At the 42nd Academy Awards, the Best Original Screenplay category was a rarity of historical importance. You wouldn't know it in 1969, but all nominees would be studied for years to come. Whether seen as seminal works in their author's careers or cultural milestones with much to reveal about the society that produced them, the films form an illustrious bunch, going from Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice's pop psychology to the revisionist brutality of The Wild Bunch. The winner was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a western which has inspired queer readings for over half a century though it was far from the queerest picture in the race.
That would be Luchino Visconti's The Damned, marking the start of his German trilogy, the international metamorphosis of his cinema, and the most open expression of gay sensibilities in his oeuvre to that point…
Team Experience revisited nine Judy Garland movies for her Centennial. Here's Nick Taylor on her final film.
Judy’s last film was always going to be an event. Released six years before her death to positive reviews but poor box office, I Could Go On Singing plays like a morbid echo of her final months. But for all the film’s metatextual readings into Garland’s life and career, this isn’t a self-conscious reckoning or farewell from a beloved star to her audience. Her regular talk of staging yet another comeback, even after her brief and very publically heralded casting in Valley of the Dolls before being canned by the studio, gives I Could Go On Singing an aura of lost time and unrealized potential heavier than the film’s bittersweet ending implies. I Could Go On Singing leaves Garland as alone as she’s ever been but still singing with all her heart, and it’s a shame she never got to strut it for the camera again...
For a cinephile, costume enthusiast, and Oscar obsessive like myself, there are few things more enticing than the lone nominee. That elusive movie that gets nominated only for the Best Costume Design statuette. Such is the case of Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel Death in Venice. To celebrate the film's 50th anniversary, I decided to explore that wondrous wardrobe that caught AMPAS' collective eye. It's one of the best works of Piero Tosi, a man who may have been the greatest costume designer to ever create for film.
After five unsuccessful Oscar nominations, Piero Tosi won an Honorary Academy Award in 2014, the first costume designer to ever do so. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving artist...
We're always behind with our news roundups. Forgive. It's such a difficult time out there. We know we aren't the only people struggling to concentrate...
• THR A personal history of queer cinema by critic David Rooney with Dirk Bogarde anecdotes • Vulture the 100 best movies on HBO Max • The Guardian for our UK readers, Guy Lodge points out the awesome movies from RKO pictures that you can stream online there now
After the jump John Boyega's activism, Criterion Channel on Black Lives Matter, the Oscars of comic books', theaters opening in time for Tenet and more...
Before we get to the link roundup a bit of Oscar Housekeeping. There are no significant changes to the rules this year so we're stuck with "somewhere between 5 and 10 nominees" in terms of Best Picture (I'd been hoping for a set number, no matter what that set number was, as I like the awards to have proper comparative pleasures in the grand scheme of history). Wisely though in minor changes, the visual effects category gets an expanded finalist list before nominations (smart), and the shorts category get longer finalists lists to choose from and the number of nominations per category is set at a concrete five (it's usually five but sometimes it's less depending on how voting goes, currently). I do like the consistency but I wonder why they're still holding out on Makeup and Hair -- EVERY FILM USES IT which is more than you can say for a lot of categories. The makeup branch should get 5 nominated slots like every other Oscar branch category. Sucks to be them.
Links MNPP Flaunt and Jason try to convince us to love Aaron Johnson. Hey, no one else will. A Fistful of Films reviews Inside Out from a parental perspective and cries all the way through it Dissolve David Tennant takes over a Robin Williams voice role in the animation adaptation of Chew. I didn't actually know they were making this but that comic, which a friend of Anne Marie's turned me on to, is SO good and weird. So I'm excited for this Towleroad somehow I missed this Magic Mike XXL clip of Matt Bomer singing. When perfect gets more perfect it's just so not fair, you know? Kenneth in the (212) RIP Dick Van Patten. Remember "Eight is Enough"? Mike's Movie Projector looks back at Dirk Bogarde in 1960 Movie Mezzanine looks back at The Blues Brothers (1980) -- I knew so many people who loved this movie growing up but I never "got" its appeal The Hot Blog David Poland talks Inside Out's "Bing Bong"
Screen to... Other Theater Mania 45 years after Love Story (1970) Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal are working together again -- they'll tour with the play "Love Letters" which had a short run on Broadway recently with rotating older celebrities AV ClubFight Club (1999)... for kids? Playbill Michael C Hall (Dexter) will star in a new Off Broadway David Bowie musical based on The Man Who Fell To Earth this fall. It's called "Lazarus" Deadline Emmy winning Laurie Metcalf, so brilliant currently on the underseen sitcom Getting On has replaced Elizabeth Marvel in the upcoming Broadway adaptation of Misery (1990). So she does the Bruce Willis hobbling honors now
Showtune to Go... The first photo of Taye Diggs as Hedwig has been released to excite you for his theatrical run in one of the great roles! So naturally our Showtune to Go this time is a Hedwig toon.
Monday, June 19, 2023 at 2:00PM ;)
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