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- William S. Burroughs/ Nova ’78 at MoMA/ Remembering James Grauerholz
- Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights: Monster Mash
- Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent: A Cool Brazilian Gets an Oscar Nod
- Now on Oscar’s Short List: Holding Liat, a Documentary about the Harrowing Wait for a Hostage Freed from Gaza
Category: Academy Awards
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The idea of Important differs from Best: for American Sniper, Selma, and Unbroken, Best is beside the point. Each film is enormously engaging, highly recommended, and grounded in history on a large canvas. While many reviewers are concerned with the qualities that push films into the awards race, and all three deserve the Oscar nod…
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The annual celebration of indie films kicking off the vibrant awards season every year gets more glamorous, honoring the outstanding and risk-taking films that are going to make it to Oscars—like Boyhood and Birdman, as well as those that are just great, likes’Laura Poitra documentary Citizenfour, Ira Sachs’ Love is Strange, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin,…
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As last week’s Oscar ceremony fades from memory, it is useful to consider, as Marlon Brando’s character in Last Tango in Paris says, when it’s over it begins again. The “it” here is the Hollywood cycle from Sundance to the Oscar red carpet, awards, and after parties, the subject of a new book, “The $11…
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Omar, one of the five nominees for Foreign Language Film Oscar did not win. The sumptuous Italian film, The Great Beauty, did. But the Palestinian entry, about a young Palestinian man who, despite his youthful dreams of love, peace and freedom, becomes an asset for Israeli intelligence, offers a glimpse into the fraught Middle East…
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147 docs were eligible for Oscars this year. 15 made a short list, and 5 are now contenders. One, The Act of Killing, a first feature length film for director Josh Oppenheimer, working with an anonymous partner, raises questions of morality, conscience, and accountability related to the 1965-6 genocide in Indonesia. As Oppenheimer explained at…
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Daniel Boulud makes a mean red carpet, a special cocktail of that name for Oscar night. This, the second year in a row chef Boulud is host to the east coast academy of arts & sciences members, everyone hopes his restaurant, Daniel, will become a tradition; the fare matches the grandeur of the occasion. Daniel…
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Christmas came early this year. First there was the gift of the documentary “20 Feet from Stardom,” now shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar. Then, there were the celebrations: the most recent on Thursday night at the Edison Hotel’s Rum House featuring cast members, Judith Hill and Lisa Fischer, accompanied by pianist Robbie Kondor for Christmas carols.…
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In New York on Oscar Sunday, the red carpet will be more than a runway for hopefuls in borrowed gowns and glitter. Chef Daniel Boulud will host a special dinner and viewing of the awards show for the east coast Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at his Restaurant Daniel. The signature drink, a…
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Who knew host Meredith Vieira could swear like a trucker, or imagine herself at 59 as a dead Pussy Galore? But as the television personality reminded a packed Cipriani’s on 42nd street for the National Board of Review’s Awards Gala on Tuesday night, paraphrasing Jessica Chastain’s “Maya” in Zero Dark Thirty: “I’m the Motherf—ker in charge.” …
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Is it too soon to think about Oscar contenders for non-fiction films? Several summer/ early fall releases are especially noteworthy. Not only is Ai Weiwei Never Sorry the story of a major visual artist in China who has felt the wrath of his government for speaking out, but a film that utilizes the social media,…
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It’s a great year for Harvey Weinstein. The Weinstein Company co-chairman is the 2012 recipient of the Legion d’ Honneur awarded by France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy. The distinction was conferred last July but Weinstein wisely requested, according to a press release, “to keep the honor private to avoid a conflict of interest with Academy Award Best…
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Vanderbilt Hall, a cavernous space at the entrance of historic Grand Central Station, was fitted with Oscar statuettes, for an exhibition to bring the yearly awards events to everyone, commuters and those, like me, who love to pass through this cherished landmark, en route to Broadway, Barney’s and Bergdorf’s. Just before ribbon cutting, I had…
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A conceit, an ironic barb, wit can be searing and funny. In the case of Margaret Edson’s Wit, the Tony winning play now in a Manhattan Theatre Club revival at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre under the fine direction of Lynne Meadow, Wit follows the journey of Vivian Bearing, a name that loosely translates to…
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“Fame is fleeting,” said Harvey Weinstein introducing Coriolanus last week at the film’s Paris Theater premiere. Juxtaposing the all night Golden Globe parties with his turn on television with Uggie, the canine star of his movie The Artist, Weinstein noted, one minute I’m accepting awards (The Artist, My Week with Marilyn, The Iron Lady, were…
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Co-host with Anne Hathaway at the Academy Awards show in Los Angeles, James Franco picks up his cell phone, a prop for peering into the dreams of the show's prior beloved M.C., Alec Baldwin. The Inception parody is played for laughs, but those in the know were poised to honor Baldwin's career the next night,…
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Charles Cohen, of the newly minted Cohen Media Group, introduced his distribution company and their inaugural film, the Algerian entry into the Oscars race, “Outside the Law,” at a luncheon at The Four Seasons last week. Of the 65 films Charles Cohen put forward by their countries as contenders for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, this…
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Awards fatigue was almost forgotten at the splendid Oscar festivities at Gilt at the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue. Members of the American Academy of Motion Pictures who were not walking the red carpet at the Kodak Theater partied perfectly at home in New York, begowned and bejeweled, and if not surprised by the unfolding…
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Members of the Motion Picture Academy assure me, financial success, even the overwhelming Avatar billions, is no criteria for Best Picture Oscar. We have seen the Avatar story in many incarnations in various genres, and The Hurt Locker has a fresh narrative strategy. Awesome as Avatar is, I don't see it as Best Picture over…
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