Nathaniel's Venice Wrap-Up: Jury of One Awards

by Nathaniel R

The Venice jury and I agree on a Screenplay prize for THE LOST DAUGHTER

Elisa's already shared the official winners of Venice (and her take on those choices since she saw the whole competition slate). I admire her completism at festivals but my habit is instead to sample a bit from each program. I saw twenty-one films which is a very low number to see over eight days at a major fest — blame Venice’s absurd ticketing system this year which encouraged people to be on their phones securing tickets WHILE watching movies -- i met several people who had set timers for themselves! -- since they sold out in seconds after becoming available every few hours. Since I refused to play on my phone during movies I missed two crucial movies (Spencer and Dune) but here are my favorite achievements from the films I did catch from all programs (Competition, Out of Competitions, Orizzonti, Biennale Collage Cinema, and Critics Week)

RULES: In true festival jury fashion (even though it’s just myself) I’m only allowing one prize per film. And rather than giving out a Best Actress and Best Actor prize (don't make me decide this early!) I’m listing my 15 favorite performances after the jump. What, too much? Acting is magic so I shan't apologize…. 

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Almost There: Hattie McDaniel in "In This Our Life"

by Cláudio Alves

The Criterion Channel is currently featuring an extensive collection of John Huston movies. Considering his directorial debut, The Maltese Falcon, was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, it's fair to say that Huston's films have always been on the Academy's radar. Consequently many of his actors gained Oscar buzz though just as often they were egregiously snubbed. With that said, I'd like to focus on a performer that was already an Oscar winner before she starred in a Huston flick, a Black actress whose career was limited by institutional racism and confined to playing second fiddle to white stars, often in peripheral roles. Nevertheless, Hattie McDaniel always spun gold from straw, injecting complicated humanity, humor, and pathos into the tiniest of parts. Such is the case of In This Our Life…

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Oscar Charts: Will we have a "double" again in Best Supporting Actress?

by Nathaniel R

Ann Dowd and Martha Plimpton star in "Mass"

We may have gotten a little carried away with wishful thinking in (some) of our Supporting Actress chart building this time around. You see, so many actresses we love that have never or only once been in the Oscar race have what sound like amazing parts this year. But it's early enough in the year that optimistic guesses are as good as pessimistic guesses. At least that's true in the supporting categories where less is usually known this early about the roles themselves.

But what we found most interesting while thinking through the first predictions of the year was how many films have the potential for a double nomination in Best Supporting Actress...

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That Shakespeare + Gods & Monsters conversation

We received word from readers that the Apple Podcast/iTunes service has suddenly gone glitchy with The Film Experience so we wanted to let you know that you can also listen on Stitcher or on Spotify if you haven't yet given the conversation a go. One more round of applause please for writer/director/showrunner Leslye Headland (Russian Doll, The Acolyte), actor Mitch Silpa (Bridesmaids, The Heat), DJ Rob Campion (Cooler Than Ecto), writer Jenelle Riley (Variety), and animator/illustrator Dashiell Silva. 

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Conversation Index (74 minutes)

00:01 - Introduction of the Smackdown Panel and the 1998 Nominees
04:00 - Primary Colors. What works (Kathy Bates) and what doesn't, and how it plays in today's much different political climate.
15:41 - A detour to the 2020 Oscar race and "Da Butt"
17:00 - Hilary and Jackie's odd structure, sadness porn, and tortured artists
28:30 - A detour to The English Patient (1996) and the Weinstein/Miramax industrial complex
34:45 - Shakespeare in Love "a rom-com for theater nerds". Why Judi Dench deserved the Oscar.
50:20 - The disastrous miscalculations of Little Voice, and Brenda Blethyn, hot off of Secrets & Lies
59:30 - Gods and Monsters, hampered by its budget, and maybe even its Oscar winning screenplay. Beautiful performances!
1:12:28 - Wrap-up / Goodbyes.

And in case you missed our 1998 "extras" we revisited Velvet Goldmine, High Art, Beloved, Central Station, The Prince of Egypt, A Bug's Life, The Truman Show, Hollywood's onslaught of blonde ingenues, and the pop culture hits that year. 

Smackdown '98: Kathy, Brenda, Dame Judi, Rachel, and Lynn

Welcome back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Each month we pick an Oscar vintage to explore through the lens of actressing at the edges. This episode takes us back to 1998. 

THE NOMINEES  A politically savvy lesbian, a bawdy working-class mother, a theater-loving Queen, a failed musician / devoted sister, and a homophobic immigrant housekeeper in Hollywood walk into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion...

For the 1998 film year, the Academy invited one new actress (Rachel Griffiths) to their Supporting club while offering a second nomination to four respected women of a certain age (Dame Judi Dench, Brenda Blethyn, Lynn Redgraves) only one of whom (Kathy Bates) had already won.

THE PANELISTS Here to talk about these performances and films are (in alpha order) DJ Rob Champion, Writer/Director Leslye Headland, Journalist and playwright Jenelle Riley, Actor/writer Mitch Silpa, Illustrator Dashiell Silva and, as ever, your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

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