Listen, I know we could talk about Oscar snubs all day and it wouldn’t make any difference. To an extent, expressing any amount of emotion for the Academy and their decisions is a waste of energy. It is all futile and arbitrary, and it’s better not to get caught up in it.
But, I mean, there’s no love for “Glasgow” in the Best Original Song category? It is a great song inside a lovely little film called Wild Rose. It deserved some recognition here. Seriously, what the f–
The batch of Best Live Action Short Film nominees this year is strong. It will be difficult to narrow this down to a single frontrunner, no less so because the Academy sometimes makes odd choices in this category.
Osgood Perkins’ Gretel & Hansel, produced by Orion Pictures and Bron Studios, reverses the names in the title of the classic Grimm’s fairy tale. This is an intentional choice. Not only is Gretel arguably the protagonist of every major iteration of this story, but this version makes a concerted effort to address the gender differences between its title characters.
It is an interesting direction to take a familiar fairy tale, one that could bear rich thematic fruit. Unfortunately, Rob Hayes’ script makes statements toward this theme without much elaboration and with only a cursory connection to the fairy tale text. The film begins with Continue reading Gretel & Hansel (2020) Movie Review→
The short film categories can be somewhat frustrating in terms of availability. ShortsTV generally puts out a limited theatrical run the week before the Oscars, but even then it can be difficult to find depending on your area. As such, I must do my annual obligatory apology for not seeing every film. Daughter is the missing link this year, but it is not favored to win. So I will talk around the issue.
As for the others: Hair Love is on YouTube, Kitbull is on Disney+ and YouTube, Sister is on director Siki Song’s website, and Memorable is on Vimeo.
In 2019, Guy Ritchie’s live action Disney adaptation of Aladdin was released. It is a film with no discernible trace of Ritchie’s authorial stamp. He follows Aladdin up with The Gentlemen, a film that is so readily a return to Ritchie’s crime film origins that it almost appears as a parody.
With the 2020 Oscar ceremony just around the corner, now is as good a time as any to get into the nitty gritty of what are perhaps the least talked about Oscar categories. The three short film categories get a bit of a short shrift from Academy Awards viewers, but some true talent can and have come out of these categories.
Below are reviews for two of the Best Live Action Short Film nominees: Nefta Football Club and Brotherhood.
In some years, I have trouble determining who will win in the Best Production Design category. There are so many different ways to design a film’s story-world, that I can get bogged down in the minutiae and get confused as to what the voters will actually like.
But this year I am much more confident. Who knows, maybe I’m getting better at this unnecessary skill of Oscar predictions.
Generally speaking, when it comes to Best Makeup and Hairstyling the Academy likes excess. The more present the makeup and hairstyling is, the better. My go-to recent example is always Darkest Hour, because, well, that prosthetic and makeup design is a lot.
We don’t have to get into it. Not really. But did the Academy not see the dresses in Portrait of a Lady on Fire? Or Jamie Lee Curtis’ outfits in Knives Out? I mean…c’mon. Usually, I will put a still from one of the relevant nominated films here as a means of priming the conversation. Instead:
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