The Hot Blog Archive for February, 2019

The Gurus Weigh In, Post-Oscar

PETER HOWELL: My biggest Oscars surprise, other than Olivia Colman beating Glenn Close, has to be Green Book winning for Best Original Screenplay. Definitely did not see that one coming. I’d ranked Green Book last on my Gurus predictions for that category. And regarding Colman/ Close, I can’t remember a year when I wanted a tie more dearly so that two deserving actresses could both win. Would have been great if the Academy could have pulled off a tie win like Streisand/Hepburn in 1969. Here’s the link to my Oscars post-mortem column.

THELMA ADAMS: I’m not writing a wrap-up but I will say that “I have yet to understand the ramifications of the Preferential Ballot!” Read the full article »

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Academy Speeches And Backstage

ALFONSO CUARÓN (Director): “I want to thank the Academy for recognizing a film centered around an indigenous woman, one of the 70 million domestic workers in the world without work rights, a character that has historically been relegated in the background in cinema. As artists our job is to look where others don’t. This responsibility becomes much more important in times when we are being encouraged to look away. Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias a mi familia. Muchas gracias, Mexico, y sobre todo muchas gracias. Gracias, gracias, gracias.”

Read the full article »

The Gurus Close Out 2019 Oscar Rankings

Part One here.
Part Two here.

And your Gurus o’ Gold 2019, thanks to all, have been:

Thelma AdamsAuthor, Critic, Oscar Expert
Robyn BahrFreelance (Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair, Guardian)
Gregory EllwoodThe Playlist
Peter HowellToronto Star
Mark JohnsonAwards Circuit
Dave KargerTCM, IMDb
Tomris Laffly: Freelance (RogerEbert.com, Time Out New York, Film Journal International)
Wilson MoralesBlackFilm.com
Michael PattersonMichael’s Telluride Film BlogTwitterFacebook
Steve PondThe Wrap
NathanielRThe Film Experience
Sasha StoneAwards Daily
Jeff SneiderCollider

 

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BYO Most Unlikely Oscar Upset Prediction

51 Comments »

BYO Another Long Weekend Presenting Everything Live

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Wherefore The Academy?

A three-hour tour, a three-hour tour. (Academy, left; David Niven)

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BYO Fresh Clean Linens

95 Comments »

BYO Post-Bowl Pre-Oscar

68 Comments »

The Hot Blog

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon