Oscar Watch – Page 2 – Six Degrees of Film

6 Degrees: Oscar News

Bob hope oscars

Oscar Season is here. This year, the nominees are: (Should I be like Letterman’s old line, “Ah, who cares…?”) But no, there are some good solid films on the list for 2017. Some good films were not mentioned, which is always the case. My favorite films and actors are never the ones that actually get the statue. It seems that politics even rears its ugly head in Hollywood. Shocking!

Here’s the List of Nominees: La La Land; Moonlight; Hell or High Water; Hacksaw Ridge; Hidden Figures; Manchester by the Sea; Fences; Lion & Arrival.

From the past winners of Best Picture in the 21st Century, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men .and perhaps A Beautiful Mind are probably the three standout films that have won the Oscar. But the most relevant films for the future of cinema are not the Oscar winners. Why? Because the Academy members don’t take into account the actual cinematic appeal of a film in any kind of intellectual capacity. If so, they would never have turned their Oscar ceremony into the mostly boring and tepid, dull as dishwater affair that it has become of late.

Another big controversy is #OscarsoWhite. This year, they’ve done a bit better about representing the population as it exists today, but there remains within Hollywood the same makeup of Old, White, Rich men who are running the show. And that has not changed.

Oscar Predictions abound in my weekly magazine of 6 Degrees of Film. The runaway favorite is La La Land, which has a rating of Wait for the small screen. Fences would get the See it at the Movies nod in this pack, as well as Arrival & Lion. Manchester by the Sea would be a miss. One of the things I’ve argued for is to let the foreign films compete for Best Picture. Elle should be competing in Best Picture, along with others. We talk of living in a Global Village, but this is something that is still part of the politics of Oscar… We have a review of Elle in the 6 Degrees magazine also. Here’s the link: 6 Degrees of Film

*What Critics are saying about….. Film reviews for all the Oscar nominees are on 6 Degrees. And there’s an interesting piece, in keeping with my original premise, about how much it costs to campaign to win an Oscar, or an Oscar nomination. Don’t let anyone fool you that this is high art-this is politics 101. There is a critics list of Best of 2016, if anyone is interested in keeping track. I’m always quite skeptical of finding even 10 films that will make the cut, but some years are better than others.

We have pieces from different critics who list their favorite past Best Picture winners, ranging from The Sting to Titanic and Gladiator. One of my favorite articles is from The Guardian, about the reasons that La La Land shouldn’t be considered a great film, even if it wins the coveted title of Best Picture. For all the reasons I’ve laid out in these articles, I agree. Some of the documentaries and short works have been the best parts of the Oscars in years past. That may be the case this year.

Reviews for I Don’t feel at Home in this world anymore, Fences, Patriots Day, the horror film Get Out, and the 1997 film, Jackie Brown are featured. Last week we featured reviews for The Space Between Us; The Great Wall with Matt Damon; John Wick: Chapter 2; The Human Surge; The Lego Batman Movie; and the Bogart classic: Beat the Devil from director John Huston

The Best of the Web: I recommend going to the website of Ebert.com and Film
Comment for top film reviews (other than 6 Degrees, of course!) These two top sites are usually consistent. Others I like on a weekly basis are The McGuffin, Film School Rejects and Rolling Stone, plus Esquire. NPR and the New York Times, as well as the
Chicago Sun and the LA Times newspapers, which still have consistently solid
reviews for films and all things cinema.

Recommended Viewing: The list from the Tampa Bay Times has Fences & Hidden Figures. Definitely see Arrival if you haven’t seen it already.

* OF NOTE: The next time Casablanca is playing at an art house near you, you should see it on the big screen. There is a piece this week on His Girl Friday with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. These are the Black & White classics that need to be seen at some point in everyone’s life. Look for the part in His Girl Friday, as the dialogue races by at lightning speed, where Cary Grant makes a tongue-in-cheek remark about his real name, Archie Leach.

There’s also a piece about one of my favorite films from the Australian director, Peter Weir: “Picnic at Hanging Rock” If you haven’t seen it, put it on your list to DVR. Another Aussie, the Oscar winning director Ridley Scott’s best movies are ranked also. Kubrick’s The Shining is also reviewed. I’ve read the book and seen the film many times, and they are two different animals. There’s an interesting piece in the magazine that will lay out the reasons why Stephen King still hates the Kubrick version. I recommend reading the book and seeing the film.

The best arguments for Black & White Films: Most of the great Film Noir genre, plus Hitchcock, Laurel & Hardy, and the Marx Brothers are all best experienced in their original black & white format. There’s a homage to the Marx Brothers in our magazine. If you’ve never seen “Duck Soup“put it on your list.

The Armchair Film Fest: For the month of February, the Turner Classic crew
has mixed it up by simply going through the alphabet with Best Picture
nominees from the past. Listed here are a few of the best to tape:
Don’t worry about missing them, TCM usually repeats most of these at
some point throughout the year:

The Music Box from Laurel & Hardy;
The Music Man; Ninotchka; North by Northwest; The Nun’s Story; The
Outlaw Josey Wales; Papillon; The Philadelphia Story; The Pink Panther; A Place in the
Sun; The Quiet Man; Rear Window; Rebel without a Cause; Road to
Morocco; Roman Holiday; A Room with a View; The Seven Per-Cent
Solution; Shall We Dance; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; Singin’ in the
Rain; Some Like it Hot; Spartacus; The Spirit of St. Louis; Strangers
on a Train; The Sundowners; The Tender Trap; The Thin Man; The Three
Musketeers; To Be or Not to Be; Top Hat; 12 Angry Men

**Film as Art: There’s a great piece about Film Posters seen as pieces
of Pop Art in the tradition of Andy Warhol. In my book, there’s a
chapter that talks about the reasons that the early days of film set
the tone for the way that film is viewed and treated to this day. It’s
never been recognized as an art form as it should be. This is a great
way to look at the overall themes that are laid out in modern
film-making.

There’s so much going on now, the Oscar News is a two-parter. Stay tuned! See you at the movies-ML

Capsule Review: Hidden Figures

hidden-figures-2017

Some parts of this film could be mistaken for a feel-good Hallmark movie. It’s got some good actors, notably Octavia Spenser (up for Best Supporting Actress) and Kevin Costner, who is surprisingly not walking through this one…but the beating heart of the film is about the racism the women endured at NASA. The film’s emphasis on the apartheid like working conditions and the long suffering women who tirelessly dedicated their lives to helping our astronauts get into space is not really quite enough of a driving force to make this one pop. It could have been a made for TV movie, with one notable exception in the scene where Octavia brings her workers to the new work space equipped with IBM Computers, where she is empowered and they are finally not segregated. This isn’t really a spoiler, it’s simply part of history that makes this an inspiring film for the teachable moment in high school classes around the country.

But my recommendation, which ranges from Must See at the Movies to
Give it a Miss would put this one somewhere in the middle. You can
wait for the small screen debut and acknowledge this to be a nice popcorn, feel-good type of film. The fact that this movie is even up in the Best Picture category speaks volumes for the weak field of entries this year.

Oscar Notes

• The Paradigm Shift: has left us with some awful optics. A boring Oscar show that droned on and on about the problems facing the film industry.
• The show seemed to go on forever and was the veritable one-trick pony. We know that diversity has been a problem for a long time. And Chris Rock did deliver a funny opening monologue, plus an amusing montage of black comics popping up in recent films.
• However, at some point, they should have let the matter rest. Enough was said about diversity, and there should have been more comedy. Less of the PC Police and Truth Squad, and more about the artistic merits of film as an art form, which is the reason the Academy gathers as that august body.
• There could have been some mention of the ongoing US political race, which has dominated the news globally. Not only does it affect our entire nation, it reminds us of the reason that film is relevant. It speaks to us of current events and global affairs.

• Although there’s a risk of “old-fogey-ism” to bring it up, it’s true that in years past, Bob Hope or Johnny Carson could easily bring the conversation around to include some political humor, as well as hitting topical and other current events.
• Diversity, in the monologue and throughout society, is key here. In other words, mix it up a little bit. If Lady Gaga is all you have going for you two years running, you’re not trying hard enough.
• The powers that be could have used imagination and creativity to put together… perhaps a film? A loop, a montage or reel that might document the changing social norms that have brought us to this point in time.
• I daresay someone, perhaps with the talent of a Steven Spielberg or the like, may be sitting in that audience waiting for a chance to shine their light.
• The suggestions, half-serious, have been made by myself and others to mix it up and change the Oscar categories. But whatever the solution, it’s clear that there is something missing from a tired, stale formula that seemed magical 30-40 years ago, but needs a complete overhaul in the modern era of film.

6 Degrees: Oscar News

The Oscars are coming this weekend. And the lists I tend to gravitate towards are my own made-up versions for what passes as 6 Degrees Awards. The dream lists include some needed revision to the tired and stale Old White Guys Awards that has devolved into the Academy Awards Show.

The one bright spot for me is the possible Oscar for Leo DiCaprio, and since it will be for his entire body of work, including The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Wolf of Wall Street, and many more from his long career, it should be a fitting tribute.

What about categories for….?

One of the solutions I’ve been kicking around under the hashtag: OscarsSoWhite; SoOld; SoPredictable; SoBORing and So20thCentury are some new updated categories for the Academy of Old White Guys to kick around.

First, obviously, they should change the makeup of the people who vote for these films. And then, to revive the entire Awards Concept, you should update the Categories with some that people might be interested in knowing the outcome when you announce them, rather than treating the whole thing as a big insider’s game where only a few rarified groups care when you announce the winners.

How about Oscar Categories for:

Best Performance by a young actor (under 30)
Best Comic Performance
Science & Trending-CGI Categories
Best Social Impact Film or Film with the Greatest Impact in the past decade
Classics: All Oscar Nominated Films are eligible to compete-
Best Remake of a Classic
Best Comic Genre Film…

Another list I’ve toyed with is one for Oscars from the past decades that have impacted lives. It’s a short list, with only a few memorable films. The films of the 21st Century that have most impacted our lives would include:*

Lost in Translation; The Matrix; The Social Network; There will be Blood; No Country for Old Men; Brokeback Mountain; Capote; Casino Royale; Batman Begins; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Frozen; The 40 Year old Virgin; Juno; 12 Years a Slave; Slumdog Millionaire; Iron Man; Taken; The Hurt Locker; Inglorious Basterds; The Wolf of Wall St; When the Levees Broke; Closer

**Some may wonder why there are no foreign films on the list. At 6 Degrees of Film, our reason for existence has been and continues to be the impact of current films and the contrast with films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Hence the six degrees of separation found in our title.

We do note, and certainly concede that most foreign films of the 21^st Century are made well and for the most part, are far superior to the Hollywood version (Let the Right One in, Little Nikita, Wings of Desire are a few that come to mind.) We have compiled a list of some recommended blog sites that have a much wider range of scope plus manpower in terms of review of foreign films.

And there are some films that are distributed worldwide, simply because they are produced in Hollywood, which is still the business center of filmmaking. Therefore, the cultural impacts are seen first when these movies are made, and for several years into the future, as films, along with all other art forms, take years to sink in and to become ingested into the mainstream of culture. This short list illustrates some of the films that have had a lasting impression on our society within the past decade.

What’s Coming:

Benedict Cumberbatch will star as Dr Strange. The remakes include The Jungle Book; Ben Hur; Legend of Tarzan; plus the sequel Bridget Jones’ Baby.

The biopics are Race about the Olympic runner Jesse Owens; plus the much-anticipated Hank Williams story, I saw the Light.

The book adaptation category includes the faith-based film The Shack.

The two Sutherlands, Donald and Kiefer, will star together in a Western, Forsaken.

And finally, the Oscar Winners: Denzel Washington /Antoine Fuqua will team again to remake: The Magnificent Seven and Matthew McConaughey stars in Free State of Jones.

Stay tuned for the Oscars Round Up as we recap the winners and losers from this year’s show. There are some films that always seem to go under the radar, and others that fade with time. Few films are so acclaimed in their own time period that we see the merit of the film right away.

Many of the greatest films are ones that didn’t do well when they were first released. Or they may have some critical acclaim, but go unnoticed by the public in general. That is perhaps the nature of art, and at times, the way we view life through the lens of time.

We should take a few steps back and take in the best films we’ve seen in the past few years. Some films may appear dated, while others deserve a second or third look. We’ll have more of the lists of films that Oscar overlooked in the coming weeks. Until next time we’ll see you at the Movies!

Check out our list of Recommended reads each week in the online magazine: 6 Degrees @the Movies on Flipboard!

6 Degrees: Movie Trends for the New Year

Happy New Year to my fellow movie goers and 6 Degree friends! The Silly season is upon us, and in Hollywood, that’s saying a lot…(It’s always silly season, really). The Awards season has arrived with the Golden Globes, and BAFTA (British Films), and Film Critics Association and so on. The big Kahoona-the Oscars-just announced their nominees late this week.

But the most dreaded of all things for most film critics is the annual lists. The Year’s best films are all on parade as a sign of how very good or bad or banal or pseudo-intellectual the noted reviewer can be. There are some surprises when a list of films that no one in America has ever seen start to populate the lists. And then there are some absolute stinkers that crop up on one or two selected lists.

I think that the worst thing about the yearly list of lists is the predictable nature of the institutions that publish the lists. One of the reasons I’ve become overly cynical about the production of yearly film lists is that I not only write about film, but I also edit a film magazine. And the worst part of the job (besides not getting paid!), is that the same stories are recycled about 100 times and the only changes are the snazzy titles that are offered: “Films to watch when you want to lose weight”; “The best of….fill in the blank”; “Summer surf films”; “China is boffo at box office”; or “Who will be the next hero in the Cinematic Universe?”

The list goes on…I have my own list of movie trends. These are some of the things that seem to be rotated on an amazingly and at times, boringly regular basis:

Movie Trends List from 6 Degrees

Sequels & Spin offs-These are the bread and butter movies for most of Hollywood. They are not all terrible, as I’ve often pointed out that Shakespeare did pretty well with re-hashing old plots.
• The Comic Book Universe-This is a genre that could use a good shake-up. It could use a small electrical shock for all the writers who continue to re-work the same basic plot through a never-ending list of superheroes bent on saving the world.

• The Cinematic Universe-This is an interesting conceit as it encompasses so many different cinematic universes. We may think of Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings, but it could be interpreted as far back as The Cinematic Universe of Oz or the Cinematic Universe of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy. The Cinematic Universe connotes fantasy and storytelling, some of the strong suits of Hollywood classics. In the world of fantastic beasts and unrequited yearning, we find some of the greatest stories and cinematic universes imagined.

• Fem Flicks/Girl Power-Although there have always been strong women in films, from Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn to Meryl Streep and Maggie Smith, we are now seeing a new generation of moviegoers who celebrate Girl Power and young women who can identify with the heroines in hits like Frozen and The Hunger Games bringing young girls into the 21st Century and seeking parity with young boys.
• Kid Power/Pixar movies/animated & Kids movies: Some of the most creative films of the past few decades have come out of the Pixar studios. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Walt Disney was one of the pioneers in the field of animation and live action films for children through most of the 20th Century. The trend continues in the 21st Century, with more imaginative and creative films being produced from Finding Nemo and Wall-E to Shrek and Tangled.
• Global village at the movies-Diversity and Foreign Films continue to converge with the English language market and we are fast becoming a Global Village of moviegoers. You can interpret that to mean that not as many great films are coming out of Hollywood these days.
• Rise of China at the Box office-This is one of those stories that happens to have some elements of truth mixed in with a spice of hyperbole to lend it credence. Yes, there is a huge burgeoning market in the world now for Chinese audiences, but there market share is still far below most of the North American audience.
• Rise of the Small Screen- Here is a trend about fifty years in the making. In my book, 6 Degrees of Film, the movie moguls of the fifties were scared stiff by the thought of televisions showing movies on the small screen and keeping moviegoers at home. New fads such as 3-D glasses and Smell-o-Vision came to the theatres. Nothing new here, except we can now watch films on our televisions and I-Pads. Perhaps the most worrying trend is the one where the most talented writers are now working for Cable Network series, and the most interesting and creative story lines are being discovered on HBO and Showtime, and not at major film studios.
• Rise of the Movie Blogger– With the rise of the movie blogger, we find an interesting panoply of titles and genres to blog about, ranging from horror to box office totals, from Film Noir to Bollywood, from Classics to Comic book genres, and even to blogs for gaming sites. The problem is, as with the movie studios, that there exist only a certain amount of talented writers and bloggers producing material, and the rest, as they say, is “crap”!
• Twilight of the Film Critic– Not necessarily. Some of the best reviews come from NPR, The Guardian, and other old faithful’s like The New York Times and LA Times, plus some unexpected places like Ebert.com, where Chaz Ebert, Roger’s widow, has put together a really creative and varied site with different pieces covering all aspects of filmmaking. Film Comment also produces thoughtful and erudite pieces on film on a regular basis.

• Where to find the best information about film? Of course, in my humble opinion, all the news that’s fit to print about film can be found at 6 Degrees of Film, our online magazine where reviews and the best pieces on current films are selected each week, with an emphasis on weekly round-ups of top film sites each Friday, and on Mondays the box office numbers and top films are all featured.

This week: we found the following:

• News of the death of the great and distinguished English actor, Alan Rickman
• An Interview with Director Paul Verhoeven
• A piece on the newly released Orson Welles Classic “Chimes at Midnight” which was Welles’ take on Shakespeare’s Falstaff.
• An interesting looking film : “The Treasure”, about three men on a treasure hunt in a suburban backyard-reminiscent of the classic with Robert Ryan, “God’s Little Acre”
• Reviews of The Revenant (6 Degrees has a piece)
• Molly Haskell on “The Masculine and the Feminine”, a piece originally published in 1974. She looks at classics such as “The Big Sleep” and the on-screen relationship developed in characters portrayed by Bogart and Bacall.
• The complete list of Academy Award nominated films. The Oscars are held Sunday, February 28th, with Chris Rock as this year’s host. Should be a welcome change, with Rock calling attention to the lack of diversity and the ongoing “Old White Guy” problem plaguing the Oscars.
• An interesting piece on “Star Wars Mythology 3.0”. There is always a danger of overkill with so much publicity and attention surrounding the Star Wars film, but this is a different take on the Cinematic Universe, if you will, of Star Wars.
• Much more to be seen and read in 6 Degrees of Film @ the Movies

6 Degrees: Notes from the Global Village

Friday Five: Notes from the Global Village: Recommended at the movies this week are:

*Star Wars
*Spotlight
*The Big Short
*Trumbo
*45 Years

Star Wars is here! Star Wars:The Force Awakens has landed to mostly positive reviews and mass media in hyper-drive with the onslaught of the movie campaign. The best place to see reviews for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is in the 6 Degrees online magazine. Read the reviews from:

• Ebert.com
• Film comment.com
• Time Magazine
• The LA Times
• Associated Press (Pop culture appeal of Star Wars)

*Fem Flicks: 2015 was a good year for Strong Women’s film roles. Mad Max: Fury Road and Suffragette were both excellent fem flicks for women of all ages to find strong role models. See link: “Is Hollywood finally a woman’s world too?- LA Times

**
Coming Soon: Here are some of the most anticipated films coming soon:

Batman v Superman-with Ben Affleck
The Hateful Eight-Tarantino’s Latest
The Revenant-Oscar buzz for DiCaprio
Ghostbusters all female cast Remake
Misconduct– starring Anthony Hopkins & Al Pacino

*The American Film Institute names top 10 movies for 2015:

The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Room
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Straight Outta Compton

The National Film Registry has also come out with their picks for films to be preserved and entered into the registry. Here’s a partial list of films selected for the registry this year :

*Being There (1979)

• A Fool There was (1915)
• Ghostbusters (1984)
• Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
• Humoresque (1920)
• Imitation of Life (1959)
• John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946)
• LA Confidential (1997)
• The Mark of Zorro (1920)
• The Old Mill (1937)
• Our Daily Bread (1934)
• Seconds (1966)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Sink or Swim (1990)
• The Story of Menstruation (1946)
• Top Gun (1986)
• Winchester ’73 (1950)

Box Office Winners: Star Wars has big numbers, but the # 1 highest grossing film is… Gone with the Wind released in 1939. The other movies on the list are:

The original Star Wars-1977
The Sound of Music-1965
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial-1982
Titanic-1997
The Ten Commandments– 1956
Jaws– 1975
Doctor Zhivago- 1965
The Exorcist-1973
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs-1937

*They’re back! Not only Awards season but “Best of” lists for 2015. If you missed these films at the movies, and would like to rent or stream a good film, here are those films found on most critics and audiences top 10 lists. They include Ex Machina, The Assassin, 45 Years, Clouds of Sils Maria, I’ll See You in My Dreams, Creed, Son of Saul, Carol, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, Sicario, & Brooklyn.

The idea of awards season and best of lists always tends to be suspect. Some years are better than others. The last two summers have seen long, dry spells where hardly any decent films were released. The best films seem to cluster in releases around the end of the year for some reason!

This year there were a few notable exceptions. The Martian and Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina and Mad Max: Fury Road all came out long before the mad holiday rush. It seems that almost all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room for film and film criticism with the anticipated release of Star Wars. (The Donald Trump of films!)

It’s a relief to have it out at last, so we can move on to more important things like…the top 10 lists and the Awards Season that extends for months on end. Then again, maybe Star Wars fever is not such a bad thing after all! See you at the movies-ML

The Wolf of Wall Street & The Genius of Scorcese

The first impression you take away upon leaving the theater is the need to shower…It’s a film that engrosses one in the sleaze of the moment. From the first few scenes, we are pitched headlong into the roller-coaster ride that was Jordan Belfort’s (DiCaprio’s character’s) existence.

The audience is pitched the notion that the world that existed for Belfort was an amoral one, brimming with contempt for the people they represented. As stockbrokers, Matthew McConaughey is seen in a small but crucial role where he explains why the stockbroker doesn’t care to make money for the client, only to be able to pitch the idea of the brass ring-there’s more where this came from…

The opening of the movie feels more like “Goodfellas” and has some of the intensity of Raging Bull. When you witness the sex scenes, they come across as sleazy rather than erotic. These people have no redeeming qualities. Basically, the men are idiots, and the women only slightly less so. The first wife of Belfort comes across as a kind of prophet, one who is doomed from the start. And when the characters behave with contempt and a total lack of concern for the rest of humanity, there’s still a tendency to laugh. Why are we laughing at these idiots? This is the genius of Scorcese

The genius of Scorcese is highlighted beautifully in the very last scene. It’s shot in the relative quiet space of an ordinary subway car. Yet, in the context of the story, the scene is pregnant with unspoken angst and disillusionment. That is the beauty and the genius of Scorcese. He has turned the story of yet another corrupt Wall Street prodigy into a Greek tragedy, and left us, the audience, in the role of the Greek chorus.

We now must fill in the blanks with meaning. That is the takeaway from this…Yet another Wall Street bad boy, one who flew too close to the sun. And yet, we are taken inside the bubble to witness the seduction of capitalism and its lingering after-effects. There is no cure in this microcosm of Corporate Greed and Excess. But in most cases, we see that there is never a wish for a cure, and not even a call to pull the plug.

The denouement is a quiet end in this very wild (and long) ride. And that may be the final take. Scorcese shows his genius for understating the obvious and casting DiCaprio outside the boundaries of our daily lives….The Great Gatsby on crack cocaine Is Jordan Belfort….There is no irony in the takeaway. We see it and it is what it is. That’s the genius of Scorcese.