13
Apr
Saving Private Ryan’s loss of the Best Picture Oscar in 1999 still hurts. It’s a sentiment shared by many, and not just because of the disappointment they experienced when Shakespeare in Love took home that night’s top prize. After all, there have been plenty of upsets before and since. Just ask Brokeback Mountain’s producers about Crash, or La La Land’s about Moonlight. If Orson Welles was still alive, the stories he’d surely have to tell about How Green is My Valley. Yet when it comes to Steven Spielberg’s seminal World War II epic losing to an amusing (if somewhat lightweight)…
27
Jan
The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) has named Nomadland as Best Picture in their reveal of the annual top ten films and winners of other award categories. “The Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) has revealed its annual Top Ten List as well as winners of its film awards which was topped by Nomadland. In addition, The Chloé Zhao American wanderlust drama was named Best Picture. Also on the list is Pixar’s Soul which was also named Best Animated Feature.” Read more at Deadline. Acclaimed poet and writer Maya Angelou is the latest addition to Mattel’s “Inspiring Women” line of Barbie…
09
Sep
Five years. That’s how long it’s been since the social media hashtag “#OscarsSoWhite” was created. Coined by April Reign in response to all 20 of the slots available to actors and actresses going to white performers, the phrase encapsulated a basic question about our culture that has come to challenge the status quo of the entertainment industry and beyond: Who determines excellence and why do their choices look so homogenous? The Oscars have fitfully begun addressing these issues over the last few years—particularly after in 2016 all 20 acting nominations were held by white thespians again—but now for the first…
08
Jun
Women and men attend film schools in equal numbers, but women direct only 4% of top grossing feature films in the US. Why are women largely shut out of this prestigious, lucrative and culturally influential profession? High profile women directors including Ava DuVernay (A Wrinkle In Time), Lena Dunham (?Girls), Jill Soloway (?Transparent?), among others, offer candid, unfiltered and often humorous tales of their careers in Hollywood, while experts on gender inequality destroy the myths that have allowed discrimination in Hollywood to thrive. The entertainment industry has denied women?s voices for decades, but with a new Federal investigation into discriminatory…
