By John H. Foote No pre-amble, just into it. Once again the Academy Award nominations are filled with an array of snubs of actors and actresses, ignored films, directors and achievements. Without further ado, here we go. And yes, for some of these, I am furiously pissed. DA FIVE BLOODS – Long discussed as one…
By John H. Foote And now the ladies! Did they win because of the sheer genius of their performance, or because they were “due” or for sentimental reasons, or they represented the flavour of the moment? As with the Best Actor choices, posted last week, the correct answer is all of the above when the…
By John H. Foote 23. THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995) When Steven Spielberg walked away from directing The Bridges of Madison County, the highly anticipated film, Clint Eastwood had already been tapped to play the photographer from the National Geographic who comes to Iowa in the sixties to photograph the covered bridges. With Spielberg…
By John H. Foote 24.THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) The hushed terror of the little boy telling a doctor his secret was the TV commercial of the year, transfixing millions of movie goers with is deceptively simplistic approach. “I see dead people” became the most important line of the year, instantly stopping our breath, and acted…
By John H. Foote Da Five Bloods, Spike Lee’s fine haunting film for Netflix about four veterans returning to Vietnam years after the war, is among the year’s very best films, and among the best films Lee has ever made. It began streaming on Netflix in May of last year to excellent reviews, and it…
By John H. Foote Should they have won or was another actor more worthy? Was their performance truly for the ages, as an Academy Award winning performance should be, or a win to atone for losing a deserving award earlier in their career? Did they somehow become the flavour of the month during their film’s…
By John H. Foote Two women were nominated as Best Director for the first time in the history of the Directors Guild! Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland received nominations, along with Aaron Sorkin for The Trial of the Chicago 7, David Fincher for Mank and Lee Isaac Chung for…
By John H. Foote There have been so many, narrowing it down to ten was a nightmare, but I felt rather do a massive extended list I would practice discipline and stick with 10. Yes it was difficult, yes I could have done a list of thirty. Here are the greatest travesties of the Academy…
By John H. Foote Well aware of her talent as an actress, I was still not prepared for the staggering perfection of Natalie Portman’s performance as Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie. Portman, it seemed to me, did more than merely act the role but rather slipped under the skin to acquaint herself with the very soul…
By John H. Foote 25. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990) By the late eighties Kevin Costner was a major movie star and reasonably well thought of as an actor. His performance in Silverado (1985) as the hotdogging gunslinger on the side of right was great fun and earned him attention from audiences, critics and directors. Delivering…