Lisa’s Way, Way, Way, Way, Way, Way, Way Too Early Oscar Predictions for January

Posted on January 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s a new year and that means that it’s once again time for me to do something spectacularly stupid.

Below, you’ll find a list of Oscar predictions. However, this is not a list of what I think will be nominated on January 13th. No, instead, these are my predictions for the upcoming year. This the first installment of my monthly predictions for which 2020 films will be nominated next year at this time.

Just in case it’s not already obvious how foolish this is, consider the following: Last year, at this time, no one had heard of Parasite. Maybe a handful of people knew that Noah Baumbach’s next film was going to be called Marriage Story. There were vague rumors about 1917 and there were still serious doubts as to whether Scorsese would ever finish putting together The Irishman. In short, trying to predict the Oscars 12 months out is impossible.

Needless to say, I haven’t seen a single one of these films listed below so I can’t tell you one way or the other whether or not they’re going to set the world on fire. Instead, what is listed below is a combination of random guesses and my own gut feelings. You’ll notice that there are a lot of big names listed, Spielberg, Anthony Hopkins, Ron Howard, and Glenn Close. Yes, all of them could very well be Oscar contenders. At the same time, they’re all also a known quantity. They’ve all got a good track record with the Academy and, as of right now, that’s all that I have to go on.

You may also notice that I’ve listed several films that will, in just a few weeks, be playing at the Sundance Film Festival. Again, it’s not that I know anything about these films that the rest of the world doesn’t. Instead, it’s simply a case of I looked at the list of Sundance films, I read the plots, and a few times I said, “That sounds like it could potentially be a contender.” After all, it seems like at least one nominee comes out of Sundance every year. Why shouldn’t it happen again?

My point is that you shouldn’t take these predictions too seriously. Some of the films and performers below may be nominated. Some definitely will not be. But, next year, we will at least be able to look back at this list and have a laugh!

So, without further ado, here are my Oscar predictions for January!

Best Picture

Dune

Hillbilly Elegy

The Many Saints of Newark

Minari

News of the World

Respect

Tenet

The Personal History of David Copperfield

The Trial of the Chicago 7

West Side Story

Best Director

Paul Greengrass for News of the World

Ron Howard for Hillbilly Elegy

Christopher Nolan for Tenet

Steven Spielberg for West Side Story

Denis Villeneuve for Dune

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper in Bernstein

Tom Hanks in News of the World

Lance Henriksen in Falling

Anthony Hopkins in The Father

Michael Keaton in Worth

Best Actress

Amy Adams in Hillbilly Elegy

Glenn Close in Four Good Days

Jennifer Hudson in Respect

Elisabeth Moss in Shirley

Amy Ryan in Lost Girls

Best Supporting Actor

Willem DaFoe in The Last Thing He Wanted

Richard E. Grant in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Mark Rylance in The Trial of the Chicago 7

Forest Whitaker in Respect

Steven Yeun in Minari

Best Supporting Actress

Glenn Close in Hillbilly Elegy

Vera Farmiga in The Many Saints of Newark

Tilda Swinton in The Personal Life of David Copperfield

Marisa Tomei in The King of Staten Island

Helena Zengel in News of the World

4 Shots From 4 Films: The 4 best Best Picture Winners

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 is Oscar Sunday! Tonight, a new film will join the exclusive list of the 90 previous best picture winners!

Sometimes, we spend so much time focusing on the winners that shouldn’t have won that we forget that some truly great films have managed to take the top prize. So, with this edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films, I’m highlighting for the four best Best Picture winners!

4 Shots From 4 Films

All About Eve (1950, dir by Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

The Godfather Saga (1972 and 1974, dir by Francis Ford Coppola)

It Happened One Night (1934, dir by Frank Capra)

West Side Story (1961, dir by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins)

A Movie A Day #87: Free Grass (1969, directed by Bill Brame)

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

As everyone surely knows, before they appeared as Dr. Lawrence Jacoby and Benjamin Horne on Twin Peaks, Russ Tamblyn and Richard Beymer co-starred in West Side Story. Tamblyn played Riff, the leader of the Jets. Beymer played his best friend, Tony, who fell in love with Natalie Wood. West Side Story is a classic that won several Oscars. What is not as well known is that, in between West Side Story and Twin Peaks, Beymer and Tamblyn co-starred in one other movie, a hunk of psychedelic cheese called Free Grass.

By the late 60s, both Beymer and Tamblyn had tired of their clean-cut images and, like their characters in Free Grass, had become card-carrying members of the Hollywood counter-culture. Beymer plays Dean, a motorcycle-riding drop-out from conventional society. Dean meets and falls in love with buxom, mini-skirted Karen (played by Lana Wood, younger sister of Natalie). When a riot breaks out on the sunset strip, Dean punches a cop. With the Man now looking for him, Dean needs some quick cash so that he and Karen can escape to Dayton, Ohio.

(Dayton, Ohio?)

That’s where Russ Tamblyn comes in. Tamblyn plays Dean’s friend, Link. Link works for a drug kingpin named Phil (played not very convincingly by Casey Kasem, of all people). Phil is willing to pay Dean $10,000 if he smuggles several pounds worth of grass across the Mexican border. Dean agrees but soon finds himself being pursued by two narcotics agents, played by Jody McCrea and Lindsay Crosby (sons of Joel McCrea and Bing Crosby, respectively). Because Dean is not willing to commit murder, Link plots to kill him. But first, Link doses Dean with LSD, which leads to the de rigueur psychedelic 60s light show.

Slow-moving and ineptly directed, Free Grass is for fans of the 1960s counterculture only. Russ Tamblyn provides the movie with what little energy it has but Richard Beymer apppears to be just as uncomfortable here as he was in West Side Story and Casey Kasem shows why he was better known as a DJ than an actor. Lana Wood does look good in a miniskirt, though. Otherwise, Free Grass shows why both Tamblyn and Beymer grew so frustrated with Hollywood that they were both in semi-retirement when David Lynch revitalized their careers by casting them on Twin Peaks.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #25: West Side Story (dir by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins)

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Nearly two weeks ago, I started on something that I call Embracing the Melodrama, Part II. For the next month or so, I will be reviewing, in chronological order, 126 examples of cinematic melodrama. I started things off by reviewing the 1927 classic Sunrise and now, 24 reviews later, we’re ready to start in on one of my favorite decades, the 1960s!

And what better way to start the 60s than be taking a look at the 1961 best picture winner, West Side Story?

Being a lifelong dancer, I have to admit that I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen West Side Story. If you love to dance, this is one of those films that you simply have to see. Of the various musicals that have won best picture, West Side Story is arguably the best. Based on a hit Broadway show (which was itself rather famously based on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), West Side Story was co-directed by the great choreographer Jerome Robbins and it features some of the greatest dance numbers ever filmed. If you don’t get excited while watching the Sharks and the Shark Girls arguing about America, then there’s really no hope for you. Tonight Quintet, Somewhere, A Boy Like That, Maria … even Gee, Officer Krupke, has there ever been another musical score that just leaves you wanting to sing as much as West Side Story does?

(I mean, I’ll be the first admit that I absolutely love the theme song from Santa Claus Conquers The Martians but it can’t even compare to West Side Story!)

What’s funny is that, in between viewings of the film, I always seem to forget just how good West Side Story actually is. (Fortunately, this also means that I’m pleasantly surprised every time I watch the movie.) In theory, this is an easy film to joke about. It tells the story of street gangs who are apparently just as good at dancing as they are at fighting. The all-white Jets snap their fingers and tell us that when you’re a jet, you’re the best. The Puerto Rican Sharks are moving in on the Jets’s territory. The two leaders of the gangs — Riff (Russ Tamblyn) and Bernardo (George Chakiris) — want to settle thing with a “rumble.” And it’s easy for contemporary audiences to laugh because “rumble” is such an old-fashioned way of saying things that it’s now one of those terms that’s only used when one is trying to be ironic or snarky.

(For instance, I was with some friends at the movies and the people sitting behind us kept talking. One of my friends told them to shut up. One of the loud people replied that we were the ones who need to shut up. As the insults escalated, I finally said, “Y’all — do we really have to have a rumble right now?” Unfortunately, everyone was too busy arguing to appreciate my pitch perfect delivery.)

Riff’s best friend is Tony (Richard Beymer). Tony was a co-founder of the Jets but now, he wants to move on from the gang. He meets a girl named Maria (Natalie Wood) and the two of them fall in love. However, Maria is Bernardo’s younger sister. Her best friend, Anita (Rita Moreno), is Bernardo’s girlfriend. Loving Tony, in other words, is prohibido.

And, since West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet, you can probably guess to what type of tragedy all of this leads.

Now, before I heap too much praise of West Side Story, I do need to admit that, in the role of Tony, Richard Beymer does not exactly radiate charisma. He’s handsome enough but you never quite buy that he was former member of the Jets. Since Tony’s singing voice was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant, you do believe everything that he sings. But otherwise, Richard Beymer comes across as being stiff and rather awkward.

And it doesn’t help, of course, that he’s acting opposite Russ Tamblyn who, in the role of Riff, is a whirlwind of unstoppable energy. Tamblyn is the one who you remember at the end of the film, followed by George Chakiris. Compared to those two, Richard Beymer’s performance is just dull.

Fortunately, there’s Maria (played by Natalie Wood with Marni Nixon doing the singing). Natalie Wood is one of my favorite of the classic Hollywood actresses. She’s certainly one of the actresses with whom I most idenitfy. With Richard Beymer sleepwalking through the role of Tony, it falls on Natalie to provide some true emotion to the film’s love story and that’s exactly what she does. Every time I see West Side Story, I want to be Natalie Wood and I want to have a best friend like Rita Moreno and I want to meet someone like Riff…

Sorry, Tony.

West Side Story is one of the best musicals ever made. If you’re not dancing and then crying and then dancing while crying as you watch West Side Story, then you’re doing it wrong.

Dance Scenes I Love: “America” from West Side Story

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s no way that I could ever write about the dance scenes that I love without including at least one scene from 1961’s best picture winner, West Side Story.

Sadly, people tend to underappreciate West Side Story. They focus on the fact that the singing voices of Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer are overdubbed by Marni Nixon and Jimmy Bryant, respectively. They laugh at the sight of “tough” street kids dancing around and singing that when you’re a jet, you’re the best.

Well, they’re wrong.

West Side Story is still one of the best musicals ever made and every time I see it, it’s a magical experience for me.

I think my favorite number from the film remains America. Watching this scene, you can tell why both Rita Moreno and George Chakiris won Academy Awards for their performances. They both bring a lot of fire and passion to their roles and nowhere is that more apparent then in America.