anora

Best Actor — Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

Best Actress — Mikey Madison, Anora

Best Supporting Actor — Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Best Supporting Actress — Ariana Grande, Wicked

Best Original Screenplay — A Real Pain

Best Adapted Screenplay — Conclave

Best Animated Feature — The Wild Robot

Best Production Design — Wicked

Best Cinematography — Nosferatu

Best Costume Design — Wicked

Best Film Editing — Conclave

Best Makeup and Hairstyling — Wicked

Best Sound — Dune Part II

Best Visual Effects — Dune Part II

Best Original Score — The Brutalist

Best Original Song — Never Too Late from Elton John: Never Too Late

Best Documentary Feature — Sugarcane

Best International Feature: I’m Still Here

Best Animated Short: Yuck!

Best Documentary Short: The Only Girl In The Orchestra

Best Live Action Short: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Welcome To Oscar Sunday!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oscar, in happier times

Welcome to Oscar Sunday!

Today is practically a holiday for me.  As someone who loves movies and who also loves award shows, the Oscar Ceremony is an important annual event.  I really don’t feel like the previous year is over until the Oscars have been handed out.  For me, I won’t truly be able to move on from 2024 and really plunge into 2025 until the award for Best Picture is handed out.

This Oscar Sunday might be a little bit more lowkey than past Oscar Sundays but we’ll be here, the TSL crew, watching the show and rooting for our favorite films!  We’ll be posting all the winners, maybe a few reviews, and I’ll be tossing out some Oscar thoughts throughout the day.

Remember that picture below?  That was supposed to be the defining moment of the Oscars, an announcement that the Academy was still relevant and that Hollywood could compete with an increasingly online world.  Today, it can easy to forget just how fawning the coverage was over the 2014 Oscar selfie.  The picture is kind of a Rorschach test.  Do you see Hollywood fun and glamour or do you see a bunch of smug celebrities?  I’ve heard both answers.  I’ve always liked Bradley Cooper’s smile and Jared Leto trying to get in the shot.  What’s often forgotten is that poor Liza Minnelli was in the back of that crowd, trying to get in the picture but being not making it.

The Oscar selfie started out as a good thing but then it inspired other “celebs are just like us!” Oscar moments and boy, did those get old fast.  Chris Rock making people buy Girl Scout cookies was okay.  Jimmy Kimmel sending an army of celebs to interrupt a movie playing next door was Hollywood at its most self-important, walking into a movie that people had paid to see and loudly announcing themselves.  (If that movie’s audience cared about the Oscars, they wouldn’t have been at a movie during the ceremony.)  The infamous Stephen Soderbergh-produced Oscars were the worst, a COVID-era slog that couldn’t even pull off its grand emotional finale.  Probably the most spontaneous and human moment on a recent Oscar telecast was Will Smith punching Chris Rock on live TV, cursing at the top of his lungs, and then rambling about God after winning his Oscar.  Last year, Oppenheimer’s victory felt right and Robert Downey, Jr’s Oscar win felt like a moment that deserved a cheer.  It was a return to the wonderful Oscars of old but now, this year, we’re back to largely obscure nominees and the front runner’s chances falling apart because of things she posted online.  The big question tonight is not whether Emilia Perez will win (it won’t) but whether or not Karla Sofia Gascon’s tweets have taken down Zoe Saldana’s chances along with her own.  The old Oscar selfie hits a bit differently after all that.

Of course, the most interesting thing about this selfie is that, for all the attention it received, it ended up being memory holed, largely because of Kevin Spacey managing to get in the frame.  Ellen DeGeneres, as well, is no longer quite as beloved as she once was.  This picture truly is an artifact of a different time.  Myself, I like old movie so I’m always going to prefer Audrey Hepburn with her telegrams.

Enjoy Oscar Sunday!

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/23/25 — 3/1/25

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I watched nothing this week!

Well, that’s not quite true.  I watched an episode of Dark on Netflix with Case.  It’s time travel with a macabre, very German twist.  We’re on the third season now and the show’s mysteries are truly intriguing.

And then I watched the final episodes of Cobra Kai, also on Netflix.  If we’re going to be honest, Cobra Kai probably went on a season or two longer than it should have.  Towards the end, the show really was stuck in a repeating loop.  That said, I still got a little teary-eyed while watching that final episode.  I feel like I’ve really watched these characters grow up and that includes the ones who should have grown up decades earlier, like Johnny Lawrence.  I hope William Zabka is cast in more movies and shows after this.  If he’s not, at least Johnny got his chance at redemption.

Otherwise, I was sick this week and I watched nothing.  But fear not, I’ll be watching the Oscars in about 19 more hours!

4 Shots From 4 Films – Hong Kong super-actor Lau Ching-Wan!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today I want to share my love of the great Hong Kong actor Lau Ching-Wan! I’ve been a huge fan going back to the time when I bought the book, “Hollywood East: Hong Kong Movies and the People Who Make Them,” sometime around 2000 or so. I was already hooked on the films of Chow Yun-Fat, but it was in this book that I really discovered the special connection between director Johnnie To and Lau Ching-Wan. Of course I was immediately obsessed, and I soon would see some movies that I still consider my very favorites. At 61 years of age, Lau is still very much in demand and at the top of his game. In 2023, he won his third Hong Kong Film Award for the film DETECTIVE VS. SLEUTHS. In January of this year, the Hong Kong Film Critics Society named him their Best Actor for a record fifth time for his performance in the film PAPA (2024). He’s a truly incredible talent. Enjoy! 

C’EST LA VIE, MON CHERI (1993)

THE LONGEST NITE (1998)

THE WHITE STORM (2013)

DETECTIVE VS. SLEUTHS (2022)

Live Tweet Alert: Watch THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS WARDH With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, directed by Sergio Martino!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime and Tubi!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

 

The Bad Man (1941, directed by Richard Thorpe)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Gil Jones (Ronald Reagan) lives on a ranch with his cantankerous uncle, Henry (Lionel Barrymore).  After their cattle are stolen by the notorious bandit Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery), Gil and Henry are faced with the prospect of losing their ranch.  Banker Jasper Hardy (Henry Travers) wants to foreclose on Henry and take over the ranch but a businessman named Morgan Pell (Tom Conway) shows up and offers to pay the then-huge sum of $20,000 for the land.  Accompanying Morgan is his wife, Lucia (Laraine Day).  Lucia was Gil’s childhood love and Morgan fears that Lucia still loves Gil more than him.  Also in the mix is Gil’s comic relief best friend (Chill Wills), who has a crush on Hardy’s daughter (Nydia Westman).  Negotiations are interrupted when the flamboyant Lopez and his men return to the ranch and take everyone, but Gil, hostage.

This sepia-toned film is based on a stage play, one that had already been filmed twice.  It was Ronald Reagan’s first film for MGM and, when Reagan was running for President, he quipped that if he could survive acting opposite Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore than he could survive negotiating with Leonid Brezhnev.  The role of Gil is a typical Ronald Reagan role.  He’s good-natured and dependable and a little boring.  Because he once saved Lopez’s life, Lopez is willing to help him out with his problems.  Reagan is not bad in the role but he is overshadowed by Barrymore and Beery, two veteran actors who chew the scenery with gusto here.  Berry speaks in an exaggerated and not at all convincing Mexican accent while Barrymore bellows all of his lines.  Gil has so many different people yelling at him that it’s impossible not to feel sorry for him.  Morgan has ulterior motives for offering to buy the land and Tom Conway is a convincing villain.  Lopez helps out Gil and her uncle, saving not only their land but also plotting to bring Gil and Lucia back together.  It’s a stage bound mix of drama and comedy that doesn’t really work, though Beery and Barrymore are amusing and Ronald Reagan shows why he was cast in so many best friend roles.

Whether you’ll enjoy it will probably depend on how you feel about the cast because they’re really the only reason to watch.  If you’re a fan of Barrymore, Beery, or Reagan the film might work for you.  If you’re not, this stagey 70-minute western is probably not for you.