#ampas

[citizenscreen]

Some sources name January 11, 1927 as the day Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s studio chief Louis B. Mayer pitched the formation of what would become the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Pictured: The first AMPAS members.

[bonnettsbooks]

3/1/24 — Open 6-9p. Mask recommended. No open drinks, please.

From November 1979 LIFE magazine, "Barbie Turns 21." A walk through the first 2 decades of a toy line nearing 70 years of age. Now, in 2024, a wonderful & fun Oscar nominated movie. Good luck! A lot has changed over the years, but much has not.

[dweemeister]

Reactions to the 97th Academy Awards nominations

Well, I've taken more than a full day to process most things. Forgot to post this last evening, so this is a bit delayed. But here goes nothing:

Full disclosure: I have seen 7/10 Best Picture nominees. Emilia Pérez I have procrastinated on because I unfortunately have not been able to drown out all the discourse surrounding it. Nickel Boys has not been given a wider release by MGM and I'm Still Here - Brazil's first ever nominee in Best Picture - has not even ventured outside the major cities.

At this moment, The Brutalist would be #1 on my ballot. I think it's a magnificently directed, sometimes overly self-serious epic about a failed American Dream, but especially about the relationship between artist and patron. I think Adrien Brody is even better in this lead role than he was in The Pianist (2002), which he won Best Actor for what feels like eons ago. I think Guy Pearce is underrated in Supporting Actor, and I still wonder how this was made for less than $10 million. I know this is a cynical movie and paints midcentury America in a poor light, but how I wish director Brady Corbet in Q&As and interviews would not so easily declare that the American Dream is a sham. You film is an immigrant's story (and a beautifully told one). Not the immigrant's story.

Wicked is in trouble, Best Picture-wise. It missed in Director, and it missed for its screenplay. No film since Grand Hotel (1932) has ever won Best Picture without either a Director or Screenplay nomination. That just feels like too much history for Wicked - which I very much enjoyed, but am more ambivalent about the direction - to overcome. So if Ariana Grande - who should be considered a co-lead, not supporting - doesn't win in March, can we please take a deep breath before we post stuff online?

Did Anora and Conclave peak too early in awards season? I'd like to see Mikey Madison take home Best Actress, but the film has been losing ground to Emilia Pérez for some time. And I can see many older members of the Academy thinking that it's essentially softcore porn (which parts of it can be, but the film is far much more than that). Conclave fits that mold of "Film the Academy Really Respects, but Doesn't Love Enough to Put Down as Their #1 Choice". Director Edward Berger is on my shitlist after All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, Germany; the link takes you to my write-up to the film and why I think the film is a terrible adaptation of the original novel). But, other than the oppressively dark color palette that looks terrible on home screens, I really liked that tale of Vatican drama. I would be fine with Fiennes winning, if it came to that.

A Complete Unknown - which is essentially a concert movie that told us little more about Bob Dylan that I already knew - overperformed. James Mangold in Director? No. Monica Barbaro in Supporting Actress? Eh. Adapted Screenplay? Please. And the kicker: I've never really taken to Timothée Chalamet, and I think it bewildering he becomes the youngest actor to receive a second Best Actor nomination since James Dean (posthumously, for 1955's East of Eden and 1956's Giant). Best Actor skews older than Actress, sure. This one was powered by older AMPAS voters, wasn't it?

I saw The Substance on Sunday after I missed its original release back in September/October. Too busy with work and body horror is one of my almost "no-go" subgenres. I admired the film far more than I liked it. And I had the biggest grin on my face as we got to the chaos of the final half hour. It's a fascinating film, and congratulates Coralie Fargeat on the Director nomination (I agree!). Would I vote for The Substance in any category? No, except for Makeup and Hairstyling. I thank that one's a shoo-in for reasons I won't go into here.

Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two got a lot less love than the first part. Now, I thoroughly dislike the source material (I was assigned it during summer school and adding to this... the teacher who taught it was not great) and I'm very ambivalent towards some of the people who appear in these movies (read: Chalamet). But the movie just continued to remind that there's a far superior movie made with very similar themes that was also set in a desert. And in fact, author Frank Herbert was inspired by that movie when he wrote Dune. The movie? Lawrence of Arabia (1962). By the time I reminded myself of the Dune-Lawrence connection a third of the way through the former's second part, I watched the remainder out of obligation. I suspect AMPAS voters want to award Villeneuve if he completes Dune: Messiah... and that's not even a guarantee.

A24 really botched the release of Sing Sing, did they? I know A24 has its fans online, especially among younger cinephiles. But - giving you some inside scoops here - theater owners from outside the big cities tend not to like the fact that A24 tends to super-promote one movie at a time (like I Saw the TV Glow or Civil War earlier in 2024) and give short shrift to the others. A24 is also notoriously bad at following up non-big city theaters about their release strategies and intentions. Sing Sing dearly paid the price for the studio's concentration on The Brutalist.

Did we really just fucking nominate The Apprentice for Actor and Supporting Actor? I haven't seen the film, but do we REALLY want Donald Trump to chime in on the Academy Awards season? I think AMPAS is in the mood to "send a message" rather than honor quality filmmaking right now, and that 's being shown here and - ostensibly - with those 13 nominations for Emilia Pérez.

The little Latvian movie that could, Flow, becomes only the third animated movie to have been nominated for International Feature (Waltz with Bashir and Flee before it). It overperformed on the day, and it's what I would vote for on Animated Feature. Made on free software for a pittance, it is incredible what director Gints Zilbalodis was able to do. It'll cross borders and generations, easily.

Elsewhere among animated works, I'm overjoyed for Memoir of a Snail and Adam Elliot. Australia's stop-motion animation poster child is a name that more people should be familiar with, and this nomination is very much overdue. Not enough people saw this film, though. So the nomination is 100% a win. Pity that Mars Express couldn't find a way to break through here, but even fewer people saw that in theaters, comparatively.

Inside Out 2 is gonna find a way to win this over The Wild Robot and Flow, isn't it? AMPAS loves their Pixar and Disney. They have never given an Oscar to someone outside a major American studio or anyone not named Hayao Miyazaki (I acknowledge that he is a fantastic filmmaker, but unlike some of his other anime colleagues, Miyazaki gets far on name recognition alone and he gets a lot of big Hollywood figures to campaign for his films).

Speaking of The Wild Robot! Kris Bowers' score to the film is the score of the year. Bowers is one of a few young handful of composers who I hope usher in a new age of Hollywood film score composers that will not only usher in a promising future, but also understand the value of melody and the richness of what orchestras - or orchestras combined with electronic elements - can provide (which I think many recent film score composers are abandoning).

And now I risk the wrath of people - largely folks my age and younger and the Letterboxd crowd - on this website. As a film score diehard and multi-instrumentalist, seeing all that praise for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score to Challengers (which I think should've been nominated for Editing, but nothing more) was, frankly, grating to me. I thought the score was play far too loudly in emotional scenes. And just because the whole fucking score is banger club/workout music does not necessarily make for what I consider to be effective film scoring. (If you think I'm delusional... the music branch of the Academy includes composers and lyricists and producers but does not include the musicians who play those scores. Many of those who play on film scores hail from small ensembles or orchestras, and probably think similarly and might even consider Reznor and Ross' process to be a threat to their futures in film scoring). In short: I'm fine with Challengers not being nominated in Score.

But fucking hell. That is one of the worst Best Original Song slates I can remember in sometime. My god.

Congratulations to France's Miyu Studios, who either produced/co-produced/distributed three of the five nominees in Best Animated Short. And just going to show how democratic the short film categories are, there were three past nominees on the shortlist for Animated Short, each of whom are major figures in the world of contemporary animated shorts - Don Hertzfeldt (World of Tomorrow), Dice Tsutsumi (The Dam Keeper), and Torill Kove (The Danish Poet and Me and My Moulton). Not a single one of the previous nominees made it.

Three monkey movies in Visual Effects (Better Man, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Wicked)? Hilarious.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Shiryn Ghermezian

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has responded to criticism of an Academy museum exhibit about the Jewish founders of Hollywood that has been accused of promoting antisemitic stereotypes.

“Some members of the Jewish community have come forward to express some concerns, and [we] are looking at how to address those concerns best while continuing to share an authentic understanding of these complex individuals and the time they lived in,” the Academy said in a statement to The Wrap. “As part of this process, we are continuing to engage with the community members who have come forward with constructive feedback and welcome these conversations. We hope to move quickly and thoughtfully in this process.”

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened on May 19 in Los Angeles its first permanent exhibition, titled “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital.” It focuses on how predominately Jewish filmmakers impacted the creation of the American studio film industry in the beginning of the 20th century, especially the Jewish founders of major film studios like Warner Bros., Columbia, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Paramount.

Prominent Jewish members of the Hollywood film industry sent letters to AMPAS critiquing the exhibit for perpetuating “antisemitic tropes” and pointing out the flaws of the Jewish founders with terms such as “oppressive” and “frugal,” according to The Wrap.

“The focus is not on the founder’s achievements, but on their sins,” read one such letter by Patrick Moss, co-chair of the WGA Jewish Writers Committee. “The words used to describe these men are the following: ‘frugal,’ ‘nepotistic,’ ‘harmful,’ ‘womanizing,’ ‘oppressive,’ ‘brash,’ ‘tyrant,’ ‘cynical,’ ‘white-washed,’ ‘predator,’ … and on it goes,” Moss added. “THIS VERY EXHIBIT IS COMPLICIT in the hatred of American Jews, by using antisemitic tropes and dog-whistles.”

The letter was addressed to AMPAS CEO Bill Kramer, former Academy Museum President Jacqueline Stewart, who resigned last week, and the exhibit’s curator Dara Jaffe. Others who wrote letters criticizing the exhibit reportedly included filmmakers Kimberly Peirce, who is a member of the museum’s inclusivity committee; Alma Ha’rel, a former member of the same committee; showrunner Keetgi Kogan; and television writer Michael Kaplan.

Kogan wrote in part that the exhibit seems to portray Jewish founders of the filmmaking industry as “grasping social-climbers who chose to assimilate into American society on the backs of exploited women and people of color.”

Kaplan told The Wrap: “I think there’s a certain amount of antisemitism, whether conscious or not, but also a presentism. Some of this is valid, but the double standard and lack of context is infuriating to many of us. This exhibit shows the villains. Every other part of the museum shows the victims.”

[cineclassicar]

CITIZEN KANE storyboard (1941)

|Storyboard

Citizen Kane (1941). Director: Orson Welles. Studio: RKO Radio Pictures

[brian-in-finance]

Vanity Fair Oscars Party • 2017 • Designer: Alberta Feretti

Vanity Fair Oscars Party • 2019 • Designer: Dundas Couture

Academy Awards • 2020 • Designer: Valentino

Vanity Fair Oscars Party • 2020 • Designer: Prabal Gurung

Academy Awards • 2022 • Designer: Louis Vitton

Vanity Fair Oscars Party • 2022 • Designer: Louis Vitton

Photo: Vanity Fair Slideshow • Other Photos: Getty Images

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Remember… fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There's no how-to road map to style. It's about self expression and, above all, attitude. — Iris Apfel

Seem like only 319 days ago…

[thejewofkansas]

Awards Season 2023-24: The 96th Academy Awards

I got some very cool stuff at the Oscar party I attended, but perhaps the most photogenic was this lovely poster for Past Lives. Is Al Pacino okay? Serious question. That concern aside, it was a pretty good night. Kimmel’s hosting was hit-and-miss, but I’ve certainly seen worse. I liked how they presented the acting awards. Would’ve been cool if they’d done that with a couple other categories,…

[jontheblogcentric]

2023 Oscars Best Picture Review: The Zone Of Interest

Sandra Huller plays the wife of a top Nazi in Auschwitz in the haunting The Zone Of Interest. It would be naturally impulsive to dismiss The Zone Of Interest as ‘another Holocaust film.’ If you watch it, you will see it’s about more than just the Holocaust. Many people will say that Holocaust films have done countless times before. Even if it is true, there are many angles one can see the…

[destinyc1020]

Some Austin news

https://twitter.com/popcrave/status/1674125201313878042?s=46&t=MsTyyZBGy5t6aYtbstg3fg

X

Yay!! This is great news! I'm happy for him. 🥰 He's a huge film/movie enthusiast too, so this would be good for him. 🙂 I know for sure he would have voted for Angela lol 😤

It makes sense since he's an Oscar nominee, and that's usually one of the ways that you're able to get an invite into The Academy membership.

I'm really glad the Academy has been adding younger members over the years.

Thanks for sharing Anon! 👍🏾 I didn't know this.

And before anyone asks, yes, Tom and Zendaya are also members of the Academy lol. 😄

[ffactory]

[citizenscreen]

Walt Disney was given an honorary Oscar "for the creation of Mickey Mouse" by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences at the 5th Annual Academy Awards (held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles) #OnThisDay in 1932 #Oscars #Disney

[haute-lifestyle-com]

More Stars Tapped to Present at 97th Oscars #janetwalker #hautelifestylecom #theentertainmentzonecom #hlproductions #academyawards #oscars #Oscars97

[dweemeister]

96th Academy Awards nominations reactions

Well, it wasn't doomsday. But it wasn't the best Oscar nomination morning I've ever experienced either!

And goodness me, the two major Best Picture contenders that have the most upwards momentum right now (Oppenheimer doesn't have upwards momentum, it's been top of the pack for the whole awards season) did well. And it just so happens, those two films are the ones I'm the most terrified to criticize.

Some thoughts:

From some of the talk going around and the lack of love from outside the United States, I'm a little concerned with Killers of the Flower Moon as it stands. It's my personal pick for Best Picture, jsyk. Ten nominations sure, but missing out on Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for DiCaprio is not a good look, despite the surprise Original Song nomination. Certainly, AMPAS is majority/plurality American, so the story strikes deep chords for any of us who care a smidgen about the nation's history and racial injustice. But I have been seeing chatter - not gonna name nationalities - from outside North America saying how they're tired of American racial guilt movies. That is an aspect of KOTFM, but that completely flattens a morally complicated, beautifully made work. A near-miracle it was made in 2020s Hollywood. I think another part of it is that we are all now taking the Scorsese and Spielberg generation of filmmakers for granted. They've come full circle. Their films have done wretchedly at recent Academy Awards ceremonies as of late, and undeservedly so.

The (imo) overperformance of Poor Things makes the Gladstone v Stone matchup look like it may be slowly tipping away from Lily Gladstone. I don't think I will be writing on the film on this blog but, suffice it to say, I didn't enjoy it. Yorgos Lanthimos is a director that has never truly clicked with me, largely due to his earlier, very cynical work. Poor Things is not as cynical, but I didn't care for the messaging at all (yes, Victorian men were sexual hypocrites and miscreants - how self-congratulatory, I found it) or its sense of humor. I guess some can say that I'm just another puritanical American prude, as well. But I thought the sex was getting into the male gaze-y territory, and the sex work subplot was way waaayyy too sanitized. I also despised the atonal score by Jerskin Fendrix, which was very close to stuff me and my orchestra mates might do if we were messing around in rehearsal (disclosure: I was taught classical piano and violin, have studied music theory up to the college level, played in various orchestras up to a decent level in high school, and am a massive film score fan).

It looks like Oppenheimer is running away with this. I just don't see how anything can stop it in Best Picture. I can respect an Oppenheimer Best Picture winner, even if I'm not even sure if it cracks my top three and Nolan is certainly not one of my favorite filmmakers.

I don't think Oppenheimer is getting Best Actor, though. Rooting for Paul Giamatti for The Holdovers on that one. Shame Dominic Sessa couldn't join him in Supporting Actor, but Da'Vine Joy Randolph has essentially got the Oscar in the bag - despite my reservations on how her character essentially disappears in the last third of the film.

But what about Barbie? It's a movie I respect, deeply. But I never thought it in the caliber of Best Picture nominee one bit. The America Ferrera nomination in Supporting Actress I don't support one bit. Gosling? Sure. Robbie? Had a better case than Ferrera, but I understand why she didn't get it. Gerwig? I'm on the fence over her exclusion in Director.

Sensational stuff for Justine Triet and Anatomy of a Fall. It's probably my #2 vote in Best Picture. I just wish Milo Machado Graner was in for Supporting Actor. This is a dark horse, folks, more than capable of pulling off an upset or two come Oscar night. And a damned good movie, too...

... But its success appears to have come at the expense of Trần Anh Hùng's The Taste of Things. And as the Artistic Director of Viet Film Fest in Orange County, California, that stings, as he's VFF alumni. When France passed over Anatomy of a Fall for The Taste of Things in Best International Feature, there was a lot of outrage directed at Taste by people who had and had not seen the film. Perhaps the damage was already done. A massive shame if that was the case.

Other than Poor Things, the other movie with tons of upward momentum right now is Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. For the record, I think, on its face, you can still make a morally responsible movie about the Holocaust from a Nazi point of view - which I think Glazer mostly does. But my criticism comes from elsewhere. Glazer, in interviews, has said how he wanted to 1) make the movie not primarily about the 1940s, but about our time and our complicity in atrocities and 2) make a film shorn of cinematic artifice to absorb us into the setting. I think his messaging never evolves beyond the basics on the first point; I think he utterly fails on the second. Cases in point: the use of nightvision cameras that only serve to remind the audience they are watching an artistic exercise, the horrific score from Mica Levi that too many film critics (who don't know better, most notably David Ehrlich at IndieWire - really, everyone at IndieWire), and a weird sound mix that reminds me of when stage plays play off-stage sound effects or background noise but that audio doesn't sound sufficiently "far away" enough.

A slight underperformance by Past Lives. It was never going to get a boatload of nominations. But it appears Greta Lee was squeezed out (I have nothing constructive to say about Annette Bening and Jodie Foster in Nyad as I haven't seen the film) and there was scarcely a campaign for Teo Yoo.

American Fiction is, I think, going home empty-handed. Its nominations are the win, and I think it's a decent satire well worth watching.

Maestro doesn't deserve a Best Picture nor its screenplay nomination, but I'm not happy with some of the accusations of Bradley Cooper Oscar-thirsting that's flying around. You folks are taking it much too personally. Did he defecate on your kitchen table or something? Calm. Down.

And speaking about disrespect, there has been a ton of disrespect towards John Williams' nomination for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Again, we're coming full circle to an iconic figure of late twentieth century cinema. Especially from fans of Daniel Pemberton's score to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (who I agree should have been nominated in Score). No, Indy 5 was not great. No, Williams' score to the film was not the best score in the series. No, I don't think Williams should win this year. But did you listen to the score? Helena's theme was gorgeous and its integration across the score was the work of a master. The interplay between the Nazi and Dial themes is something lesser composers just simply cannot replicate. And for those complaining that Williams simply reuses material the entire time, I get the feeling you haven't seen the film or listening to the score by itself (or understand how themes can develop). Yes, I know melody is on its way out in film scores (see: Hans Zimmer, his acolytes, and any composer who thinks that orchestras should be used like drums) and pop music in general in favor of texture and a beat. But I bet you many composers will sell their souls to piece together something half as good as a lesser John Williams score. It's a great score, worthy of its nomination.

Where is Robot Dreams, Neon? This movie's been on my radar for some months now, but radio silence! Do you guys not know how to distribute an animated film? Flee (2021, Denmark) had this same problem! I'm so glad it's in, though.

That nomination for Nimona, though? Dreadful. Again, tumblr won't like I'm going to say this, but I thought it was gratingly written, poorly voice acted, and its humor and character behaviors are going to date like milk.

And a massive congratulations to Godzilla Minus One for its Best Visual Effects nomination. After 38 films in the series, the big fella with atomic breath is heading to the Academy Awards!

No Disney in Animated Short for Once Upon a Studio. Surprising, but not completely so. I'm excited for a slate of independent animated shorts when the short film categories come around!

The Live Action Short slate is rather disappointing. I like the category best when it's full of no-name directors and actors. Without having seen anything else, this is going to Wes Anderson isn't it?

Most prioritized films I haven't seen: all short films, Elemental, Io Capitano, Perfect Days, Robot Dreams, Rustin, Society of the Snow, 20 Days in Mariupol

[carabanchelnet]

📌Del “boicot” a la “apropiación”: tensión entre asociaciones y Ayuntamiento de Madrid por los festejos populares 📌En Carabanchel se asfaltaran 20 calles dentro de la Operación Asfalto 2024 📌¿Qué decisiones puede tomar Pedro Sánchez tras amagar con dimitir? 📌Hoy jueves 25 de abril, Carabanchel se manifesta en sus calles en defensa de la Sanidad Pública 📌… Y MÁS …. https://carabanchel.net

[rabbitcruiser]

On February 29, 2004 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won at the 76th Academy Awards all eleven awards for which it was nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Original Song for "Into the West", Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, therefore tying the record for the most Academy Awards won by a single film and holding the record for the highest clean sweep at the Oscars.

[brian-in-finance]

Video 📹 from ABC (USA)

Remember… this story is the search for joy and hope in the face of violence and loss. We will never forget all of those lost in the heartbreaking, heartwarming, human story of that amazing city of Belfast on the fabulous island of Ireland. — Sir Kenneth Branagh, accepting the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay