"Patton" opened 50 years ago today

by Nathaniel R

Here's a timeline to marvel at. The war biopic Patton (1970) opened a half century ago today. The following Monday the Oscars celebrating 1969 were held. And an an entire year and a fortnight later, Patton would win Best Picture at the following Oscars. Isn't it crazy how slowly the movie world buzz used to turn? Now Hollywood never dreams of launching its big Oscar intendeds in the spring (not that they could at the moment but you understand). The only time we witnessed a long stretch from release to Oscar win like this in our moviegoing lifetimes was The Silence of the Lambs which won the Oscar in March 1992, a year and a month and a half after its initial release. 

Which nominee would you have voted for in 1970?

• Airport
• Five Easy Pieces
• Love Story
• MASH
• Patton

We would've been a MASH voter among those five but that's not a stellar vintage. We assume that Women in Love was in the dread sixth spot.

Posterized: Harrison Ford

by Nathaniel R

Harrison Ford has been a major star for our whole lives but Call of the Wild (2019), opening today nationwide, is actually the first time in many years that studios have trusted his name alone to sell a picture. Well, that and a CGI dog, but the solo name (no pun intended) above the title is still worth noting. 

Ford, who is now 77, has been a regular on movie screens for over 50 years and his films have amassed over $9 billion dollars globally. But he wasn't always a superstar. In the 1970s he wasn't just acting for filmmakers but also doing carpentry jobs to support his then wife and sons (Francis Ford Coppola famously hired him as a carpenter before casting him in The Conversation and Apocalypse Now). The rest, of course, is showbiz history.

How many of his 49 pictures (excluding uncredited appearances and voice only roles) have you seen? All 49 posters are after the jump as well as a breakdown of his career in chapters...

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At the Oscars, times are changing.

Please welcome guest contributor Mark Blankenship, who you've previously heard from as a guest panelist on the Smackdown...

Even while getting rightfully criticized by presenters who mocked the mostly-white acting line-up and the all-male slate of directors, the Academy still managed to deliver an Oscar ceremony this year that was full of historically inclusive winners. All of those victories are exciting on their own, and some even point to larger trends that suggest there's hope for this awards body yet. If the patterns hold, then the Oscars just might become prizes for all artists, no matter who they are.

For instance, Parasite's historic Best Picture triumph is even more encouraging when you consider it alongside Moonlight's win (about queer black men and boys)...

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Final Oscar Predictions!

Hello beloved readers and fellow cinephiles. Sorry for this ultra-last-minute prediction post (which is cross-posted at Towleroad) but let it serve a dual purpose. It's to be read now and/or laughed at after the Oscars once I've shown that my crystal ball is totally defective.

One of these three films will win Best Picture

If you've been living under a rock the Best Picture field looks like so...

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The Beautiful Dryness of "1917"

by Lynn Lee

[This article contains spoilers]

“One of the best war films ever made.”

That’s not a critic’s blurb – that’s how my father described 1917 to me the other day. The fact that he and my mother loved the film didn’t surprise me, given that I was the one who recommended it to them.  What did surprise me was how much they loved it.  It’s not that they haven’t seen many war movies – to the contrary, my childhood and adolescence included a healthy dose of them, from early black and white greats like Grand Illusion to sweeping Hollywood epics like Lawrence of Arabia.  Over the years my parents have continued to add films as varied as Das Boot, Gallipoli, Saving Private Ryan, and Master and Commander to their favorites.

So what was it about 1917 they deemed worthy to stand with the classics? My dad cited the cinematography, of course, and the vivid realization of the WWI battlefields and trenches, but he also extolled the “delicacy” and “dryness” of the story.  And I think he was on to something there...

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