By John H. Foote In what looks increasingly how things will play out on Oscar night, there was were no real surprises at the Screen Actor Guild Awards last night in any of the film awards. Laura Dern was a popular winner for her tough lawyer in Marriage Story, while Brad Pitt brought the house…
January 19, 2019 DEAR ACADEMY MEMBERS: Through your history you have awarded Best Director more than 90 times. During that time great filmmakers such as Howard Hawks, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick, while nominated, never won a competitive Oscar. In 2006, after multiple nominations, Martin Scorsese finally won an Academy Award for his…
By John H. Foote Sam Mendes superb war epic 1917 won the Producers Guild of America Award (PGA) Saturday night furthering its chances of winning the Academy Award as Best Picture. No one paid attention last year when Green Book won the same award and went on to a shocking Oscar win, though no one…
By John H. Foote (BOMB!) In 1967, 20th Century Fox produced a lavish big budget film musical entitled Dr. Dolittle based on the children’s books by Hugh Lofting. How bad this film was, is, I am not sure has ever fully been recognized. Director Richard Fleischer wrote about it in his autobiography, exploring in detail,…
By John H. Foote After taking a day to explore and review this year’s Academy Award nominations, looking over the critic’s awards and a few other awards groups, I concede there were some pretty huge snubs. In reality there were very few surprises, but in terms of snubs, they are there. The one making the…
By John H. Foote Divorce is a difficult act to go through, punishing, the death of a union, often the passing of a love that was once so intense, the couple could not imagine living without the other. The best films about divorce, those most honest, explore both sides, favouring no one, and allowing the…
By John H. Foote Though I am sure there are those griping that Greta Gerwig was shut out of the Best Director category, screaming anti-female, the truth is there were six or seven better achievements in direction than hers on Little Women, and it was reflected in the nominations. Women have stated for a number…
By John H. Foote When they announce this year’s Academy Award nominations tomorrow morning there are a handful of nominations I would like to hear (but probably will not) that would indeed make this cranky critic smile. It is expected and fully deserved that The Irishman, 1917, Marriage Story and Once Upon a Time ……
By John H. Foote In one week at 5:30 am Pacific time, 8:30 am here, January 13, 2020, the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards will be announced. One week until we know which films, performances and achievements will be vying for the best of 2019. The year was rather extraordinary, with Netflix leaping into…
By John H. Foote The Directors Guild of America announced their nominees for excellence in motion picture direction, perhaps providing the greatest influence on the Oscar race. As expected Martin Scorsese was nominated for The Irishman, and Quentin Tarantino is up for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Scorsese has been nominated nine previous times…