I think it is fair to say that Lisa Immordino Vreeland has a preoccupation with the upper class. Beginning with her feature debut in 2011—Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel about the famed French-American fashion editor (also her own grandmother-in-law)—and on through other titles about more mid-century well-to-dos, Vreeland has carved a niche out of documentary portraits that tend to coast on the infamy of the rich and famous. I have enjoyed some (2017’s Love, Cecil) more than others (2015’s Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict).
Her latest is Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, which finds Vreeland more or less still pre-occupied with high society. A slick twist to the structural formula casts Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto as unseen mouthpieces for the words of Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams...
THE NOMINEES A pregnant meercat obsessive, a gaslit housewife, a reckless activist, a tough union rep, and the perceptive companion to a famous writer. For the Best Supporting Actress slate of 2005, the Academy went with two then fresh faces (Amy Adams in Junebug, Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain), and one mid-career actress stepping up her game (Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener). They filled out the remainder of the field with familiar players, an Oscar regular (Frances McDormand in North Country) and a previous nominee (Catherine Keener in Capote)
THE PANEL Here to discuss these actresses and films of 2005 are from left to right: cinephile and actress obsessive Ali Benzekri, Los Angeles Times' Justin Chang, Awards Daily's Joey Moser, the actress Kerry O'Malley (Snowpiercer, Boardwalk Empire, Strange Angel) and your host at the The Film Experience, Nathaniel R. Let's begin...
2005 SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...
Great Big Box Office Hits: Franchises of multiple kinds dominated the box office with Harry Potter 4, Star Wars Episode 3, and the launches of Chronicles of Narnia and Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy as half of the top ten list that year. Other huge hits were the romantic comedy Hitch, the Brangelina pairing of Mr & Mrs Smith, the remakes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, War of the Worlds, and King Kong, and the comedies Wedding Crashers and Meet the Fockers.
Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: In the mid-Aughts the Oscars were veering away from big hits in their Best Picture lineups (to eventually rule-changing results) but Brokeback Mountain was the most successful of the lot with $178 million globally...
Michael Cusumano here to celebrate a film that is so much more than just another "based on a true story" prestige pic. I have noticed that Bennett Miller’s Capote is often shoved into the biopic genre in a way that diminishes the film’s achievements.
Lesser biopics bask in the glow of reflected importance coming off their subjects. Significance through osmosis. They value the flush of recognition over insight, and the accumulation of incident over meaning. Capote on the other hand is crafted with a stark, unwavering discipline. It has more in common with a portrait of artistic self-destruction like Black Swan than with Walk Hard inspirations like Ray...
The world has lost one of its most important literary and cultural figures with the death of author Nelle Harper Lee. There’s very little to say about the importance of “To Kill a Mockingbird” that hasn’t already been said, both today specifically and in the nearly fifty six years since the novel’s publication. Having attended both high school and college in Georgia, I saw firsthand how much the novel rattled the consciousness of the deep South to its core. It’s still banned and its literary merits are still contested in many places in the South, demonstrating how much weight and resonance the novel still carries—we often turn away from truths that are too ugly to face.
Gregory Peck and Brock Peters in Robert Mulligan's 1962 Film Adaptation of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Though her impact in the realm of literature is clear, she also helped to shape the world of cinema. The 1962 screen adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (which netted three Oscars, including a Best Actor trophy for Gregory Peck and a Best Adapted Screenplay prize for Horton Foote) left an indelible mark on the medium. She was also an uncredited researcher on her friend Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood, which has been adapted many times over—most notably in Richard Brooks 1967 film.
For cinephiles, it’s hard to consider Harper Lee without thinking of Catherine Keener’s staid, impressive and underrated portrayal of the prize-winning author in Bennett Miller’s Capote. She played Lee as smartly observant, terse but incredibly perceptive. The scene on the train where Lee quietly picks up on the fact that Capote has paid the ticket agent to compliment his work is one of the film’s choice moments and is a wonderful (albeit fictionalized) window into the friendship of these two authors.
For what she gave to the world of literature, American culture and (inadvertently) the world of cinema we all love, we say to Nelle Harper Lee—thank you and farewell. Today will certainly not be the last time her name is spoken.
Thursday, July 1, 2021 at 9:00AM 
I think it is fair to say that Lisa Immordino Vreeland has a preoccupation with the upper class. Beginning with her feature debut in 2011—Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel about the famed French-American fashion editor (also her own grandmother-in-law)—and on through other titles about more mid-century well-to-dos, Vreeland has carved a niche out of documentary portraits that tend to coast on the infamy of the rich and famous. I have enjoyed some (2017’s Love, Cecil) more than others (2015’s Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict).
