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Slate magazine has drawn up an interesting list of great black films, the twist being that they have to have been directed by a black person rather than about the black experience so out go Old Hollywood musicals like Carmen Jones or Cabin in the Sky or Oscar favorites like Sounder. In the wake of recent conversations about Hollywood's power structures and overwhelming whiteness, Slate assembled a field of critics and filmmakers and scholars to produce the list.
Eve's Bayou
I need to get cracking on my gaps in knowledge from this list, especially because of the titles I've seen from this list several were great and the ones I didn't personally connect to were still interesting (Night Catches Us) or memorable (Eve's Bayou - I've been meaning to give that another shot now that I'm older). Unsurprisingly Spike Lee has the most titles with six. Curiously, though I've seen many Spike Lee joints (and tend to like them - I'd have included Chi-Raq on this list), I've only seen half of his titles that actually made it (gotta get to Mo' Better Blues, Crooklyn, and When the Levees Broke soon). The list is after the jump...
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1828 Feral teenager Kaspar Hauser is discovered wandering Nuremberg, claiming to have been raised in total isolation. Theories abound and the story inspires many artists down the road including Werner Herzog in the film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974). 1877 Influential dancer Isadora Duncan is born. Vanessa Redgrave gets an Oscar nomination playing her in Isadora! (1968) 1886 Al Jolson is born. Will later star in the first "talkie" The Jazz Singer (1927) 1894 Silent film star Norma Talmadge is born 1897 Bram Stoker's epistolary novel "Dracula" is published. Never stops being adapted for film and television but our hearts will always belong to Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) despite the aggravating double possessive 1907 John Wayne was born. Did he always talk like that? 1913 Peter Cushing is born in England. Later stars in Hammer Horror films with his irl best friend Christopher Lee, the Dracula to his Van Helsing. Perhaps most famously Carrie Fisher 'recognizes his foul stench' when she's captured in Star Wars 1914 Geoffrey Unsworth, two time Oscar winning genius cinematographer is born. Shot so many gorgeous movies like 2001, Cabaret, Tess, Superman as well as a legendary bad one in Zardoz.
1920 Peggy Lee is born. The popular singer was mysteriously left out of AMPAS's annual "In Memoriam" section at the Oscars despite numerous film connections, like voicing multiple characters in Lady in the Tramp, starring in a remake of The Jazz Singer, popularizing the song "Why Don't You Do Right?" in Stage Door Canteen (later spectacularly used in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), and even nabbing an admittedly strange supporting actress nomination for Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Now where's that biopic we were promised from Todd Haynes starring Reese Witherspoon? 1926 Miles Davis is born. His biopic is in theaters currently because famous men get biopics. 1948 Stevie Nicks emerges with her diaphamous shawls from mother's womb; starts spinning. We see her gypsy. 1949 The legendary Pam Grier is born. Also answers to "Coffy," "Foxy Brown," and "Jackie Brown" 1961 Tarsem Singh is born. Eventually trades truly weird beautiful auteurial stuff for still weird CGI mainstream drudgery
1966 Helena Bonham Carter is born. Initially pegged as Merchant Ivory's favorite dress up doll, she goes on to have a rather spectacularly enduring career. Happy 50th Helena!
Helena's 10 Best Performances? My List...
Wings of the Dove (1997) shoulda won the Oscar
Fight Club (1999) shoulda been nominated for the Oscar
Howard's End (1992) shoulda been nominated for the Oscar
Sweeney Todd (2007) shame about the singing voice. because otherwise...
A Room With a View (1986)
Suffragette (2015)
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Eyesore in Wonderland (2010)
Lady Jane (1985)
Hamlet (1990)
1971Lenny, by Julian Barry. opens on Broadway. Barry adapts it to film three years later with Bob Fosse directing. They both receive Oscar nominations. Lenny even gets a third life in a way when it basically serves as the film within the film of All That Jazz 1984 "Let's Hear It For the Boy," from Footloose, hits #1 on the pop charts. Goes on to an Original Song nomination at the Oscars. Loses to "I Just Called To Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder from Woman in Red 2006X-Men: Last Stand, the third X-Men motion picture, opened in theaters and was bad enough to destroy the franchise...except they kept right on making them. Tomorrow X-Men 6 opens, better known as X-Men Apocalypse.
Tuesday's revisit to the essential and apparently sorely underseen Queen Margot (1994) and the comments thereafter had me thinking about favorite films from 1994. This website wasn't around back then of course (I think the internet was just in listserv mode at that point?) but I was already making lists. So what would I have nominated had our Film Bitch Awards been around back then? What would you have nominated had you had an Oscar ballot?
The answers (fluid as they are should rewatching ever occur) are after the jump...
Pfeiffer in Beat-Up Little SeagullJust so everyone knows, I am indeed still alive. After briefly passing out. I was on a flight when news broke that Michelle Pfeiffer had signed on to the cast of the new untitled Darren Aronofsky film due in 2017 with filming to start this June.
La Pfeiffer has been MIA from the movies in a significant way since White Oleander (2002) her last Oscar worthy performance (she has famously never won despite multiple breathtaking star turns) and the last onscreen appearance without significant breaks thereafter. She flirted with a comeback in a brief flurry of activity around 2007-2008 (Stardust & Cheri being the highlights) but it's been relatively quiet since then. But no more?...
Mark Rylance’s best supporting actor nomination for Bridge of Spies marks the 13th time a performance in a Steven Spielberg movie has been nominated for an Oscar. Which of course calls for a list, so without any further ado here's Murtada's ranking.
Oscar Nominated Performances in Spielberg Films Ranked
13- Anthony Hopkins - Amistad (1997) Other Nominees: Robert Forster – Jackie Brown, Greg Kinnear – As Good as It Gets, Burt Reynolds – Boogie Nights, Robin Williams – Good Will Hunting. Winner: Williams
Did Hopkins have a big righteous courtroom speech? Must be, because why else was this performance nominated. The only thing I remember about it is that Hopkins robbed Rupert Everett of his nomination for My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Wednesday, June 1, 2016 at 12:00PM 
Eve's Bayou
