Oscars
Featured
With His “Disrespectful” Remix of Pynchon’s Vineland, PTA Mastered the Art of Adaptation
One Battle After Another
Adapted Screenplay. It’s often an afterthought: an extra category on the Oscar ballot, an edge in your betting pool. Unlike the rest of the Academy, screenwriters get two shots at an award: one for original screenplay, one for adaptation. If… Read more
“The Film Hits a Person’s Heart”: Colman Domingo on Sing Sing
Sing Sing (Courtesy A24)
A24’s Sing Sing follows a group of inmates participating in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, which offers incarcerated men the chance to produce theatrical productions while in prison. A true story developed by co-writers and producers Clint Bentley and… Read more
“I Believe Art Can Invent Hope”: Rashid Masharawi on From Ground Zero
From Ground Zero
For over a year, the images coming out of Gaza have been more chilling and disturbing than most horror films. Scenes of devastation and death became the norm, pain and suffering a recurring and unshakeable theme. But while Palestinians broadcast… Read more
Considerations: Holding Space for Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. Last March, in the week leading up to the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, I received… Read more
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“Watching The Battle of Chile Helped Me to Have the Courage to Trust my Intuition…”: Petra Costa on Her Oscar-nominated Doc The Edge of Democracy
Access, access, access — be it physical, emotional, or preferably both — is the doc filmmaker’s equivalent of location. And Brazilian director Petra Costa manages to get it in spades. Currently streaming on Netflix, her Oscar-nominated epic The Edge of Democracy, the third film in a personal, award-winning trilogy that began with the 2009 short Undertow Eyes, followed by her debut feature Elena three years later, is easily Costa’s most ambitious to date. With fly-on-the-wall camerawork, and guided by her eloquent voiceover narration, Costa captures up close and in real time the democratic car wreck of recent corruption scandals in Brazil that led to the […]
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The 2014 Oscars Documentary Feature Shortlist is Announced
The Oscars have released their shortlist of the 15 documentary features eligible for the Academy Award that have advanced to the next stage of consideration; the final five will be announced along with all other nominations on January 15. The titles and directors below, with links to our previous coverage as applicable: Art and Craft (Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, Mark Becker) — click here to read a guest post from the directors about completing their film’s score. The Case Against 8 (Benjamin Cotner, Ryan White) — click here to read the directors’ pre-Sundance statement about their film. Citizen Koch (Carl […]
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Genre at the 2013 Oscars: Live Action Short Death of a Shadow
The Oscars are not generally considered a crucial event for genre lovers; the inclusion of such films is often limited, and often ghettoized, relegated to technical awards only. This year there are several films in requisite categories like Makeup and Hairstyling, and Visual Effects (whose nominees include The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Avengers, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Prometheus). Another good category where one can snoop out genre fare is in Best Animated Film, and 2013 doesn’t disappoint, with the lovingly crafted and decidedly Gothic take on suburbia in ParaNorman and Tim Burton’s tale of a boy and […]
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Foreign Language Film Shortlist Announced for the 85th Academy Awards
Just announced were the nine films that will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®. (71 films had originally qualified in the category.) The list is a mixture of accessible crowd favorites (The Intouchables, A Royal Affair), with the rest being made of up critical darlings that have established themselves on the festival circuit, most notably Haneke’s Amour. Two films which will definitely benefit from the exposure are Baltasar Kormákur’s The Deep (which I wrote about just a few days ago) and another Nordic maritime tale, Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s Kon-Tiki, as neither were […]
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Cave Dwellers: 127 Hours DPs Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak
This piece was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue. 127 Hours is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (James Franco), Best Adapted Screenplay (Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy), Best Editing (Jon Harris), Best Original Score (A.R. Rahman) and Best Original Song. When director Danny Boyle first got in touch with d.p. Anthony Dod Mantle about 127 Hours, the film following their Academy Award-winning collaboration Slumdog Millionaire, Dod Mantle remembers him saying that “he was convinced that the only way to get through this [movie] would be to subject an actor to a pretty extraordinary physical experience in as intense […]
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Michelle Williams Q&A
