Now that the drama is over about whether the Academy would disqualify Andrea Riseborough for her rules-skirting DIY Oscar campaign for To Leslie, we can now return to the question every indie filmmaker wants to know. Just how do you run a DIY Oscar campaign on an indie film that grossed less than $30,000? I don’t know exactly how she did it, but I can tell you how I did it with my recent Watergate thriller/comedy 18½ that grossed about the same (though with slightly different results). In short, the road to getting an Oscar nomination (much less an award) […]

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 […]

As a viewer it’s easy and arguably admirable to skip the Oscars. As a film writer, a disinterest in the Academy Awards can provide thoughtful commentary on the artistic and commercial priorities of our film business. But for those with more vested interest, not attending the Awards is a powerful statement. In the year of the Oscar boycott, this essay by Anohi (aka Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons), the first transgender performer ever to be nominated, is particularly bracing. Anohni, who was nominated for Best Original Song (“Manta Ray,” her collaboration with J. Ralph from the movie Racing […]

Kevin B. Lee has been considering the candidates in the major Oscar categories. In this video essay, he  breaks down the styles of the five candidates (The Hateful Eight, Sicario, The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, Carol). The sound’s off as Lee narrates, but he also recommends watching the video silently to focus more on the cinematography. Pressed for time? You can read his essay here.

By this point, you’re probably well aware of who has a new golden figurine on his/her most prized mantelpiece this morning, but here’s the full list. I found the show relatively painless — in large thanks to Ellen DeGeneres and the show-stopping Adele Dazeem — with the predictable loss of The Act of Killing and its fellow “issue” docs to 20 Feet From Stardom a cynic’s microcosm for the affair.  More curious was the passive agressive beef between 12 Years a Slave’s John Ridley and Steve McQueen, who seemed to go out of their way not to acknowledge one another in their respective […]

In 2002, Palestine made its first Best Foreign Language Film submission to the Academy Awards. Despite accepting films from Puerto Rico, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did not accept their submission. But by the next year, the policy had changed: the Palestinian Ministry of Culture’s submission, Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman, was accepted. Three years later, Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, the acclaimed and controversial story of two Palestinian men planning a suicide attack on Tel Aviv, was not only accepted as Palestine’s submission, it was also one of the final five nominees competing […]

Setlife Magazine has generously compiled the technical specifications of the films nominated for the Cinematography, Directing and Best Picture Oscars, and let’s just say ARRI shows up more than once. All of the Cinematography nominees were photographed on an ARRI (3 Alexas versus 2 Arricams), with a mix of Panavision, Zeiss, Cooke and Angenieux lenses. Also noted were the films’ negatives and prints, which bandied back and forth between Kodak and Fuji. Only her (C300) and The Wolf of Wall Street (EOS C500) opted for Canon, in addition to their arsenal of Alexas and Arricams. Notably absent is any sign of Red. […]

The Academy Awards are an anomaly in that they manage to inspire outrage and debate around often obvious and safe selections. I could sit here and pout and tell you how shocked I am that Inside Llewyn Davis was “snubbed” in the major categories, but is that surprising given the Academy’s proclivities? This is a body that lives for pomp, circumstance (not for nothing does a David O. Russell film score four acting nominations, two years in a row) and Alexander Payne, the cinematic embodiment of Wonderbread. But let’s focus on the positives: The Act of Killing and the IFP-supported Cutie and the Boxer […]

Oscars show host Seth MacFarlane and actress Emma Stone announced the nominees for the 85th annual Academy Awards this morning at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The award show telecast will air on Sunday, February 24 at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT on ABC. Not surprisingly following the buzz this year, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is the nomination frontrunner, earning 12 nods including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones) and Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field). Life of Pi edged out Zero Dark Thirty […]

With Barbara, German auteur Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow) delivers one of 2012’s better character studies, a tense and sparing Cold War-era drama about a female doctor (Petzold muse Nina Hoss) who’s relegated to a hospital near the Baltic Sea after trying to leave the German Democratic Republic. It’s 1980, and the movie effortlessly conveys the period in all its stark unease. Honored at the 62nd Berlinale and serving as Germany’s official Foreign-Language entry for the 85th Academy Awards, Barbara sees its eponymous heroine grapple with the restraints of politics and her own fears in a manner as mysterious as it […]