Oscar Narrows the Documentary Feature Field

Chris here, with more Oscar bake off lists. Today we have the 15 films advancing in the Documentary Feature race, many of which we have covered here at The Film Experience in Glenn's column Doc Corner. The eventual lineup could include two recent Honorary Oscar winners: Frederick Wiseman (Ex Libris: New York Public Library) and Agnès Varda (Faces Places, with JR), neither of who had ever been nominated in the category. Al Gore could be returning to the Oscars, as the follow-up to winning climate change doc An Inconvenient Truth has also advanced. Take a look at the rest of the list:

• Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
• Chasing Coral
• City of Ghosts
• Ex Libris: New York Public Library
• Faces Places
• Human Flow
• Icarus
• An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
• Jane
• LA 92
• Last Man in Aleppo
• Long Strage Trip
• One of Us
• Strong Island
• Unrest

Some beloved players that missed the lineup include Kedi, Whose Streets?, Dawson City: Frozen Time, and Casting JonBenet to just name a few. Jane, featuring recently rediscovered footage from Jane Goodall's study of apes, might be the early frontrunner thanks to a few wins with NBR and Critics Choice. Oscar Chart here!

Jose Gives Thanks ♥︎

by Jose Solis

 

Jose here. Perhaps more than any other year, I'm grateful for the fact that we made it. We survived! Despite of the government, natural disasters, the news, and especially the white patriarchy, we are still around. So this year I won't take the turkey and trimmings for granted. Every bite of pumpkin pie will feel like a blessing.

So this year I'd like to give thanks for the following:

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Beauty Break: 10 Greatest Photos from the 2017 Governors Award

by Nathaniel R

Varda & Jolie dancing

As you surely know by now the Academy held the annual Governor's Awards last night honoring directors Agnes Varda and Charles Burnett, actors Donald Sutherland, and cinematographer Owen Roizman who we've been celebrating here on the blog this past week. The giddiest moment was surely Angelina Jolie and Agnes Varda doing a little dance when the Mother of the French New Wave was presented with her statue, complete with spins and everything.

As something of a surprise to yours truly (did I miss a press release somewhere?) they also honored director Alejandro González Iñárritu with a special Oscar for an experimental VR project...  

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Would you rather?

Time for another edition of our fantasy life instagram game (with a few tweets we couldn't pass up thrown in). The circles we all travel in (virtually) these days! So, would you rather:

... proofread Agnes Varda's Honorary Oscar speech while she naps?
... design lingerie with Megan Fox?
... contemplate the newly chilly weather with Jharrel Jerome from Moonlight?
... look at baby photos with Bollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan?
... hang out with Rebel Wilson & Anne Hathaway on the set of Nasty Women?
... model perfect jackets with Taika Waititi?
... indulge in a plushy moment with Jesse Bradford?
... hike and rock-hunt with Goldie Hawn?
... get your hair did with Jennifer Ehle?
... do some Mission Impossible stunts with Henry Cavill in glorious Norway?
... sing with Chris Evans' dog?
... or walk an impromptu runway with DJ Lina Bradford and the legendary Candis Cayne?

You own everything!

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

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Honorary Oscars: Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7

We're revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Salim on Agnès Varda...

What's good?

When most people look back on the French New Wave, it’s unconsciously seen as a boys’ club, especially of the Cahiers du Cinéma clan with Godard and Truffaut. That’s unfortunate when a chapter in film history feels marginalizing and the masculinity in the French New Wave movement can end up nondescript.Much thanks for Agnès Varda then, representing both the literary Left Bank wing of the French New Wave and the feminine voice she brought to the fray.

While her directorial debut La Pointe Courte predates and even informs much of the French New Wave proper, Cléo from 5 to 7 is essentially the work that broke that glass ceiling and introduced a new sort of perspective into the one of the most radical movements in film history.

And the brilliant thing is how unassuming Cléo from 5 to 7 is about these things. Not TOO relaxed, mind you...

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