To celebrate the 25th anniversary of a rather amazing Oscar lineup, here's Ben Miller...
There have been several iconic Oscar nominee lineups throughout the years. Best Actor 1967, Best Actress 1939, Best Director 1975... a wholly fearsome lineup comes around but once every couple of decades or so. One of them is celebrating its 25-year anniversary this season: the 1993 lineup for Best Supporting Actor.
Before we get to the nominees, look at who just missed the lineup...
This month marked the tenth anniversary of the release of Gus Van Sant’s semi-biopicMilk, chronicling the last eight years of the life of gay politician Harvey Milk. If you’ve never seen Milk, get ye post haste to it, if for no other reason than to be fully immersed in this crucial window of history. If you saw Milk when it was released a decade ago and haven’t seen it since (which was true for me), watch it again: it’s aging beautifully.
Olympic diver Tom Daley’s husband, Dustin Lance Black, won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this movie, and the trophy was richly deserved. Black not only manages to avoid almost every biopic cliché, he captures the beginning of the gay rights movement with precision, pain, and most importantly, humor. Black’s script starts when Harvey Milk turns forty, had been mostly closeted, and was not politically aware. He chronicles his consciousness-raising without a hint of clumsiness or fake nobility. And while Black keeps his focus squarely on Milk, his real achievement is in casting a wider net: he gives Milk’s real-life contemporaries a vivid presence, and shows us a full community within the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco. This script manages to be both macro and micro, and throughout you can see Black’s gigantic heart and passion for this story...
• Guardian has a really fascinating interview with Sean Penn about his novel (yes he wrote one), his ex-wives, his humanitarian work, the Me Too movement and more • AV Club Netflix suggests it's going to back away a bit from its war against the movies... or at least from competing on the awards battlefield. Does this mean they're abandoning their Oscar campaigns? This statement is quite vague. • Boy Culture connects two of my favorite things of all time: Madonna's "Like a Prayer" phase and... Natalie Wood? • Time Can Oceans 8 bring back the glamourous caper?
• EW Uma Thurman willing to work with Quentin Tarantino again • W interviews Grace Jone about her fierceness "I pack a good wallop" • Variety YES! A24 is planting the seeds for an Oscar campaign for Toni Collette in the horror film Hereditary • Coming Soon For some reason Monty Python's Spamalot is going to become a movie • Variety Olivia de Havilland talks about being Cannes very first female jury president decades ago • Electric Literature "storytelling" in WestWorld and how literary it actually is • Awards Daily Academy votes to expel Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby • AV Club Steve Martin and Martin Short are actual best friends • i09 beautiful posters for King Kong's Broadway musical debut • Playboy "Hollywood's pansexual moment" - interesting points in this article but I'm really quite annoyed that we've jumped from gay rights to "let not define ourselves and let's explore fluidity" and are acting like homophobia is solved / gays are accepted. There are literally still laws being pushed in the US to discriminate against queer people - even this very week!
Click to enlargeAvengers Mania <-- This Captain Marvel poster going around looked so official I thought it was. Apparently it's actually fan art by a Brazilian illustrator Fabio Rodrigues
• VultureInfinity War facial hair rankings • Monkey See Glen Weldon coins a genius term for the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. Well worth a close read. • Crooked Marquee Eric D Snider wins the award for "best headline to an Avengers Infinity War review" • /Film Black Widow's solo film actively looking for a director (even though no screenplay is written yet. Hmmm) • AV Film how are we supposed to care about Ant-Man and the Wasp post the brutal ending of Infinity War • Coming Soon Infinity War has been out just one week and it's already nearly at a billion dollars globally. Jesus. • Express a very elaborate theory on how Captain Marvel and Ant Man could save the day in Infinity Wars Part 2
On this day (Sept 2nd) in showbiz-related history...
31 BCCleopatra loses the Battle of Actium to Octavian's troops in the final war of the Roman Republic. Liz is very upset but it turns out Dick is still alive and he leaves his men to drown to catch up with her and work on his thigh tan! Not great, Bob.
Madonna mania, September 1st movie releases and more after the jump...
Autostraddle "How to Dress like Cate Blanchett's Oceans 8 Character Who is Definitely Queer, Right?" Comics Alliance Pixar's Coco gets concept art and a voice cast - Gael García Bernal! Sydney Morning Herald Australia's own version of the Oscars goes big for Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge with 9 wins from its 13 nominations. The New Yorker "the fate of cinephilia in the age of streaming"
Awards Daily interviews the production design team on Loving EW Ryan Reynolds as Entertainer of the Year Boy Culture Hunky Van Williams, discovered by Liz Taylor of people, who came to fame on TV's The Green Hornet has died at 82. His last movie role was as homage to his friend and co-star Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) The Wrap Madonna raises $7 million for Malawi with a little help from Sean Penn who she offers to marry again THR Harsh words for Amazon with the cancellation of Good Girls Revolt
The World Has Lost Its Mind Twitter protesters of the lack of gender equality in the Australian film industry dressed as sausages at the AACTAS. "End the Sausage Party!"... they were not talking about the animated movie. Daily Beast Sofia Vergara sued by her own embryos Time has released their Person of the Year stuff. I shan't type his name anymore ever (vomiting ∞). Beyoncé was apparently runner up. So that makes the second strong woman he who shall not be named has grossly defeated in this awful no good terrible when will it end year (except for at the movies. So many good movies)
List-Making. Tis the Season Vulture David Edelstein's top 16 includes 20th Century Women and The Fits Vanity Fair Richard Lawsom's top 10 includes Jackie, The Lobster, and Fire at Sea Time Stephanie Zacharek's top 10 includes The Shallows, Loving, and Paterson
And we'll end with David Ehrlich's annual Top 25 Video Countdown. It's always a pleasure to watch this even if you don't agree on the films or their ranking though this year is a far more worthy selection than last year's!
Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 12:11PM 
