Let's play the Recasting Game! JLaw Edition

by Cláudio Alves

Here, at the Film Experience, we value the readers' input, good or bad, be it the sharing of a divergent opinion or even suggestions for future posts. Consider how Juan Carlos Ojano's latest Hello Gorgeous piece, about the 2012 Best Actress nominees, led many to discuss the contenders' broad careers, way beyond those five specific turns and those same characters' introductions. Longtime reader and commenter Mr Ripley79 even speculated that we could do a whole post on Jennifer Lawrence's three Oscar-nominated David O. Russell films. Specifically, one about her miscasting – mostly due to the actress' age – and who could have played those roles instead. So, here we are. Let's play the recasting game…

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Happy 50, Leonardo DiCaprio!

by Cláudio Alves

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD earned DiCaprio his seventh and, to this day, final Oscar nomination. Do you think he’ll be back in the race anytime soon?

Former teenage heartthrob turned Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio just hit the half-century mark. Happy birthday to the superstar who has been entertaining audiences since his youth and has, in recent years, expanded his work to producing movies and fighting the good fight in the name of our crumbling environment. Over time, many of his performances and most iconic movies have been explored at The Film Experience by various team members. It seems logical to revisit some of those posts, like we did to celebrate Jessica Lange's 75th birthday and Maggie Smith's passing. It's time to go down the blogging rabbit hole and share some love for the man immortalized on screen through roles like Shakespeare's Romeo, Jack Dawson, a handful of Scorsese leads, and more – the list goes on and on…

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Almost There: Paul Dano in "Love & Mercy"

by Cláudio Alves

Paul Dano's film career has been awards-adjacent since the very beginning. At seventeen, he won the Best Debut Performance Spirit Award for his work in L.I.E. Five years later, he was one of the stars of Little Miss Sunshine, the first of three Best Picture Oscar nominees in the actor's filmography. Still, though the Academy regularly loves Dano's movies, they have never shown any affection for Dano himself. That might change this year with The Fabelmans, where the actor portrays a fictionalized version of Steven Spielberg's dad in what's bound to be one of the season's biggest award magnets.

To celebrate the actor's achievements and potential first Oscar nomination, let's look back to the last time Dano was on the Academy's radar. In 2015, he almost category frauded his way to a Supporting Actor nomination for his work as Brian Wilson in Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy…

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Through Her Lens: 2015 (The 88th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Previous Episodes: 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | Introduction / Explanation

The sting of the #OscarsSoWhite movement from the 87th Oscars continued as no people of color were nominated in the acting categories for the second consecutive year. Idris Elba won the SAG for Supporting Actor for Beasts of No Nation, but Netflix was a completely new player at the time and unable to get traction in the Oscar race. Jada Pinkett Smith called for an Oscar boycott after her husband Will Smith missed in Actor, but his film Concussion had disappointed at the box office and received mixed reviews. The tension was high enough that The Hollywood Reporter even felt the need to clarify that “there [were] no minority actresses in genuine contention for an Oscar [that] year”.

The lack of diversity extended to gender in Best Director (the subject of this series) where no female directors were in the conversation with the arguable exception of Angelina Jolie early on before By the Sea began to screen...

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Showbiz History: Oscar's fav movie producer, MASH finale, and Fury Road's Oscar night.

5 random things that happened on this day, February 28th, in showbiz history...

1921 One hundred years ago today movie producer Saul Zaentz was born in New Jersey. He won the Best Picture Oscar three times: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, and The English Patient. That gives him the all time record for "Most Best Picture wins" which he shares in a tie with Sam Spiegel (On the Waterfront, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia). The living producers that share second place with 2 wins each are Clint Eastwood and Albert S Ruddy (though they're both 90 years old) and Dede Gardner & Jeremy Kleiner (who are fairly young as producers go winning for both 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight so they could conceivably tie this three-time record... though it obviously won't be easy to do!

1983 M*A*S*H airs its final episode after 11 seasons. The vast majority of the television audience in the US was watching. I remember my oldest brother crying and being confused about why...

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