Viola Davis has regrets about 'The Help'

by Murtada Elfadl

Viola Davis has some regrets about her Oscar-nominated performance in The Help (2011). In the film she played Aibileen Clark one of several black maids - along with Oscar winner Octavia Spencer - interviewed by a young white journalist (Emma Stone) who’s writing a book about the racism and prejudice they faced in 1960s Mississippi. At the time the film faced criticism of having a white saviour problem. That is, only dealing with racism from the perspective of the white characters and what they do to combat it.

It’s a story as old as film, with numerous examples. Some set in the US like Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and others elsewhere, Cry Freedom (1990), to name just a couple. Davis agrees with that take, telling the NYTimes in a recent interview...

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Anne V Coates (1925-2018)

by Nathaniel R

One of Hollywood's most important artists has died. The film editor Anne V Coates who won both a competitive and an Honorary Oscar has died at the age of 92. Her career began in the editing room of 1940s pictures -- she worked on The Red Shoes (!!!) -- but it didn't take her long to become a lead editor. Her first lead editing gigs were in British cinema in the early 50s. Her career really came roaring to life with Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which she won her first and only competitive Oscar...

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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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113 days 'til Oscar. The Existential Question of the Honorary Oscars.

by Nathaniel R

Audrey Hepburn giving King Vidor his HonoraryThe Honorary Oscars, which will be given out again tonight to a very deserving quartet (Donald Sutherland, Owen Roizman, Agnes Varda, and Charles Burnett), have always been a curious and quite arbitary distinction. Like competitive Oscars the timing has to be just right. You have to be on people's minds. You have to have a cheerleading section in the right places within the Academy. You mostly have to be of a certain age (so if you die before you're 75 or so, forget about it!). Curiously, though, you don't have to be overdue having lost a bunch of previous Oscars. This year's recipients fit into the tradition of "overdue because they've been under-honored" but this is not always the case. The Honorary Oscars, even since the beginning have often gone to people who've won competitive statues. That's a strange thing, if you ask us, since shouldn't the point be to cover your bases? Quite a few great stars who have never been the single best in any particular year so the Honorary is a perfect way to honor them. At the very least it's a better way to honor them than a competitive statue in a year where they don't really deserve one (and that's happened so often!)

At the 1978 Oscars the 111th through 114th Honorary Oscars were handed out and they illustrate this confusion as to the award's purpose...

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Honorary Oscars: Donald Sutherland in "Ordinary People"

Lynn Lee reflects on Honorary Oscar winner Donald Sutherland's work in a former Best Picture...

The first time I saw Ordinary People, I remember thinking it was very good, very sad, and very WASPy, and that the acting was outstanding across the board.  I was most impressed, if also most frustrated, by Mary Tyler Moore for playing so convincingly against type as the chilly, brittle, allergic-to-grief Beth Jarrett; found Timothy Hutton’s guilt-racked Conrad the most relatable; and Judd Hirsch’s warm, no-BS shrink the most appealing.  Yet the character I ended up feeling the most sympathy for was Donald Sutherland’s Calvin, who’s forced to accept the disintegration of the family he fought so hard to preserve.

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