#and the 2021 academy award for best short film goes to

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (March 3-9, 2024)

Shin Ultraman took an eternity to reach home video, but Godzilla Minus One will proceed as a more reasonable pace (by Japanese standards). Toho will release roughly one billion different editions on May 1, with Amazon- and Godzilla Store-exclusive physical bonuses both on offer. Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color is included with some of the pricier versions, or you can buy it as a standalone Blu-ray or DVD.

The black-and-white version of Shin Godzilla, SHIN GODZILLA:ORTHOchromatic, also hits Japanese home video on May 1. Like Minus Color, no 4K edition, just Blu-ray and DVD. A handful of new bonus features about ORTHOchromatic are included.

As is standard for Toho, none of these releases will be English-friendly. But given the films' popularity (and the lack of any legal way to watch Minus One since it left theaters), expect bootlegs to circulate at light speed.

Unsurprisingly, Godzilla Minus One cleaned up at the Japanese Academy Awards, with eight victories out of eleven nominations: Picture of the Year, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, and Best Lighting. That's one more than Shin Godzilla, and pretty much guarantees that the Toho Godzilla series will keep the prestige pictures coming. Strange times!

We'll see if Minus One can also capture Best Visual Effects at the American Academy Awards tonight. The Creator remains its biggest competition. The Gareth Edwards film is better-positioned by the usual metrics, with a second nomination for Best Sound and five wins at the Visual Effects Society Awards, but the enthusiasm gap for the films themselves may prove decisive. I'll be doing a much lengthier analysis during Wikizilla's Oscar stream tonight, which will start at about 6:00 PM ET, an hour before the ceremony begins.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire tickets may not be on sale yet, but Cinemark theaters have rolled out the above merch (much more efficiently than Target and Walmart have rolled out the toyline, if my local theater's any indication). I have a suspicion those plushies will be worth a mint a few years from now, small as they are; don't know about the other stuff. I bought the larger popcorn tin when I saw Dune: Part Two on Thursday. The promo image is deceptive, as the green area is transparent plastic and the Titan image is on the opposite wall of the tin, so that popcorn's either defying gravity or being held up by a hidden insert. There are Kong and Skar King variants as well, the latter revealing his height (318 feet). Poor Shimo; being the "secret" villain really narrows the amount of merch you get.

The other interesting GxK news this week (apart from the endless TV spot variants, which I'm not even trying to keep track of) is a collaboration with the American Red Cross, of all institutions. Donate blood, platelets, or AB Elite plasma from March 25 to April 7, get a free T-shirt. And for completion's sake, I'll mention the Roblox and Call of Duty cross-promos too.

Chibi Godzilla Raids Again, an unexpected delight last year, is getting a second season starting April 3. The official site revealed that Minilla is joining the cast, while those silhouettes to his right look like Titanosaurus (unjustly neglected in recent years), Gigan, and Gabara. Expect to follow the first season in being uploaded to the GODZILLA OFFICIAL by TOHO YouTube channel with English subtitles.

Here's another chance to watch Tsuburaya and Toei Animation's Kaiju Decode short, originally released in 2021. (It goes away at the end of the month, because every Japanese studio is apparently hellbent on making short films ephemeral, so download it now.) It's the basis for a recent mixed reality game for the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest Pro, hence its return to the spotlight.

UniVersus, a collectable card game predicated on pitting characters from various franchises against each other, is going all in on Godzilla after offering a couple of Minus One cards through highly convoluted means last year. They're releasing a couple of Godzilla Challenger Series (preconstructed decks) on June 21, one based around Godzilla and Mothra, the other around King Ghidorah and Rodan, with Mechagodzilla thrown into the mix for both. I've never played this game in my life, but the prospect of a shiny Godzilla card with James Stokoe art is sort of tempting.

[dweemeister]

Best Animated Short Film Nominees for the 96th Academy Awards (2024, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages.

If you are an American or Canadian resident interested in supporting the short film filmmakers in theaters (and you should, as very few of those who work in short films are as affluent as your big-name directors and actors), check your local participating theaters here.

Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards. The write-ups for the Documentary Short and Live Action Short nominees are complete. Films predominantly in a language other than English are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

Yet again, this completes this year’s omnibus write-ups for the Oscar-nominated short films for the upcoming Academy Awards:

Our Uniform (2023, Iran)

Director Yegane Moghaddam used to be a primary school teacher in Iran and often “observed the students… struggling with their uniforms and headscarves all day.” These observations informed her film and narration in Our Uniform, which won Best First Film at Annecy (the largest animation-only film festival, in the French Alpine resort town of the same name) in 2023. Only the fourth ever non-Western/European and non-Japanese nominee in this 92-year-old category – following 2014’s Bear Story (Chile; that year's winner), 2020’s Opera (South Korea) and 2021’s Bestia (Chile) – Our Uniform adopts a unique style never before seen in this category. Instead of traditional cel animation with ink and paper or computers, Moghaddam nearly single-handedly painted images directly on clothing fabrics (pants, jackets, shirts, scarves – all from her personal wardrobe) to illustrate the memories her narration shares. These memories, of attending public school in Iran, invariably intersect with Iran’s theocratic politics. There are references, never pedantic, about government propaganda as part of the school curriculum, and the segregation between boys’ and girls’ education. Most vividly, Moghaddam remarks on the restricting school uniform and compulsory hijabs for girls at school, issues which enflamed protests against such laws beginning in 2017 (and spiking after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022).

Moghaddam, who cites graphic novelist/director Marjane Satrapi (2007’s Persepolis, 2011’s Chicken with Plums; the former I consider among the finest animated films of this young century) as her primary artistic inspiration, curiously does not contain as much messaging in her film as one might expect. As an Iranian citizen who currently has no plans to officially distribute the film within her home nation due to fear of retribution, how could she? But the film’s slightness cannot distract from its painstaking, loving artistry. Without relying on inventive camerawork, Moghaddam uses the natural pockets and folds of her clothes to suggest dimension and personality. To Moghaddam, all clothing has a personality and personal history to the wearer, even compulsory clothing, all of which she uses to wonderful effect. What originally began as a fun side project that Moghaddam had no expectations for gifts audiences a truly original viewing experience.

My rating: 7.5/10

Letter to a Pig (2022, Israel/France)

Qualifying for the Academy Awards after winning the Grand Prize for Best International Short Film at Anima, the Brussels Animation Film Festival, in early 2023, Nal Kantor’s Letter to a Pig sees a Holocaust survivor retelling a story of survival to a group of largely disinterested and scornful teenagers. As the elderly man recounts how he wrote a letter to a pig that inadvertently saved his life, a handful of students start insensitively snorting. Quietly, Letter to a Pig adopts the standpoint of one of the girls in class, half-listening at first. Here, Kantor seamlessly switches between the man’s memories and the reality of the classroom, through heavy rotoscoping to outline her figures, mixing it with live-action footage for the limbs or eyes, but only using a few ink scribbles to outline facial features and hair. Generally, the more movement either the schoolgirl or Holocaust survivor show, the more scribbles and live-action footage that appear. For all other figures, they remain mostly abstract.

As a young man, the Holocaust survivor recalls how filled with rage he was, long after his near-death encounter. Now, physically unable to exact retribution on those who harmed him, he tells the students “you are my revenge” – passing along his trauma to those not realizing what they have just received. The schoolgirl’s vision in the surrealistic final minutes is her absorption of the Holocaust survivor’s story. This masterfully drawn finale is the emotional apex of Letter to a Pig, fully justifying its black-and-white palette (with one exception: pink for the pigs, considered an impure animal in Judaism) in service for its profound sense of dread. Symbolizing memory, the pig appears throughout the film as a savior, a monster, or something worthy of mockery, depending on who is on screen. It is in these final moments Letter to a Pig leaves the audience with pressing questions. Can one impart painful memories without the trauma that gives such memories form? Most urgently, can we choose not to act on the trauma we inherit? May it be possible not only in dreams.

My rating: 8.5/10

Pachyderme (2022, France)

Stéphanie Clement’s Pachyderme, like Letter to a Pig, is an unsettling short film that delves deeply into the mind of a troubled character. In this film, a young woman named Louise (Christa Théret) recalls her days visiting her grandparents in Provence (southeastern France) during her childhood. The sun-bathed rural landscape is picturesque, the grandparents’ house gorgeously stylized. Beyond this, some of Louise’s recollections feel incomplete, with no apparent structure or chronology. That might read as a criticism, but Clement and screenwriter Marc Rius fully intend for Pachyderme to seem fragmented. The film strongly implies – and some viewers will pick this up earlier or later than others – that the grandfather sexually abused Louise. In reaction, Louise, while recounting her memories for the audience, has repressed her memories and is showing signs, in her narration and in her visual recollections, of disassociation. I do not recall ever seeing disassociation, a common symptom of those who have been sexually abused, portrayed as cinematically as seen in Pachyderme. It is best exemplified, metaphorically, in the scene where our protagonist disappears into the wallpaper (this scene was originally the first bit of test footage made for the film).

But perhaps there is no better visualization of all Pachyderme has to say than the moment where Louise’s grandfather notices her index finger bleeding. He grasps her hand, and his hands dwarf hers. The simultaneity of Pachyderme’s picture book visuals and its horrifying implications show the viewer a woman who has not fully processed what has happened to her. It is not helped by the defensiveness of Louise’s grandmother following the grandfather’s death. Family denial, too, is playing a role in how Louise is choosing, consciously and subconsciously, to remember the past. In its eleven minutes, Pachyderme passes in a dreamlike haze, its illusory moments enabling the viewer to more closely connect to Louise’s (both the young adult narrating the film and the child on-screen) feelings. Unlike many nominees in Best Live Action Short Film down the years that addressed childhood trauma (it's a long-running trend for that category), Pachyderme prioritizes healing in as cinematic a way as possible.

My rating: 8.5/10

Ninety-Five Senses (2023)

If the names Jared and Jerusha Hess are familiar, that is because this husband-and-wife directorial team also made Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Nacho Libre (2006). Some of those same comedic sensibilities carry over to Ninety-Five Senses, which qualified for the Academy Awards by winning Best Animated Short at the Florida Film Festival in 2023. The film features an old man named Coy (Tim Blake Nelson, a Coen Brothers regular whose voice fits the narrative here) reflecting back on life – a reverie that jumps, hops, and skips across time and place. At first, Ninety-Five Senses, with its wildly shifting style changes, does not seem to have much of a point or purpose. But the film gradually reveals itself: first through the subtle shading of what appear to be prison bars and, later, the mountain of discarded food cartons sitting on the table in front of Coy. We soon realize that Coy is in the final hours or minutes of being on death row, and he is describing to the audience his internal peace before he meets his fate.

Ninety-Five Senses is not here to make a point about capital punishment, incarceration, or the terrible actions that landed Coy in prison. Foremost, this is a film that attempts to capture the last gasp of humanity of an individual before their execution. In contrast with the drab grays whenever Coy is seen in his cell, his flashbacks are intense – a fount of color, with both crude and elegant character designs, hand-drawn and computer-generated (sometimes appearing side-by-side). Not every vignette – of which there are five, one for each human sense – showcases as much aesthetic excellence as the others, such as an early instance where Coy recounts his childhood. That vignette does not evoke the respective human sense it covers as well as it thinks it does; the art style of that vignette also recalls hand-drawn television animation, but flows too smoothly to exactly replicate it. In any case, this is a promising first foray into animated film for the Hesses.

My rating: 8/10

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (2022)

War Is Over! (you cannot make me write or say the full title ever again) has the basics of a promising animated short film. Yet its simplistic take on humanity and warfare and close association with John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” condemns the film as pure hogwash. On second thought, I retract “hogwash”. That is an insult to Letter to a Pig and to porcine animals. This is self-congratulatory treacle from director Dave Mullins and co-writer Sean Ono Lennon (the son of John and Yoko). In a supposedly alternate World War I reality, a pigeon delivers messages between an Allied and a Central Power soldier on opposite sides of No Man’s Land. The messages contain chess notation, as they, somehow, began a game of chess with each other without ever meeting. One day, at presumably Christmas, the two armies inexplicably charge toward each other and, amid gunfire and a mass mêlée that should leave many more soldiers dead than shown, our two soldiers encounter each other on the battlefield in combat shorn of its gruesomeness.

Despite the film using the Unreal Engine for its animation, I admire the film’s lighting effects, character movements, pigeon animation, sound effects, and art direction for the otherwise sanitized trenches. That may be all the positives I can offer.

The contrived scenario sinks even further when our two chess-playing soldiers discover a critical message from their pigeon messenger. Cue the second-most embarrassing needle drop among this year’s fifteen short film nominees (somehow, the closing moments of The After are worse than this). Unlike The After, War Is Over! feels as if constructed around its respective song. Is this now a glorified music video? In an instant, the film reduces the tragedy of the Great War to something akin to a soft drink commercial or that “Imagine” video (could we stop disrespecting John Lennon and his fellow Beatles?). The sanitized depiction of war and farfetched resolving actions undercut the film’s message, embarrassing itself as it lurches through its excruciating final minutes. That the first credit in the end credits read “music and message by John and Yoko” rather than director Dave Mullins leaves an even more sour taste. At the heart of War Is Over!, Mullins and Sean Ono Lennon want us to know that war is bad. I never could have guessed!

My rating: 4/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

From previous years:  85th Academy Awards (2013) 87th (2015) 88th (2016) 89th (2017) 90th (2018) 91st (2019) 92nd (2020) 93rd (2021) 94th (2022) 95th (2023)

Two other films played in this package as honorable mentions: Wild Summon (2023, dir. Karni Arieli and Saul Freed; 6/10) and I'm Hip (2023, dir. John Musker; 6/10).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[greensparty]

Green's Party Guide to the 2024 Oscar Nominated Short Films

Anyone who knows me knows I am a longtime champion of the Short Film categories for Animation, Live Action and Documentary at the Academy Awards, mainly because I have made short films and I know how hard it can be to tell a story in a short amount of time. I am very excited to continue my annual tradition of showcasing the Oscar Nominated Short Films (read the  2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 guides). 

2024 movie poster

This year’s nominated short films are available from ShortsTV both in theaters and online. I’ve watched all of them and here are my thoughts and predictions:

Best Live Action Short Film:

This year's Live Action Short Film nominees is one of the strongest collection of nominees in years! The After (U.K.) was produced by Neon Films and distributed by Netflix. In this heavy drama, after a traumatic experience with his family Dayo (played by David Oyelowo) becomes a rideshare driver and one of his jobs helps him to confront the past. Oyelowo (who also produced this film) has been excellent in a number of films including Selma and The Butler, and this is truly a showcase for him! Red, White and Blue (U.S.) was produced by Samantha Bee. In this drama, a single mother (played by Brittany Snow, another notable actress) bring her young daughter with her as she crosses state lines to get an abortion. Without getting into spoilers, it goes from a sobering to even more sobering and has a lot to say about the need for reproductive rights in all states. Knight of Fortune (Denmark) is about a man who's at a morgue to say goodbye to his suddenly deceased wife and he forms an unlikely friendship with another widower. In a category filled with heavy dramas, this one is among the heaviest, but there's also a humanity to it in showing in a very fragile state how a total strange can lend a helping hand. Invincible (Canada) is based on a true story of the last 48 hours of a 14-year-old boy's life while he's in a juvenile center. While there are some powerful moments, it does feel like at times like it's a feature being squeezed into a short. Netflix's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (U.S. / U.K.) is the most high-profile as it's from director Wes Anderson adapting from Roald Dahl and it was released on Netflix in September. Anderson had previously adapted Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox and this time he's adapted a 37 min. film but with the same scale as a feature. The film explores a variety of stories narrated by Dahl (played by Ralph Fiennes), the main story being about Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is able to predict the future and see through objects thanks to a book he stole. This one is easily the biggest budget, most star-studded and most visually impressive.

Will Win: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the clear frontrunner. Wes Anderson has been Oscar-nominated in a number of other categories (Screenwriting both Original and Adapted, Animated Feature director, Directing, and producing Best Picture) and yet he has never won even though he is one of the most critically acclaimed and innovative directors working today. In some ways it is kind of unfair that an A-list director makes a short film on the scale of a feature when so many Live Action Shorts are low budget and trying to make something impressive in a short amount of time and don't have nearly the resources Anderson does to be able to get this cast, the production design and to adapt Dahl. On the other hand there's no rule that says Live Action Shorts are meant for newcomers and directors early in their career...so survival of the fittest. But something that needs to be said about this year's crop of nominees is that there's a lot of heavy drama, and this one is charming and lighter in contrast, which could steal the thunder.

Should Win: I'm going to have to say a tie. Henry Sugar is highly impressive, but Red, White and Blue stayed with me and had a twist that was devastating.

Best Animated Short Film:

This is also a great year for animated short nominees: Our Uniform (Iran) is about an Iranian girl unleashing her memories of school as she looks at her old uniform. The animation style and aesthetic is very unique. Letter to a Pig (Israel / France) is about a Holocaust survivor speaking to a classroom about how a pig saved his life and a student goes into a dream about it. This is very heavy and intense. But I do feel like animation purists are going to have an issue with the fact that is also used some live action footage interspersed with the animation. But either way, this is a very innovative approach to the subject matter. Pachyderme (France) looks at a young girl visiting her grandparents in the Summer countryside. A young female protagonist and/or a woman looking back at her younger self is a common theme in this year's nominees, but this one has some gothic and horror elements to it. Ninety-Five Senses (U.S.) is directed by Jared Hess (yes the director of Napoleon Dynamite is an Oscar-nominee) and his wife Jerusha Hess (writer with Jared on several films and Austenland). An old cowboy (played by actor/director Tim Blake Nelson) reflects on the body's five senses in his lifetime as he's about to run out of time. Let me just say I was not into Napoleon Dynamite at all, but what got my attention more than the directors was Tim Blake Nelson, an underrated actor who shines in everything he's in. I kind of liked how the animation changes within each sense Coy describes and also how it has a sense of nostalgia about the pre-digital era. WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (U.S.) got my attention immediately as I am a lifelong Beatle / John Lennon fanatic. It was co-written by Sean Ono Lennon, who also co-produced with his mom Yoko Ono. Director Dave Mullins was previously nominated in this category for Pixar's 2017 short Lou. Set during a World War I front, a pigeon carries messages between two soldiers playing chess, unaware they are on opposite sides. There is no dialogue and the music score of Pixar veteran Thomas Newman enhances the powerful anti-war message of this colorful visual feat!

In addition to the official nominees, ShortsTV is including two additional films in the Best Animated Short Film program, both of which were on the short list but did not get nominated. Wild Summon (U.K.) is narrated by Marianne Faithfull and it was produced by Oscar-winner Adam McKay. It looks at the lifecycle of the wild salmon as it looks in human form. While it is a bit long, there is a strong environmental message to it. I'm Hip (U.S.) was directed by animation veteran John Musker, who was nominated for two Oscars for Animated Feature for The Princess and the Frog and Moana. This is about a hip cat who sings a song about how hip he is to the world around him...who don't agree.

Should Win: WAR IS OVER! is the best of this year's strong crop. With the state of the world what it is right now, an anti-war message anchored by a John and Yoko's "Happy Xmas" made a very strong statement. I'm a huge fan of Sean Lennon and it'd be awesome to see him accept!

Will Win: WAR IS OVER! Not only is there the name recognition of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, but the World War I setting completely driven by visuals and no dialogue will go a long way.

Best Documentary Short Film:

This is a great year for Short Docs: Nai Nai & Wài Pó (U.S. with Mandarin subtitles) was a festival hit acquired by Disney+. Director Sean Wang makes a touching and personal profile of his grandmothers who live together and dance, exercise and joke together. There is a sadness about mortality, but there's also a sense of humor to this that makes the subjects seem funnier than it would in another director's hands. The Barber of Little Rock (U.S.) is produced by Liz Garbus (a two-time Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature) and the New Yorker. In Little Rock, AR a local barber Arlo Washington has founded People Trust, a non-profit community bank fostering economic progress for underserved and underbanked residents. This doc looks at a number of people who have collaborated with People Trust (each of whom could easily be the subject of their own doc), but the through line is very much Arlo who is fighting the good fight to provide opportunities a lot of banks are not and to help the community as a whole. Island in Between  (Taiwan) is produced by the New York Times. The doc's director S. Leo Chiang reflects on his own relationship with Taiwan, United States and China from the islands of Kinmen, just off of mainland China. The cinematography is breathtaking to say the least! The ABCs of Book Banning (U.S.) was produced by MTV Documentary Films. It was co-directed by Sheila Nevins (a big doc producer and executive who is just now directing) and was co-directed by Trish Adams (a previous Oscar nominee for Best Doc Feature for GasLand) and Nazenet Habtezghi (a producer on American Experience). This looks at the topical issue of banned books from school districts in recent years. Instead of just documenting the battles and the politicians who campaigned for book banning, this doc talks with children and in some cases the authors of some of the banned books. This is very thought-provoking and lends itself to a longer conversation after the film is over. The act of saying a book cannot be read in a school district raises bigger issues and concerns about intent and prejudice. By the end of the film, I truly wished we could force Desantis and his staff to watch this! The Last Repair Shop  (U.S.) was produced by L.A. Times and distributed by Disney+ and it was co-directed by Kris Bowers and Ben Proudfoot, who are veterans in this category having been nominated A Concerto is a Conversation at the 2021 Oscars and Ben won for last year's The Queen of Basketball. Here Proudfoot and Bowers (an accomplished music composer for numerous films) look at Los Angeles, one of the few cities that offer to repair music instruments for the public school students at no cost. The doc looks at the repair shop, but more specifically the four craftspeople who specialize in these instruments as well as the students who play them. This is very much a doc that pulls at the heartstrings. But what I loved about this is that it is really an analogy about how music can be something that brings people of all walks of life together to make something beautiful.

Should Win: Some highly impressive docs in this category this year, but The ABC's of Book Banning made the strongest statement. But do not discount The Last Repair Shop, also about the need for art in our society.

Will Win: This could go any number of ways, but the fact that The Last Repair Shop is now on Disney+ and was broadcast on ABC-TV, definitely raises its profile significantly. The fact that it was a bigger budget doc with a sweet message is going to go a long way too!

This year's Oscar Nominated Short Films can be seen online from ShortsTV as well as select movie theaters including programs at Coolidge Corner Theatre and Landmark Kendall Square Cinema.

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Nicholas Britell (b. 1980) Succession (Piano Solo arr. sheet music)

Nicholas Britell - Succession HBO TV Series (Piano Solo arr.) sheet music Nicholas Britell (born 1980) Best Sheet Music download from our Library. Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you!FilmographyAs performer As composer Television

Nicholas Britell - Succession HBO TV Series (Piano Solo arr.) sheet music

https://rumble.com/embed/v2vggwi/?pub=14hjof

Nicholas Britell (born 1980)

Nicholas Britell (born October 17, 1980) is an American film and television composer. He has received numerous accolades including a Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, and a Grammy Award. He has received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score for Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), and Adam McKay's Don't Look Up (2021). He also scored McKay's The Big Short (2015), and Vice (2018). He is also known for scoring Battle of the Sexes (2017), Cruella (2021), and She Said (2022). The HBO original series Succession (2018–2023) marked Britell's entry into television. Britell scored all four seasons, earning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music in 2019. His score for the second and third season in Succession each earned Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series nominations in 2020 and 2022. His score for The Underground Railroad was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special in 2021. His works, as described by Soraya McDonald of Film Comment, "seem to organically straddle accessibility and sophistication in a way that goes beyond the typical programming of a big-city pops orchestra…That might have something to do with the fact that Britell has long had one foot in the world of hip-hop and another in the world of classical music."

Nicholas Britell is a Steinway Artist and a Creative Associate of the Juilliard School. In December 2018, it was announced that Britell would be a part of Esa-Pekka Salonen's newly formed creative collective "brain trust" as Salonen takes the reins as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. Filmography As performer Year Title Director 2008 Eve Natalie Portman As composer Film Year Title Director 2008 New York, I Love You Natalie Portman 2012 Haiti: Where Did the Money Go Michele Mitchell Gimme the Loot Adam Leon 2013 12 Years a Slave (additional music by) Steve McQueen 2015 The Seventh Fire Jack Pettibone Riccobono A Tale of Love and Darkness Natalie Portman The Big Short Adam McKay 2016 Free State of Jones Gary Ross Moonlight Barry Jenkins Tramps Adam Leon 2017 Battle of the Sexes Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris 2018 If Beale Street Could Talk Barry Jenkins Vice Adam McKay 2019 The King David Michôd 2021 Cruella Craig Gillespie Italian Studies Adam Leon Don't Look Up Adam McKay 2022 Carmen Benjamin Millepied She Said Maria Schrader Television Year Title Notes 2018–2023 Succession 29 episodes 2021 The Underground Railroad 10 episodes Ziwe Theme music by 2022 Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty 10 episodes Andor 12 episodes Read the full article

[josephfebin]

Forefront 4: Affairs of the Art 2021- Obsessed with this handcrafted short on obsessions!

“Affairs of the Art,” is a 2021 2D animated short by Joanna Quinn, and story by Les Mills. It tells the story of an extraordinary family, we can say an eccentric nature in behavior and hobbies, they are interested in pickling, bug collecting, no passion is off-limits. It's a different type of approach in storytelling, and very fluidic in animation so by the quality in both "Affairs of the Art" is nominated for Best Animated Short at the 2022 Academy Awards. It's all about a Fifty-nine-year-old factory worker Beryl is totally obsessed with drawing, and the story goes through her narration. Well crafted sound design really helps animation it's Joanna Quinn herself who gives voice for the main character Beryl. Beryl's fixation dominates the entire household and it carried out through. Apart from her husband, Ivor, Beryl's model and muse, every member of the family is addicted to something.

As an animator I got inspired by the Director Joanna's referencing method by acting herself for the expression and sounds. We can see this on the video where she explains the process. She captured her exaggerated lip sync images while she acted and used it for the animation references.

In my own practise affairs of art helps or inspires me to take reference by acting ourselves while animating mainly human characters or any characters. The movie's director Joanna acted herself and sample that for her animation or she made even mouth drawings for each sound or each expression by acting herself. This inspires me to act before animating and I know it makes a good animator and a director if we can act and take reference ourselves. Also, I like, how Joanna managed to deal mature content through animation when some people still think animation is still only for the kids. How animation can convey story or message effectively for an adult audience the not only entertainment-oriented perspective.

As I’m working on a fully drawn animation the process behind the making of this animation helped me in each stage of development.By practising continuous drawing, we can explore the limitless possibilities of 2D animation in terms of artistic or technical nature.She managed to create extremely difficult perspective changes sometimes that is difficult to create in a 2D animation. Also, the use of colour tones to give a specific mode to animation can be found in this ‘affairs of art’.

Bibliography

Canada, N.F.B. of (2021). Affairs of the Art. [online] www.nfb.ca. Available at: https://www.nfb.ca/film/affairs-of-the-art/ [Accessed 5 Jul. 2023].

The New Yorker (2021). 2022 Oscar-Nominated Short: ‘Affairs of the Art’ | The New Yorker Screening Room. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAX9_rDvO_c [Accessed 18 Aug. 2022].

Film Carnage. (2022). Review: Affairs of the Art. [online] Available at: https://filmcarnage.com/2022/02/20/review-affairs-of-the-art/.

www.youtube.com. (2022). Affairs of the Art. Behind the scenes - From Script to Screen in 5 minutes! [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHZFuURSuFg [Accessed 5 Jul. 2023].

www.youtube.com. (2022b). Joanna Quinn - How do you keep the style when you work with other animators? [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO8fkJz0YBM [Accessed 5 Jul. 2023].

[letterboxd]

After Agnès: Ten French Filmmakers to Watch in 2021.

It’s not every day that a grass-roots fandom inspires a Letterboxd Easter egg, but the love for Portrait of a Lady on Fire was so strong that those flames are here to stay. With a new Céline Sciamma fairytale on the horizon, we invited Sarah Williams—one of the #PortraitNation instigators—to highlight ten femmes de cinéma with new works due out this year, and suggest films from their back catalogs to watch now.

Among many dramatic moments in cinema in 2020, there was the resignation of the entire César Academy board, following protests about the nomination of filmmaker and child rapist Roman Polanski (dubbed ‘Violanski’ by French feminists). Then there were the walkouts at the 45th César Awards ceremony itself, led by actress Adèle Haenel, after Polanski won there. Firm calls for change followed from Le Collectif 50/50, a movement that has urged parity on festival selection committees, after seeing how few female filmmakers were allowed into competition categories. (They have had some success, particularly with Cannes, where selection committees have moved towards more transparency and a better gender balance.)

Actress Adèle Haenel has a message for the 2020 César Awards, shortly before walking out of the ceremony.

This year’s Césars were tame, by comparison: actress Corinne Masiero stripped on stage, using her brief spotlight to focus on the pandemic and the crisis of shuttered cinemas across France. May they open as soon as it’s safe, because many of the filmmakers prominent in these social movements have new movies on the horizon. As the older generation retires, this newer group of progressive filmmakers is making waves on the festival scene, working from perspectives often denied or overlooked in mainstream cinema. French cinema is at a sort of crossroads, and the next Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Divines or BPM could be just around the bend.

Letterboxd members are well schooled in the power of Agnès, and Céline Sciamma has entered the worldwide critical sphere—and Letterboxd’s highest ranks—thanks to the success of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (🖼️🔥 forever), but there are many more French storytellers worthy of your watchlists. Alongside Sciamma, here are nine more for your consideration.

Céline Sciamma’s ‘Petite maman’.

Céline Sciamma

Coming soon: Petite maman Watch now: Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood

Before her worldwide hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma helmed a trilogy of acclaimed coming-of-age stories, Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood. Her fifth feature, Petite maman, both lives in the world of this trilogy, and radically differs from the trio.

Petite maman premiered at the 2021 Berlinale, where the North-American rights were snapped up by NEON, Sciamma’s partner on Portrait’s release. In the film, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) is eight years old when her grandmother dies, and she goes with her parents to help empty the house. One morning, her mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse) disappears, and she finds a young girl also named Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) building a fort in the same place her mother had as a child. A non-traditional view of motherhood, Petite maman’s supposed twist is never meant to be a twist at all, as this Miyazaki-like fairytale never tries to hide where Nelly’s mother really is.

Unlike other time-travel films, Petite maman is not concerned with physics. It’s a gentle act of love that blurs generational lines, answering the question of what it would be like to see life through your parents’ eyes at your age.

What Sciamma does here is radical even for her, creating an entire film that lies in a safer place of childhood. Where in Water Lilies, Girlhood and, especially relevant, Tomboy, shot in the same forests of Cergy, she depicts the full violence that comes with adolescence, the two young girls here console each other, and don’t have a camera on them for the rougher events of their childhoods.

Sciamma’s earlier films about youth feel like personal catharsis, but also unflinchingly show coercion, a child being outed, and teenage gang violence. With Petite maman, the two young girls are allowed to live in the more innocent parts of their childhoods, and though they deal with grief, worries of abandonment, and one nervously awaits a major surgery, Sciamma now tells a weighty story without needing to show pain on screen.

The end result is a warm, nostalgic film that isn’t bound by time period or the specifics of setting. It’s a live-action Ghibli fairytale that, despite having Sciamma’s youngest leads, has matured from her earlier work. The plays acted out by the children sometimes parallel their own stories, and once, in a scene of a countess and maid, almost seem to be calling back to past films, in this case Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Many times, including at the film’s Berlinale Q&A, Sciamma has said she does not write characters, but stories and situations to enter. This feels more than true with this latest effort, a steady hand extended to an audience, promising us that it will be okay, some day.

Alice Diop’s ‘We’.

Alice Diop

Coming soon: We (‘Nous’) Watch now: Towards Tenderness (‘Vers la Tendresse’)

Through the many shortcomings and scandals of France’s César Awards, a memorable win of recent years was Alice Diop’s 2017 award for best short film for Vers la Tendresse (Towards Tenderness), a prize she dedicated to victims of police violence. The film is a 38-minute poetic exploration of how men view sex and romance in the French banlieues (suburbs). One line in the film summarizes Diop’s central thesis: “It’s just hard to talk about love. We don’t know what it is.” These young men struggle to conceptualize love from what they are taught, and their flaws are laid bare in the name of understanding the limitations of masculinity.

Though more abstract, Diop’s new film, We, which had its premiere in the 2021 Berlinale industry selection, comes from a similar desire for collective understanding. The train line of the RER B crosses Paris from north to south, and with it, so does an attempt to connect fragmented stories around the city. The film heavily recalls the Varda tradition that a documentary can be made just by walking and waiting. Using a series of suburban vignettes, Diop is able to piece together a wildlife conservatory of ordinary lives, looking at her own community and trying to capture the warmer side of society. She talks to a mechanic, a writer, and even her own father, in a sort of David Attenborough of human landscapes. We weaves through parts of the city with overwhelmingly Black and immigrant populations, building a nostalgic breed of documentary not focused on the gotcha! reveal.

Rebecca Zlotowski’s ‘An Easy Girl’ (2019).

Rebecca Zlotowski

Coming soon: Les enfants des autres Watch now: An Easy Girl (‘Une fille facile’)

Writer and director Rebecca Zlotowski has steadily released a film every three years since 2010. Her stories have centered on Jewish and North-African characters, and her television series Savages, based on a series of novels from Sabri Louatah, focuses on the attempted assassination of a fictional Arab President-elect in France. Very little has been spilled about Zlotowski’s newest film, Les enfants des autres, which began shooting in March. We know that Virginie Efira and Roschdy Zem are attached, and there were casting calls looking for children, and for extras for a scene set in a synagogue.

Though each of her four previous features have their strengths—and I’m even partial to Planetarium, an overzealous magical-realist film about American sisters with a supernatural gift, set in the Parisian film industry around the rise of anti-semitism—2019 Cannes selection An Easy Girl, readily accessible on Netflix, is a choice pick. Notable for its controversial casting of Zahia Dehar, who became infamous for relations with the French national football team while an underage sex worker, this choice proved to be a clever deception in a film about how women said to be easy with men are dismissed.

Dehar plays the older cousin to newcomer Mina Farid’s Naïma, a sixteen year old who longs for her cousin’s seemingly glamorous lifestyle. Naïma soon learns this life isn’t just fashion, but about learning to please wealthy men in order to get what she wants, while never having to give too much of herself away. While most of the director’s closest contemporaries are pioneers of a coherent movement of female gaze, Zlotowski chooses here to shoot through a decidedly male gaze, challenging her audiences’ perceptions of how they treat her characters before we come to understand them.

Also noteworthy is Zlotowski’s debut feature Dear Prudence, based around a diary she’d found in the street. Starring a very young Léa Seydoux as a seventeen-year-old girl who joins a motorcycle gang after the death of her mother, the film’s unique source material makes this Zlotowski’s most intimate film.

Julia Ducournau’s ‘Raw’ (2016).

Julia Ducournau

Coming soon: Titane Watch now: Raw (‘Grave’)

Julia Ducournau’s cult-favorite, coming-of-age, cannibal gorefest Raw quickly made her a name to watch. When Garance Marillier’s Justine tastes meat for the first time at a veterinary-school hazing, it awakens a cannibalistic desire within her. Shot as one would an erotic realization, Raw is at its essence an uncontrollable thread of self discovery.

Already backed by NEON for US distribution, with a possible mid-2021 release date, Ducournau’s follow-up Titane looks to be a wild thriller, if somewhat more traditional than the teenage “monstrous feminine” body-horror of her early work. Much of the production has been kept under wraps, but we know Vincent Lindon stars alongside newcomer Agathe Rousselle. Lindon plays the father of a mysterious young man named Adrien LeGrand, who is found in an airport with a swollen face, claiming to be a boy who had disappeared ten years before. Ducournau is a filmmaker unafraid to shy away from the provocative, and Titane is all but guaranteed a major platform come premiere.

Catherine Corsini’s ‘La Fracture’ (2021).

Catherine Corsini

Coming soon: The Divide (‘La fracture’) Watch now: Summertime (‘La belle saison’), An Impossible Love (‘Un amour impossible’)

Coming a generation before many of the other filmmakers here, Catherine Corsini is best known for her complex romantic dramas. Her most recent are the 1970s feminist-tinged Summertime (2015), starring Cécile de France and Izïa Higelin as a couple torn between rural farmlands and Paris, and An Impossible Love (2018), a novelistic chronicle of a couple (Niels Schneider and Virginie Efira) as their relationship sours from 1958 to the present day.

Summertime, which is currently available to rent or buy in the US, is Corsini’s first film to consciously depict a relationship between two women (though 2001’s Replay is ambiguous as to what is happening between Pascale Bussières and Emmanuelle Béart’s characters). The young lovers learn what freedoms they gain and lose between the pastoral countryside, and the feminist organizers they run with in Paris. It’s a fairly standard romantic arc, but illuminates a fiery counter-culture feminist era, and is a staunchly progressive film from a national cinema built so firmly upon a more traditional view of seduction.

La fracture, Corsini’s latest (and the third film produced by her life partner Elisabeth Perez) centers on yet another couple (Marina Foïs and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) who are on the verge of breaking up when a demonstration outside causes tensions to rise at the hospital they’re confined within. A relationship under strain alongside French protest culture? Extremely French subject matter indeed.

Claire Burger’s ‘Real Love’ (2018).

Claire Burger

Coming soon: Foreign Language (‘Langue étrangère’) Watch now: Real Love (‘C’est ça l’amour’)

Most likely known for her Clouzot-tinged music video for Kompormat’s ‘De mon âme à ton âme’, starring Adèle Haenel, Claire Burger is a filmmaker heavily rooted in location. Her past films, including a graduation short and two features, have been set in the north-eastern town of Forbach, where she grew up, just fifteen minutes from the German border. This looks to be a thread that runs through her next film: Foreign Language is about a friendship between two girls who live on either side of the French-German border. BPM producer Marie-Ange Luciani is set to produce; a poster for BPM made a cameo in Burger’s last feature, Real Love.

A personal story, Real Love is one of non-traditional fatherhood and a family that does not rely on masculinity. When his wife leaves, Mario (Bouli Lanners) is left to raise his two teenage daughters in their small town, all while taking part in a community-theater production. Most of the film is told from the perspective of the younger daughter (Justine LaCroix), experiencing first love with a girl from school, who doesn’t seem to want anything serious.

Notably, after her debut and a lengthy series of short films, this was the first time Burger, who edits her own films, cast professional actors, in the case of Lanners and Antonia Buresi (as a theater director). Yet it is the performance of the actresses playing the sisters that most touched the hearts of Letterboxd fans—as Lyd writes, “Maybe it was the opera music or the fantastic performances by Justine Lacroix and Sarah Henochsberg as the daughters, but it just affirmed so many things about life choices and the tipsy-turvy nature of love as just, everything.”

Marie Amachoukeli’s ‘Party Girl’ (2014).

Marie Amachoukeli

Coming soon: Rose Hill Watch now: Party Girl

A rare non-Sciamma project backed by producer Bénédicte Couvreur, Marie Amachoukeli’s solo debut is much anticipated, after Party Girl, where she was one-third of a directing trio with Claire Burger and Samuel Theis (who is shooting a feature of his own titled Petite Nature). Outside the collaborations with Burger, which began in film school, Amachoukeli is screenwriting for a number of films including Franco Lolli’s The Defendant, and has collaborated with animator Vladimir Mavounia-Kouka on two shorts, The Cord Woman and I Want Pluto to Be a Planet Again. A synopsis has yet to be released for Rose Hill, but in an old interview with Brain magazine, Amachoukeli mentioned searching for backers for a lesbian spy comedy.

Party Girl is essentially docu-fiction, with actors cast as versions of themselves building an authentic troupe of real people. Though it’s a collaboration, Amachoukeli shines as a screenwriter, introducing the story of a bar hostess who still lives the partying, single life of a woman in her twenties, despite having reached sixty. She is thrown when a man asks her to marry him, and she must reconstruct her outlook on love. From such young filmmakers, Party Girl is a sensitive portrait of an imperfect, ageing woman, which feels so rare in a cinematic landscape that longs for a fountain of youth.

Audrey Diwan’s ‘Happening’ (2021).

Audrey Diwan

Coming soon: Happening (‘L’evenement’) Watch now: Losing It (‘Mais vous êtes fous’)

French memoirist Annie Ernaux works by reconstructing her life over and over as time passes. One of her more well-known books, L’évènement, retraces her experiences trying to get an abortion in 1963, during a time when the procedure was banned in France.

Audrey Diwan—whose 2019 debut film Losing It follows a pair of young parents (the always-charming Pio Marmaï and Céline Sallette) working through the father’s spiral into addiction and recovery—has a knack for solid performances. She’s able to write a relationship under strain with nuance, and Céline Sallette’s character shows strength as a mother choosing between protecting her children and repairing her relationship to their troubled but good-hearted father, whom she still loves dearly. This skill for writing family should pair well with Ernaux’s deeply personal prose.

Happening sweeps up a small army of promising young actors: Being 17 star Kacey Mottet Klein, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire and School’s Out supporting breakout Luana Bajrami, appear alongside lead actress Anamaria Vartolomei. Her character, Anne, is a bright student who risks everything once her pregnancy starts showing, so that she can finish her studies. Audrey Diwan’s film isn’t the only Ernaux adaptation currently, with Danielle Arbid’s Passion Simple having premiered at Venice in 2020.

Claire Simon’s ‘I Want to Talk about Duras’ (2021).

Claire Simon

Coming soon: I Want to Talk About Duras Watch now: Mimi

One of few figures to bridge cinema and literature equally, Marguerite Duras was a social commentator on her world; she grew up poor in French-colonized Vietnam, took on a staunch leftist perspective, and developed a singular tone in her observational assertions. Duras’s 1975 film India Song, based on her novel of the same name, was a landmark in feminist film. Through a hypnotic structure (“a viewing experience like no other, one that touches all of the senses,” writes Carter on Letterboxd), India Song delivers a strong criticism of class and colonialism through its story of Anne-Marie Stretter (Delphine Seyrig), a French ambassador’s wife in 1930s Kolkata.

In I Want to Talk About Duras, writer-director Claire Simon (best known for her documentaries on the seemingly mundane) adapts a transcript of conversations between Duras (Emmanuelle Devos) and her much younger partner Yann Andréa Steiner (Swann Arlaud), in which the pair break down the codes of love and literature. These conversations were published in a book named after Steiner, who met Duras when he approached her after a screening of India Song.

The highlight of Simon’s previous work is Mimi, in which she settles down in the countryside with an old friend, and tells her life story over 105 minutes. Recently programmed as part of Metrograph’s Tell Me: Women Filmmakers series, it’s clear the film was selected for its authenticity. However, many Letterboxd members may heavily benefit from seeing The Graduation, her 2016 documentary about the famous Parisian film school La Fémis, and its difficult selection process. Most of the other filmmakers in this list passed through its gates, and Claire Simon’s Wiseman-lite documentary sheds light on the challenges these young people take upon themselves for a chance at a world-renowned filmmaking education.

Amandine Gay’s ‘Speak Up’ (2017).

Amandine Gay

Coming soon: A Story of One’s Own (‘Une histoire à soi’) Watch now: Speak Up (‘Ouvrir la voix’)

Amandine Gay has much to say about access to film school—and opportunities in the film industry—for those outside the mainstream. Initially on the radar for her Afro-feminist activism, Gay arrived on the cinema scene with Speak Up, a narrative reclamation focusing on the diaspora in France and Belgium.

Talking to Francophone Black women who may not be considered formal scholars, allowing her subjects to speak as experts on their own experiences, Gay disproves the idea that France is a race-blind society. She shoots mainly in regal close-ups and using natural light, allowing her subjects the clarity to speak for themselves, unfiltered. (And to put to bed the misconception that Black performers are harder to light, one of many important angles discussed in an excellent interview with Letterboxd member Justine Smith.)

Using family photos and home videos from subjects, Gay’s engaging documentary work is a mouthpiece to spark conversation. Her next documentary, Une histoire à soi, centers on transnational adoption and will likely take a similarly conversational approach in exploring a unique cultural divide; putting the microphone in front of those who can provide a first-person point of view. Though not officially backed yet, she’s also—for years!—teased a Black lesbian sommelier film on podcasts and in interviews. That’s a story that I hope won’t need much more maturing before we see it. A votre santé.

Related content

Feature-length French films by Women—Sarah’s list

The Official Top 100 Narrative Feature Films by Women Directors—featuring Portrait of a Lady on Fire at number one

Little White Lies: 100 Great Movies by Female Directors

Follow Sarah on Letterboxd

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Entertainment Weekly, May

Cover 1 of 3: The 2021 Oscars Issue -- Viola Davis

Page 2: Contents, the other covers with Chloe Zhao and Regina King

Page 6: Cold Open -- a bunch of random jibberish I can't even begin to classify

Page 16: The Must List -- The Underground Railroad

Page 18: The Department of Truth, The Mosquito Coast

Page 19: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, Together Together

Page 20: Jakob's Wife, Frank of Ireland Q&A with Brian and Domhnall Gleeson

Page 22: Role Call -- Josh Duhamel

Page 23: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, Resident Evil Village

Page 24: My Must List -- Brian Tyree Henry

Page 27: Oscars 2021

Page 28: The Race Is On

Page 29: Dick Johnson Is Dead

Page 30: The Powerhouse -- with her record-breaking best actress nod for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Viola Davis proves she's Oscar royalty

Page 33: Riz Ahmed -- the Sound of Metal star on inhabiting a demanding role, and how the film uses sound to take the audience on his character's harrowing journey

Page 34: The Revelation -- Right after winning an Academy Award for her acting, Regina King directed her debut feature film, One Night in Miami to three Oscar nominations. Is there anything this woman can't do?

Page 38: The Front-Runner -- Chloe Zhao has already made Oscars history, now the Nomadland director is poised for a triumphant finish

Page 41: Carey Mulligan -- the Promising Young Woman nominee reveals how she broke the film's tension with costar Bo Burnham by singing a rendition of Paris Hilton's Stars Are Blind

Page 43: Original Screenplay -- The Trial of the Chicago 7

Page 44: Around the Table -- Making History -- how four of this year's Oscar-nominated films radically confront and reframe Black history in America -- Judas and the Black Messiah, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, One Night in Miami and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Page 45: Maria Bakalova -- how the Bulgarian breakout unleashed her inner wild child and found her character's heart during a pivotal scene in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Page 46: 5-Minute Oral History -- West Side Story -- in honor of its 60th anniversary, stars Rita Moreno and George Chakiris look back on their 1962 Oscar wins

Page 49: Daniel Kaluuya -- the two-time Oscar nominee on the power and responsibility of taking on revolutionary icon Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah

Page 52: Fire Starter -- how Angelina Jolie blazed a trail with Taylor Sheridan for the upcoming firefighting film Those Who Wish Me Dead, her first action film in more than a decade

Page 56: Romancing the Screen -- record breaker Bridgerton proved the power that love could have on the small screen. By satisfying audiences' pent-up lust, it became a cultural phenomenon: spawning a TikTok musical, landing star Rene-Jean Page an SNL hosting gig, and catapulting Julia Quinn's 20-year-old source material to the top of the New York Times best-seller list for the very first time, but will the Bridgerton Effect make Hollywood finally fall in love with romance novels?

Page 60: Demi's New Groove -- after detailing her harrowing 2018 overdose in a recent documentary, Demi Lovato returns with a newfound sense of stability and her first album of new material in four years

Page 66: Stand Up & Step Up -- For EW's Around the Table, Chloe Bennet, Dianne Doan, Daniel Dae Kim, Hari Kondabolu, Olivia Munn and George Takei discuss the rise violence against Asians, their experience as Asian artists, and how Hollywood can help crush stereotypes and be more inclusive

Page 70: News + Reviews

Page 71: TV -- whatever happened to the Men of Tomorrow? Everywhere you look there are supermen behaving badly. Is this a bold new era in superhero storytelling or cheap cynicism on steroids?

Page 77: Movies -- Bad Romance -- Amanda Seyfried and James Norton talk about their tragically doomed marriage in Things Heard and Seen

Page 78: Women Who Kick Ass -- Jodie Turner-Smith -- she's got a juicy role opposite Michael B. Jordan in Without Remorse and will lead Netflix's upcoming The Witcher prequel. Meet Hollywood's most exciting new action star

Page 79: Childlike Wonder -- David Oyelowo goes behind the camera for his mystical directorial debut The Water Man

Page 80: Three provocative new indies explore the beauty and pain of contemporary romance -- Monday, Hope, The Killing of Two Lovers

Page 81: My Favorite Shot, Oscars edition -- Tom Hooper in The King's Speech -- the filmmaker revisits a scene on the tenth anniversary of Speech's four Oscar wins, including Best Picture and Director

Page 82: Parental Guidance -- your crib sheet on the best entertainment for kids, from toddlers to tweens -- Q&A with Danny McBride -- the Righteous Gemstone shines in The Mitchells vs. the Machines as a luddite dad trying to save the world and his family

Page 84: TV -- First Look -- Never Have I Ever -- the comedy's second season is bringing in the big guns, casting Common as Nalini's love interest

Page 85: License to Thrill -- after smashing the charts with Drivers License, Olivia Rodrigo is ready for her High School Musical: The Musical: The Series character to follow in her footsteps in season 2

Page 86: Cruel Summer

Page 87: The Transformation -- Oh, Boy! It took five years, but Nasim Pedrad's new TBS comedy Chad has finally made it to TV. Here, Pedrad details her transformation into an awkward 14-year-old boy

Page 88: The Nevers

Page 89: First Look -- Solos -- from creator David Weil, this futuristic anthology series explores the depths of human connection through the lens of eight remote characters

Page 90: First Look -- Hacks -- after four decades in showbiz, Jean Smart is living out some Hollywood dreams in her new series

* Strike a Final Pose -- FX is about to say goodbye to its her-story-making Pose. Here's why season 3 offered a proper ending

Page 91: Global Viewing -- these three series all debuting on Earth Day offer new insights into nature and science, with a little help from David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg and Sigourney Weaver: Life in Color with David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World, Secrets of Whales

Page 94: What to Watch

Page 98: Music -- Hungry Heart -- after a devastating 2018, Eric Church left Nashville and made his favorite project ever which is the three-part Heart & Soul in a restaurant

Page 100: Bebe Rexha

* My Hometown -- Saweetie by the Bay -- the My Type rapper makes hella sure to add a little bit of California into everything she makes

Page 101: Greta Van Fleet

Page 102: Jhay Cortez -- meet the 28-year-old who co-wrote Cardi B's I Like It, and whose sophomore album Timelezz drops later this year

Page 104: Books -- Seoul Food -- singer-turned-author Michelle Zauner, who goes by the moniker Japanese Breakfast, paints a vivid portrait of identity, loss, and a mother's love in her memoir Crying in H Mart

Page 106: Pop Culture of My Life -- Leslie Jordan -- the actor and Instagram star is releasing a new essay, How Y'all Doing? Here, he divulges his own Southern charm

Page 108: The Air Up There -- with Great Circle, best-selling novelist Maggie Shipstead puts a smartly feminist spin on the old-fashioned adventure tale

Page 109: A Lot Like Love -- in the short-story collection Love in Color, British-Nigerian author Bolu Babalola smashes the patriarchy of the classic folktale

Page 111: Broken Horses: A Memoir by Brandi Carlile

Page 112: The Bullseye

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Stage and Screen Icon Diana Rigg of Avengers, Bond, and Game of Thrones, Dies at 82

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Diana Rigg, best known for her iconic turn on The Avengers, and memorable roles on Game of Thrones and Theatre of Blood, died Sept. 10, at home with her family at the age of 82, according to Variety. “It is with tremendous sadness that we announce that Dame Diana Rigg died peacefully early this morning. She was at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time,” her agent Simon Beresford said in a statement. “Dame Diana was an icon of theatre, film, and television. She was the recipient of BAFTA, Emmy, Tony and Evening Standard Awards for her work on stage and screen. Dame Diana was a much loved and admired member of her profession, a force of nature who loved her work and her fellow actors. She will be greatly missed.”

Rigg was diagnosed with cancer in March, according to her daughter Rachael Stirling, who said the actress “spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession. I will miss her beyond words.”

Diana Rigg is a quintessential part of English espionage entertainment. She came into people’s homes on a weekly basis as the Emma Peel, a spy as skilled in seduction as she was in hand to hand combat, on The Avengers. Rigg was the third of four women sidekicks to Patrick Macnee’s John Steed on the ITV series, and the first with a bristling sense of humor. The duo set the tone and the style for swinging 60s British Intelligence: The bowler hatted Steed with his lethal umbrella and Peel in the mod fashions, leather jumpsuits or op-art psychedelic patterns. She  drove a Lotus Elan convertible.

As Tracy di Vicenzo, Rigg was the only true Bond girl, having actually married James Bond, played by George Lazenby, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). Tracy Bond’s life with Agent 007 did not have a happy ending. Modern audiences recognize Rigg as Olenna Tyrell on HBO’s Game of Thrones. Horror fans will remember her turn as Vincent Price’s daughter in the 1973 classic thriller Theatre of Blood. Price played an underappreciated Shakespearean actor. The classical theatre trained Rigg, who did a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company, played almost everyone else.

Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was born on July 20, 1938, near Doncaster. She grew up for a short while in India and spoke Hindi as a second language. She returned to the UK to attend a Yorkshire boarding school run by the Moravian church. Rigg enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1955. One of her classmates was Glenda Jackson. She made her professional debut in a production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle as part of the 1957 York Festival. Rigg was first noticed for her role in the Ronald Millar play Abelard and Heloïse. She was nominated for a Tony Award.

Rigg screen-tested for The Avengers in 1965 after Honor Blackman, who had been playing Emma Peel, was cast as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. Rigg starred in 51 episodes. She also had major roles in the films A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968), The Assassination Bureau (1969), and Julius Caesar (1970), which starred Charlton Heston.  Rigg was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role in the 1971 classic satire The Hospital, which was directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Paddy Chayefsky and co-starred George C. Scott.

On television, Rigg starred in the eponymous NBC sitcom Diana from 1973-74. She starred as Clytemnestra in BBC’s 1979 miniseries adaptation of Sophocles’ Oresteia. In 1981, she starred in an adaptation of Hedda Gabler for English television. from 1989-2004, she was host of PBS’ Masterpiece Mystery.

Rigg was a member of the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1972 through 75. Rigg played leading roles in the premieres of two Tom Stoppard plays: Jumpers in 1972 and Night and Day in 1978. She played Lady Macbeth in 1972, and was Eliza Doolittle in a 1974 revival of Pygmalion. In 2011 she returned to George Bernard Shaw’s timeless classic in the role of Mrs. Higgins. Her last stage appearance was as Mrs. Higgins in the 2018 revival of My Fair Lady. In 1994, Rigg won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Medea. Her other stage work included roles in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, Albert Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer, and a revival of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever.

In 1977, Rigg starred in A Little Night Music with Elizabeth Taylor. She also appeared in The Great Muppet Caper in 1981. She was the Evil Queen in the 1987 film Snow White. She also played in Bruce Beresford’s A Good Man in Africa, which starred Sean Connery in 1994, as well as Parting Shots (1998), the 2006 romantic drama The Painted Veil and Andy Serkis’ romance Breathe (2017).

Rigg took the part played by Marlene Dietrich in 1982 TV movie remake of the 1957 Billy Wilder film Witness for the Prosecution for Hallmark Hall of Fame. She starred with David MacCallum in the BBC/PBS miniseries Mother Love (1989). She starred in the CBS telepic Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris (1992) with Angela Lansbury. Rigg won an Emmy for Rebecca in 1997. Rigg was a memorable guest star on the BBC/HBO’s Extras in 2006. She also put in an appearance on Dr. Who in 2013. She recently appeared in ITV’s Victoria and Channel 5’s All Creatures Great And Small.

Rigg’s last film appearance will be in Edgar Wright’s upcoming Last Night In Soho, scheduled to hit theaters on April 23, 2021.

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Rigg was married twice. She was married to Israeli painter Menachem Gueffen from 1973 to 1976. Her second husband was theater producer Archibald Stirling, who she was married to from 1982 to 1990. Rigg is survived by their daughter, two-time Olivier Award nominated actress Rachael Stirling.

The post Stage and Screen Icon Diana Rigg of Avengers, Bond, and Game of Thrones, Dies at 82 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[wazafam]

The Western genre has long been a mainstay of American pop culture. It was arguably the dominant movie genre of the '50s and '60s, giving the public pop culture icons like John Wayne and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Like all film genres that had their time, the Western eventually waned in popularity and all but disappeared in the '70s and '80s.

RELATED: 10 Cruelest Bad Guys In Westerns

However, a funny thing happened in the early '90s, and the Western was suddenly popular again. It failed to reach the pop culture dominance it achieved throughout the '50s and '60s, but they were popular and they were good. And Tombstone and Unforgiven are two of the best.

10 Tombstone: The History

Tombstone was quite lucky in that it carried with it one of the most popular historical stories of the Old West. Tombstone, Arizona, was one of the last Frontier cities, and it became famous for the shootout at the O.K. Corral.

Taking place on October 26, 1881, the gunfight occurred between a gang of outlaws and law enforcement officials Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil Earp, with the help of Doc Holliday. Tombstone is rooted in interesting history, and most of the film builds towards this iconic moment in American lore.

9 Unforgiven: The Cinematography

Tombstone is a good movie, but Unforgiven is a beautiful one. Most Westerns are inherently beautiful owing to their settings, ranging from snowy mountains to barren landscapes of dirt, dust, and cactus. But Unforgiven's cinematography, care of Jack N. Green, is nothing short of magnificent.

In fact, it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography, losing to A River Runs Through It. Unforgiven is arguably the most gorgeous Western ever shot, and the beautiful 4K Blu-ray comes highly recommended.

8 Tombstone: The Setting

As beautiful as Unforgiven looks, it lacks a memorable setting. Most of it takes place in the barren landscape of the West before climaxing in a small, unassuming Western town called Big Whiskey. The setting of Tombstone is far more memorable.

Tombstone, Arizona, is an iconic place in American history, and it remains, to this day, a very popular tourist destination - especially for Old West enthusiasts. It is lovingly captured here, complete with iconic locations like the O.K. Corral and the Bird Cage Theater.

7 Unforgiven: The Writing

Tombstone, undoubtedly, contains a great historical story, but it's told in a rather sloppy manner. The writing can prove itself quite flawed, complete with clunky exposition, silly and unnecessary subplots (like the one between Wyatt Earp and Josephine Marcus), and some awkward dialogue.

RELATED: The 10 Best Western Remakes, According To Metacritic

On the other hand, Unforgiven is a masterfully written movie, with the screenplay from David Webb Peoples receiving an Academy Award nomination.

6 Tombstone: The Production Value

Unforgiven had a budget of $14.5 million. The budget of Tombstone was $25 million, and the difference shows on screen. If nothing else, Tombstone is a magnificently produced movie, accurately and convincingly capturing the Old West on a modern screen. The costumes, hair, and makeup are outstanding, the props suitably old school, and the sets are both glorious and epic in scope.

There's nothing wrong with the production value of Unforgiven, but in terms of sheer cinematic spectacle, it's hard to beat Tombstone.

5 Unforgiven: The Subversion

Tombstone attempted to subvert the Western genre, but Unforgiven actually did it. Unforgiven is typically referred to as an "anti-Western" or "revisionist Western," as it plays with many of the genre's long-established tropes.

Clint Eastwood is a Western legend (having played The Man with No Name), but here, he's an old, washed up cowboy who can't even shoot. The bad guy is a town sheriff and the hero a murderer. Violence is depicted as harsh and brutal rather than "fun" or commendable, and the gung-ho Schofield Kid flees from his life as a gunslinger after getting a taste. It's all wonderfully subversive and refreshing.

4 Tombstone: The Cast

Unforgiven is quite a small-scale movie, and it contains a suitably small cast. Those who are there are mostly legends, but it's quite a small cast, regardless. On the other hand, Tombstone is stacked with A-list performers.

RELATED: 10 Best Crime Western Movies Like No Country For Old Men

On the main poster alone are Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, and Bill Paxton, but that doesn't even include Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Billy Bob Thornton, and Charlton Heston.

3 Unforgiven: The Acting

Despite the incredible nature of the cast itself, most performers are disappointingly underutilized. Val Kilmer is obviously great (more on that later), but many performers - most noticeably Kurt Russell - are weirdly flat and wooden. The acting throughout Tombstone leaves a lot to be desired.

Unforgiven is, by far, the better movie in terms of acting, complete with two Oscar nominations for Clint Eastwood (Best Actor) and Gene Hackman (Best Supporting Actor).

2 Tombstone: Val Kilmer

What Unforgiven doesn't have is Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. Holliday is one of the leading figures in Old West mythology, and he is wonderfully portrayed here by Kilmer.

Kilmer is simply exceptional in the role, donning his unique "cowboy voice" and imbuing Holliday with just the right amount of effortless coolness, badassery, and ultimate pity.

1 Unforgiven: The Dialogue

This entry goes hand-in-hand with the "writing," but the dialogue of Unforgiven deserves special and explicit mention. It's simply iconic.

Many of the movie's lines have become iconic pieces of movie history, including "Deserve's got nothing to do with it," "He should have armed himself if he's going to decorate his saloon with my friend," "It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man," and "I'll see you in Hell, William Munny." The script for this movie is truly something else.

NEXT: A Fistful Of Dollars & 9 Other Essential Spaghetti Westerns

5 Ways Tombstone Is The Best Western Of The '90s (& 5 Ways It's Unforgiven) from https://ift.tt/3hSIq0t

[dweemeister]

Best Documentary Short Film Nominees for the 96th Academy Awards (2024, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages. 

If you are an American or Canadian resident interested in supporting the short film filmmakers in theaters (and you should, as very few of those who work in short films are as affluent as your big-name directors and actors), check your local participating theaters here.

Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Documentary Short Film at this year’s Oscars. The write-ups for the Live Action and Animated Short categories are coming soon. Non-American films predominantly in a language other than English are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

Năi Nai & Wài Pó (2023)

Rarely do both sides of one’s family ever meet. You might expect them to mingle at weddings and funerals. But cohabitation? Such is the case with Taiwanese American director Sean Wang’s two grandmothers in Năi Nai & Wài Pó (paternal and maternal grandmother, respectively), available worldwide on Disney+ and Hulu. Wishing to live closer to family, Wang moved in with his grandmothers Yi Yan Fuei (Năi Nai) and Chang Li Hua (Wài Pó) in their California household during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. His grandmothers rarely leave the house, even for groceries, and keep their heavy curtains drawn at all hours. As thin beams of sunlight barely stream through the interior’s earthy colors, both grandmothers continue to read the newspaper, sing traditional Chinese music, do their own cooking (I assume someone drops off groceries for them), tease each other about farting in bed, and reflect on their families and their pasts. They know that there are fewer tomorrows remaining, but that will not stop them from living joyously and with love for their grandson, who, though off-screen, they converse with throughout the shoot.

Qualifying for the Academy Awards by wining Best Documentary Short at SXSW in 2023 (in addition to the equivalent prize at AFI Fest), Năi Nai & Wài Pó freely admits that its subjects are playing up their act for their grandson. Observational cinema this is not. But in their sense of exaggerated play there exists a twofold acknowledgement. First, as Năi Nai states, “the days we spend feeling pain and the days we spend feeling joy are the same days spent. So, I’m going to choose joy.” And perhaps most meaningfully to Wang, their playing for the camera is one of many ways they express their love for their grandson. It is an elevated home video, a loving portrait, and a reminder to cherish those who loved us into being.

My rating: 7.5/10

The Barber of Little Rock (2023)

People Trust in Little Rock, Arkansas is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). In other words, it is a non-profit – partially funded by the American federal government – to address issues in creating economic growth and opportunities in some of the most underserved communities in the nation through loans, emergency financial assistance, and housing subsidies. People Trust and its President, Arlo Washington, are the subjects of The Barber of Little Rock (available for free online through The New Yorker), directed by John Hoffman (2021’s Fauci) and Christine Turner (2021’s Lynching Postcards: 'Token of A Great Day'). The film, Oscar-qualified by winning the Grand Prize for Documentary Short at Indy Shorts International Film Festival (Indiana), requires a wealth of context to the issues that it raises, but does not always provide enough – especially how municipal, state, and regional history impacts racism in banking, and vice versa.

Arlo Washington is a fascinating, wonderfully-intentioned person, but the movie spends too much time with him directly stating the piece’s thesis about financial equality and generational poverty to the camera. Most compelling of all were some of the individual appointments at People Trust of regular people simply looking for financial relief or a loan to kickstart a business or make their rent payments. So too Washington's barbering training school – especially a scene when two students are asked to look intently at the other’s faces, to understand the other’s struggles simply through quiet observation. Arlo Washington figures in many of these scenes as well, and those scenes reveal as much, if not more, about the lives of People Trust’s clients than any of his brief lectures can accomplish. Hoffman and Turner clearly had deeply cinematic material to work with that could empower their messaging, and it is a shame they are unable to fully utilize it.

My rating: 7/10

Island in Between (2023, Taiwan)

Ten kilometers away from the Chinese city of Xiamen lies Kinmen, a group of islands under control of Taiwan (the island of Taiwan is 187 kilometers away). Directed and narrated by S. Leo Chiang and distributed by The New York Times, Island in Between is Chiang’s meditation on not only Kinmen’s precarious geography and its political status, but his own identity of being American, Chinese, and Taiwanese – three separate identities that interconnect, but are forever distinct. Like many viewers, I was unaware of Kinmen’s existence before viewing Island in Between. This film is most valuable in introducing audiences to a place in some ways frozen in the mid-twentieth century, not so much capturing the spirit of the place and understanding its history.

During visits to mainland China in the late 2000s, Chiang, Taiwanese-born and American-raised, was struck by how vibrant the mainland was – something unrecognizable from “the communist wasteland [he] learned about in school.” In the years since, the crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increased political tensions between China and Taiwan have complicated his feelings towards the mainland. As a Vietnamese American, I easily saw parallels between how the younger diaspora views our so-called “motherland”, what we are taught, and how older generations perceive their original home. Even among generations, there are divisions in how we feel about the motherland. But Chiang has the additional complication of being caught between three nations important to his being. If anything, his mentions about his parents and their views feels far too cursory, as they are the ones most responsible for shaping his views about American/Chinese/Taiwanese tensions. One hopes this film is not a harbinger of things to come, as beached tanks rust on the placid Kinmen shore.

My rating: 7/10

The ABCs of Book Banning (2023)

As of the publication of this omnibus write-up, bans and challenges to books in libraries and schools have spiked since 2021. These book challenges, often taken up by parents and certain religious organizations, have disproportionately targeted books by and/or about LGBTQ+ and non-white (especially black) people. Stepping into the debate is MTV Documentary Films’ The ABCs of Book Banning (available on Paramount+), directed by Sheila Nevins, Trish Adlesic, and Nazenet Habtezgh. Unfortunately, the film advocates against book challenges in the most stultifyingly artless way. Early on, a title card reveals that the filmmakers will ask about book banning and restrictions from a group that we have heard little from: children. An honorable approach, but the interview snippets found in The ABCs of Book Banning are repetitive and seem rehearsed – children, aghast at the notion that a selected book is a target, offer reasons why book banning is a terrible idea. Nothing Americans have not heard before. Breaking up their interviews are images of book covers, followed by a brief quotation from said book, and an amateurish “BANNED” or “CHALLENGED” banner in red over the book. Sometimes, cheap animation depicting that book’s passage appears; the placement of these animated sequences has no rhyme or reason.

Damningly, this is a film in search of a structure. A handful of authors whose books have been banned from libraries or schools show up to introduce themselves over what appears to be an interview over Zoom. They say a few sentences about why book banning is terrible and we never hear from them again in the film – a complete waste. I suspect these authors recorded longer interviews, but there is almost nothing that remains of those interviews in the final product. This is a film for those who agree with its premise, have no cinematic taste, and are tediously self-satisfied in how they express their political views.

My rating: 4/10

The Last Repair Shop (2023)

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the last major city school district in the United States to offer free musical instrument repair to its students. From the Los Angeles Times and Searchlight Pictures comes Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’ The Last Repair Shop (also available on Disney+ and Hulu), which takes us to LAUSD’s repair shop. Just short of the 40-minute limit for short films, The Last Repair Shop curiously tells the viewer preciously little about the shop itself (what are the challenges it is facing, and why is the last of its kind?). Proudfoot and Bowers – both previously nominated in this category for A Concerto Is a Conversation (2021; also available online thanks to The New York Times) – adopt much of the same style as their previous nominee. Both films share talking heads in shallow focus and snappy editing. These aspects sometimes made A Concerto Is a Conversation incohesive, but they work immensely better for The Last Repair Shop. It also helps that The Last Repair Shop, which slowly reveals itself to also be a portrait of a rarely-seen side to L.A., has a clear structure that the viewer can discern early on.

What carries The Last Repair Shop are the life-affirming conversations we have with the four principal interview subjects, all of whom work in a different department at the shop – Dana Atkinson (strings), Paty Moreno (brass), Duane Michaels (woodwinds), and Steve Bagmanyan (pianos; also the shop supervisor, and who inspired the film as he tuned pianos at Bowers’ high school). Whether they play an instrument or not, all four recognize music’s ability to better understand ourselves and others, and as “one of the best things that humans do.” The addition of student voices to the film – especially when one realizes that the repair shop employees almost never hear back from the children whose instruments they repair – strengthens a connection, however distant, through music. The Last Repair Shop’s final minutes provide it that final cinematic touch you might have anticipated, an affirmation of why those who speak the language of music hold it so dear.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

From previous years: 88th Academy Awards (2016) 89th (2017) 90th (2018) 91st (2019) 92nd (2020) 93rd (2021) 94th (2022) 95th (2023)

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[greensparty]

Green’s Party Guide to the 2023 Oscar Nominated Short Films

Every year the Academy Awards give out their annual movie awards, but all of the attention usually goes to the big categories. I am a longtime champion of the Short Film categories for Animation, Live Action and Documentary, mainly because I have made short films and I know how hard it can be to tell a story in a short amount of time. I am very excited to continue my annual tradition of showcasing the Oscar Nominated Short Films (read my 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 guides).  This year’s nominated short films are available from ShortsTV both in theaters and online. I’ve watched all of them and here are my thoughts and predictions:

2023 Shorts TV poster

Best Live Action Short:

This year’s Live Action Short nominees are all from other countries. In addition to global diversity, they are all very diverse in genres too. In An Irish Goodbye  (Ireland), two estranged brothers reunite after the death of their mother. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the similarities to multi-Oscar nominee The Banshees of Inisherin, with it’s rural Ireland setting, humor, and drama. Ivalu (Denmark) is about a young Inuit girl searching for her missing sister against the breath-taking backdrop of Greenland. It is co-directed by Anders Walter who previously won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short for 2013′s Helium. Disney+’s The Pupils (Italy) is about girls at a Catholic boarding school during Christmas time. Of all the nominees this has gotten the most attention because it was produced by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity and Roma) and if he wins for this that would be a 5th Oscar on his mantle. Night Ride (Norway) shows a woman with dwarfism who steal a tram and a series of unexpected events occur as she continues to make tram stops. In The Red Suitcase (Luxembourg), a young Iranian woman arrives in a new country for an arranged marriage and suddenly makes a life-changing decision. 

2023 Live Action Short Film nominees

Will Win: The Pupils has name recognition with Cuaron as a nominee, but it is also the most uplifting of this year’s nominees. The fact that it’s on Disney+ doesn’t hurt either.

Should Win: The Red Suitcase truly stayed with me for days after watching it. It told a highly emotional story with high stakes in a very short amount of time and left me in awe. 

Best Animated Short:

I always enjoy animated shorts because this category is always showcasing various styles of animation from all over the world. Apple TV+’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (U.S. / U.K.) is based on a children’s book about, well, a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse who travel together in the boy’s search for a new home. This one boasts the star power of voices Tom Hollander, Idris Elba and Gabriel Byrne as well as star producers J.J. Abrams and Woody Harrelson. In The Flying Sailor (Canada), it shows a sailor who goes flying after an explosion (based on a true story from 1917). It is co-directed by Amanda Forbis, who was nominated twice before for Best Animated Short, and Wendy Tilby, who was nominated three times before for Best Animated Short. Ice Merchants (Portugal / France / U.K.) has been getting a lot of attention because it is the first Portuguese film to ever be nominated for an Oscar. It shows a father and son who jump with a parachute from their house to go to a village and sell ice. FX and Hulu’s My Year of Dicks (U.S.) is about a 15-year old girl who is determined to lose her virginity in early 90s Houston. Based on Pamela Ribon’s memoir, it is animated but has moments of live action interspersed as well. There are five different guys she is with in this time period and there’s different styles of animation throughout. In An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It (Australia), a telemarketer is confronted and told that the world is stop motion animation and now he needs to convince his colleagues. 

2023 Animated Short Film nominees

Will Win: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse boasts star power and it’s on Apple TV+, but more than that, it feels like an animated feature in 32 minutes.

Should Win: I am rooting for The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse also because it was produced by someone I interned for a while back. But I will say this: a case can be made for My Year of Dicks for using animation to tell her personal recollection...and let’s face it, it would be wildly entertaining to see a presenter on the Oscar telecast say “and the winner is...My Year of Dicks” and not get censored. 

Best Documentary Short:

This year’s Doc Shorts are all completely different in their subjects and in their approaches to documentary. In Haulout (U.K.) a lonely man waits on a remote coast of the Siberian Arctic for an ancient gathering. There is a powerful environmental message to this, even if it is slow moving and has very little dialogue. Netflix’s The Elephant Whisperers (India) also has an environmental message in it to: an Indigenous couple fall in love with an orphaned elephant and work for his survival. Both have breath-taking cinematography! HBO Max’s How Do You Measure a Year? (U.S.) is a doc 17 years in the making: The director had a ritual with his daughter Ella every year on her birthday from age 2 to 18, he filmed an interview with her being asked the exact same questions each year. Director Jay Rosenblatt was nominated for Best Documentary Short last year for When We Were Bullies, my favorite of last year’s nominees. Netflix’s The Martha Mitchell Effect  (U.S.) is a historical doc about Martha Mitchell, the whistleblower who was married to President Nixon’s attorney general John N. Mitchell. She was gaslighted by the Nixon Administration to keep her quiet and today through the lens of 2023, we see she was speaking the truth even though she was told otherwise. The New Yorker’s Stranger at the Gate (U.S.) is about a U.S. Marine who plots a terrorist attack on a mosque in Muncie, Indiana. But in the process of doing so, a surprising turn of events occur for all involved.

2023 Documentary Short Film nominees

Will Win: This is a hard one to predict. Sometimes the Academy goes for environmental or socio-political subjects, but recent years it has been introspective human interest stories. A case could literally be made for any of these to win, but if I had to predict I’d go with The Elephant Whisperers. It had the backing of Netflix, but more importantly it’s cinematography can’t be denied and neither than the endearing story.

Should Win: Even if the haters are going to say How Do You Measure a Year? is just a gimmick, I really liked it. Sure, we’ve seen this approach in the Up series and to an extent Boyhood did something similar in it’s narrative approach, but the way we are seeing this girl grow and mature through the annual interview tradition was intriguing and introspective. I do have to say a close second would be Stranger at the Gate based solely on the unbelievable twist and sense of surprise you don’t always see in documentaries. 

This year’s Oscar Nominated Short Films can be seen online from ShortsTV and in movie theaters, including Somerville Theatre, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema and Coolidge Corner Theatre in the Boston area. For tickets and info: https://shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/tickets/

[josephfebin]

Practice 1: Developing Skills_Influences and Inspirations

I have selected ‘Light and shadow’ and ‘Memory and nostalgia’ works from five weekly exercises for further development. Animated shorts and feature films inspires me, I can’t specify as each one excels in different ways. As related to my study, 'Luca (2021) the animated movie by Pixar animation studio for Walt Disney Pictures and directed by Enrico Casarosa, Is the one of the inspiring great work to my zealous feel towards the beauty of animation. With praise for its visuals, voice acting, and nostalgic feel the film was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 79th Golden Globe Awards and the 94th Academy Awards' (“Luca (2021 Film)”).  My first exercise is a ‘memory’ that happened to me in London and it’s a new place for me, in drawing, referencing and in every creative aspect of an animation. ‘Luca’ also inspired me to how to chose a new place and studying its features and taking essence for our own referencing and creating artwork. ‘Luca’ director Enrico Casarosa goes to a town in Italian Riviera, where his childhood memories grown and then the team of animators move there and closely observe that new town and creates a entire new world for ‘Luca”. This Inspired me a lot in creating new characters, props and background for practice1.

Kandittund (Seen It!) is an animated shot by Studio Eeksaurus and it’s an Indian animation studio. They have created excellent animated short films that well received national wide. This time they created a short film with a folklore kind of story and different type of creative treatment. This is in my mother tongue and those stories are my childhood horror stories. This masterpiece inspired me a lot this year as it portrayed how an animated film can use its possibilities of telling audience pure imaginative stories into most effective ways, where any other medium struggles. These are the possibilities of animation, Studio Eeksaurus succeeded in this and influenced me to create Practice 2 animation dark frames as it also pictured more night scenes and they treated this very well. 

The next one is ‘Life is a journey’ advert by Victor Haegelin from PSYOP animation studio for the  BrightDrop. When I’m searching for a reference of my practice1, I got this one and it gave me examples for the western streets that I’m little familiar with and it was not a reference then a good creative work that influenced me in creating the transition between frames, where I lacked to find perfection.

Bibliography

Psyop. (n.d.). Bright Drop - Life is a Journey. [online] Available at: https://www.psyop.com/work/life-is-a-journey/ [Accessed 17 Jan. 2023].

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Disney and Pixar’s Luca | Official Trailer | Disney+. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/mYfJxlgR2jw.

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Kandittund! (Seen It!) | Studio Eeksaurus. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/DxYbfJUOOMQ [Accessed 17 Jan. 2023].

[officialotakudome]

New Post has been published on Otaku Dome | The Latest News In Anime, Manga, Gaming, And More

New Post has been published on https://otakudome.com/hbo-max-january-2021-slate/

HBO Max January 2021 Slate

HBO Max has announced it’s January 2021 slate:

Spread the word, Upper Eastsiders — all six seasons of “Gossip Girl” are coming to HBO Max on January 1st. The month also brings the film premiere of Locked Down starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the second special episode of the Emmy®-winning drama “Euphoria,” the season four return of the beloved “Search Party,” and the two-part documentary “Tiger,” which illuminates the rise, fall and epic comeback of global golf icon Tiger Woods. Selena Gomez is back for seconds with a new season of “Selena + Chef,” and HBO Max is also serving up new episodes of “Looney Tunes Cartoons,” “Batman Beyond” and “Batman the Animated Series.”

On January 29, John Lee Hancock’s suspenseful psychological thriller “The Little Things” starring Academy Award winners Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto, premieres in theaters around the country and on HBO Max the same day. “The Little Things” will be available on HBO Max for 31 days from its theatrical release in the U.S. included at no additional cost to subscribers.

The third season of Italian crime drama “Gomorrah“ also joins the platform alongside both seasons of “Warrior” from Cinemax.

Catch up on the first season of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller “Snowpiercer” when it arrives on HBO Max this month ahead of its Season 2 premiere on TNT. Or queue up a lineup of A-List movies including “The King of Staten Island,” the “Ocean’s” trilogy and “Ocean’s 8,” “The Notebook,” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Vol 1″ & 2, “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs.“

And just a reminder as we get ready to ring in the new year: New and returning subscribers can sign up for a pre-paid offer and get 6 months of HBO Max at a discounted rate of $69.99 plus applicable taxes. Find out more at HBOMax.com.

TITLES COMING TO HBO MAX IN JANUARY

Exact Dates to be Announced:

Arthur’s Law, Max Original Series Premiere

The unemployed Arthur Ahnepol (Jan Josef Liefers) ekes out a bleak existence. Drawn from the strains of his unhappy marriage and bored to death, he makes a morbid plan: he wants his obnoxious wife to die. With the money from the life insurance there’s no obstacle for a restart with his beloved mistress. But an unwritten law dominates the life of the unlucky fellow: every problem solved by Arthur has a far worse effect. And so, he sets off an avalanche of disastrous events.

The Event, Max Original Series Premiere

An unprecedented look behind the scenes of the extraordinary events created by Wolfgang Puck Catering and legendary restaurateur Wolfgang Puck. From Renegade 83, each one-hour episode will follow various members of Puck’s team as they strive to amaze clients and surpass even the highest expectations.

Locked Down, Max Original Film Premiere

Just as they decide to separate, Linda (Anne Hathaway) and Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) find life has other plans when they are stuck at home in a mandatory lockdown. Co-habitation is proving to be a challenge, but fueled by poetry and copious amounts of wine, it will bring them closer together in the most surprising way.

Perfect Life (fka Vida Perfecta), Max Original Season 1 Premiere

Maria, Esther and Cristina are three women in the middle of a life crisis. They have realized that the plans they had made for themselves haven’t really gotten them the long-promised happiness they yearned for. Together, they will find alternatives and make decisions that will lead them away from what society expects from them. They will soon realize that life doesn’t necessarily have to be what they always imagined.

Possessions, HBO Max Season 1 Premiere

The series tells the story of Natalie, a young French expatriate in Israel, who is charged with the murder of her husband on their wedding night. Karim, a French diplomat in charge of helping French citizens who have to deal with the Israeli authorities, slowly falls for Natalie. He cannot figure out whether the young lady is deeply lost and vulnerable, or dangerously manipulative. Obsessed with this case, Karim dives into Natalie and her family’s mysterious past.

Selena + Chef, Max Original Season 2 Premiere

The unscripted cooking series features the multi-platinum selling recording artist, actress, producer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist as she navigates unfamiliar territory: making delicious meals while stuck at home in quarantine.

January 1: 12 oz. Mouse, Seasons 1 & 2 42nd Street, 1933 All the President’s Men, 1976 Apple & Onion, Season 1B The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman, 1974 (HBO) Batman Begins, 2005 Batman Beyond Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker, 2000 Batman: Bad Blood, 2016 Batman: Death in the Family, 2020 Batman: Hush, 2019 Batman: The Animated Series Blade, 1998 A Better Life, 2011 (HBO) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005 Dog Day Afternoon, 1975 Check It Out! with Steve Brule Chinatown, 1974 Codename: Kids Next Door The Color Purple, 1985 The Conjuring, 2013 Courage the Cowardly Dog Craig of the Creek, Season 2 The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, 2002 (HBO) The Dark Knight, 2008 The Dark Knight Rises, 2012 Dim Sum Funeral, 2009 (HBO) Ed, Edd n Eddy El Amor No Puede Esperar (Aka Love Can’t Wait), 2021 (HBO) Happy Feet, 2006 The Electric Horseman, 1979 (HBO) Escape from New York, 1981 The Exorcist, 1973 Flashpoint, 1984 (HBO) The General’s Daughter, 1999 (HBO) Gossip Girl Green Lantern, 2011 Green Lantern: The Animated Series Gremlins , 1984 Gremlins 2: The New Batch, 1990 The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Happily N’Ever After, 2007 (HBO) Happily N’Ever After 2: Snow White, 2009 (HBO) Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008 (HBO) He Said She Said, 1991 (HBO) Heaven Help Us, 1985 (HBO) The Infamous Future, 2018 Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, 2001 (HBO) The Jellies Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, 2020 Kong: Skull Island, 2017 Little Con Lili, 2021 (HBO) Loiter Squad Ma, 2019 (HBO) Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, 1983 Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015 Magic Mike, 2012 Mao Mao, Heroes of Pure Heart March of the Penguins, 2005 Margaret, 2011 (Extended Version) (HBO) Miracle On 34th Street, 1994 (HBO) Miss Firecracker, 1989 (HBO) Mulholland Dr., 2001 Mystic River, 2003 Nitro Circus: The Movie 3D, 2012 (HBO) No Country for Old Men, 2007 The Notebook, 2004 Ocean’s 8, 2018 Ocean’s Eleven , 2001 Ocean’s Thirteen, 2007 Ocean’s Twelve, 2004 Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, 1985 Piter, 2021 (HBO) The Producers, 1968 Pulp Fiction, 1994 Purple Rain, 1984 Ready Player One, 2018 Revenge Of The Nerds, 1984 (HBO) Revenge Of The Nerds II: Nerds In Paradise, 1987 (HBO) Revenge Of The Nerds IV: Nerds In Love, 2005 (HBO) Rollerball, 2002 (HBO) Se7en, 1995 Shallow Hal, 2001 (HBO) Snowpiercer, Season 1 A Star is Born , 2018 Superman: Doomsday, 2007 Superman: Man of Tomorrow, 2020 Superman Returns, 2006 Swimfan, 2002 (HBO) This Is Spinal Tap, 1984 The Three Stooges, 2012 (HBO) TMNT, 2007 Tom Goes to the Mayor The Trouble With Spies, 1987 (HBO) Underclassman, 2005 (HBO) V for Vendetta, 2005 Van Wilder: Freshman Year (Extended Version), 2009 (HBO) Walk Of Shame, 2014 (HBO) Warrior, Seasons 1 & 2 (HBO) Willard, 1971 (HBO) Worth Winning, 1989 (HBO) You Can Count On Me, 2000 (HBO)

January 2: The High Note, 2020 (HBO)

January 4: 30 Coins, Series Premiere (HBO)

January 8: Patriot’s Day, 2016 Scream, 1996 Squish, Season 1

January 9: The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, Season 2 Ben 10, Season 4A The King Of Staten Island, 2020 (HBO)

January 10: Miracle Workers, Season 2 Tiger, Two-Part Documentary Premiere (HBO)

January 12: Against The Wild, 2014 Against the Wild 2: Survive the Serengeti, 2016 Alpha and  Omega 5: Family Vacation, 2015 Alpha and Omega 6: Dino Digs, 2016 Batkid Begins: The Wish Heard Around the World, 2015 Blue Valentine, 2010 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, 2000 Earth Girls Are Easy, 1989 An Elephant’s Journey , 2018 The Escape Artist, 1982 Get Carter, 1971 Hecho En Mexico, 2012 Hellboy: Blood and Iron, 2007 Hellboy: Sword of Storms , 2006 Hellboy: The Dark Below, 2010 Jennifer Lopez: Dance Again, 2016 The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1976 The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, 2013 La Mujer de Mi Hermano , 2005 Leapfrog Letter Factory Adventures: Amazing Word Explorers , 2015 Leapfrog Letter Factory Adventures: Counting on Lemonade , 2014 Leapfrog Letter Factory Adventures: The Letter Machine Rescue Team , 2014 Leapfrog: Numberland, 2012 Lost and Delirious, 2001 Love and Sex, 2000 Lovely & Amazing , 2002 The Man Who Would Be King, 1975 Meatballs, 1979 The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009 A Mermaid’s Tale, 2017 Mistress, 1992 Mother’s Day, 2012 Mud, 2013 Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, 2016 Night is Short, Walk on Girl, 2017 No Eres Tu Soy Yo, 2011 Norm of the North: King Sized Adventure, 2019 Ollie & Moon, Seasons 1 & 2 Other Parents, Seasons 1 & 2 Pinocchio, 2012 Promare, 2019 Reservoir Dogs, 1992 Ride Your Wave, 2019 Righteous Kill, 2008 Sprung, 1997 The Spy Next Door, 2010 Tender Mercies, 1983 Thanks for Sharing, 2013 Turtle Tale, 2018 The Visitor, 2008 Vixen, 2015

January 14: Search Party, Max Original Season 4 Premiere

In the new season, “Dory” (Alia Shawkat) is held prisoner by her psychotic stalker “Chip” (Cole Escola), who is determined to make Dory believe that they are best friends. Meanwhile, “Portia” (Meredith Hagner) is starring in a film about the trial, although not as herself; “Elliott” (John Early) has switched party lines to become a far-right conservative talk show host; and “Drew” (John Reynolds) is trying to escape his dark past by working as a costumed cast member in a theme park.

January 15: Stephen King’s It, 1990 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975 Poltergeist, 1982 Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Director’s Cut, Season 1 dubbed (Crunchyroll Collection) Real Time With Bill Maher, Season 19 Premiere (HBO) Roots (Mini Series), 1977 Si Yo Fuera Rico (Aka If I Were Rich), 2021 (HBO) The Wayans Bros

January 16: Eve Kill Bill: Vol. 1, 2003 (HBO) Kill Bill: Vol. 2, 2004 (HBO)

January 19: Everwood

January 20: At Home with Amy Sedaris, Season 3 C.B. Strike, Season 1 (HBO) C.B. Strike: Lethal White, Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

January 21: Gomorrah, Max Original Season 3 Premiere

The iconic Italian crime series Gomorrah is based on Roberto Saviano’s bestselling book that examines the account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra.

 Looney Tunes Cartoons, Season 1C

In this latest batch, Taz stars in his first full-length Looney Tunes Cartoons short when he takes on Bugs Bunny in a Roman coliseum. If Bugs makes it out of the arena, there will be plenty of foes waiting to match wits with him including Elmer Fudd, a leprechaun and Cecil Turtle. Daffy and Porky continue their misadventures from skydiving to solving the mystery of Porky’s missing pants! Fan-favorites Sylvester and Tweety along with Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner also come along for the ride in these ten all-new animated episodes. It’s an all-new year with all-new Looney!

January 22: The New Adventures of Old Christine Painting With John, Series Premiere (HBO)

January 23: Don’t Let Go, 2019 (HBO) Person of Interest

January 24: Euphoria Special Episode Part 2: F*ck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob, Special Episode Premiere (HBO)

January 26: Babylon 5 Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel (HBO)

January 29: ¡Animo Juventud! (Aka Go Youth!), 2021 (HBO) The Little Things

Academy Award winners Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto star in John Lee Hancock’s suspenseful psychological thriller “The Little Things” about two California sheriffs and their growing obsession with a suspect while embroiled in the search for a killer targeting women.

What I Like About You

January 30: The Mummy, 1999 (HBO) The Mummy Returns, 2001 (HBO) Pushing Daisies The Scorpion King, 2002 (HBO)

January 31: Axios, Season 4 Premiere (HBO)

LAST CHANCE TO CATCH: SELECT TITLES LEAVING HBO MAX IN JANUARY

January 7: War Dogs, 2016 (HBO)

January 24: Wonder Woman 1984, 2020

January 31: Ad Astra, 2019 After Hours, 1985 (HBO) Akeelah And The Bee, 2006 (HBO) All Is Bright, 2013 America, America, 1964 Anchors Aweigh, 1945 The Arrangement, 1969 Bee Season, 2005 (HBO) Before Sunrise, 1995 (HBO) Before Sunset, 2004 (HBO) Best Laid Plans, 1999 (HBO) Bigger Than The Sky, 2005 (HBO) Blade II, 2002 Blade, 1998 Blood Simple, 1984 (HBO) Bridge To Terabithia, 2007 (HBO) Bright Lights, Big City, 1988 (HBO) The Change-Up, 2011 (HBO) The Children, 2009 A Christmas Carol, 1938 Crash, 2005 (Director’s Cut) (HBO) David Copperfield, 1935 Days After Your Departure, 2019 (HBO) Enemy Of The State, 1998 (HBO) Everybody’s All-American, 1988 (HBO) Father’s Day, 1997 (HBO) Friday Night Lights, 2004 (HBO) Get On Up, 2014 (HBO) Guys And Dolls, 1955 High Society, 1956 Jeepers Creepers 2, 2003 (HBO) Jeepers Creepers, 2001 (HBO) Leprechaun 2, 1994 (HBO) Leprechaun, 1993 (HBO) Magnolia, 1999 (HBO) The Man With The Golden Arm, 1955 Mars Attacks!, 1996 Martha Marcy May Marlene, 2011 (HBO) Martin Lawrence You So Crazy, 1994 (HBO) New Year’s Eve, 2011 (HBO) Ocean’s Eleven, 2001 Ocean’s Thirteen, 2007 Ocean’s Twelve, 2004 On The Town, 1949 The Pelican Brief, 1993 Planet Of The Apes, 2001 (HBO) Risky Business, 1983 Semi-Pro, 2008 Some Came Running, 1958 Something Borrowed, 2011 (HBO) Splendor In The Grass, 1961 Walk The Line, 2005 (Extended Version) (HBO) When Harry Met Sally, 1989

[failingtheoscars]

2021 Oscar Predictions: "I Didn't See Shit" Edition

Hello everyone, Facebook has deleted the Notes feature despite my numerous stern emails, so I've been forced to use tumblr, of all things. Remember tumblr? It's that website that was made for porn. Turns out it's for blogs now. Who knew?

Let's take a trip down memory lane:

2020 - 21/24

2019 - 13/24 (lol)

2018 - Lost to the sands of time

2017 - 17/24

2016 - 16/24

2015 - ???

2014 - 18/24

And sometime in the past I entered some concert to beat Ebert and I got 21/24. This is the current record. It will not be beaten this year, because I ain't seen SHIT. But there's only 23 categories now, so I guess that helps? So let's do this.

Best Actor - This is one of those years where all the wind is blowing behind Chadwick Boseman's back - he is very good in Ma Rainey, and also he's... post-humous. If we can all be honest to ourselves, we know this doesn't hurt your chances. There's also, however, a "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded" effect where a lot of Academy voters are saying "I know Boseman is going to win, but I voted for Hopkins!" and that was enough for Hopkins to take the BAFTA. I'm going to follow my gut here and say it's still going to be Boseman but this is way tighter than I think anyone expects it to be.

Will win: Chadwick Boseman

Might win: Anthony Hopkins

Should win: Everyone who's ever pretended to give a shit about my Oscar predictions

Best Actress - Probably the closest and hardest to call race of the night since seemingly everyone in this category could win, but I think Frances McDormand's performance wasn't flashy enough for the voters, and Mulligan's is too genre-y to win it too. I think it's going to be Davis by a fucking hair despite the rather limited screentime of this performance.

Will win: Viola Davis (???)

Might win: Mulligan

Should win:  Sidney Flannigan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Best Supporting Actor - I am going to go with Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah, but I'm not as confident about it as other people are. I still think of the Academy voter pool as being old, white, and generally just afraid of the Black Panthers.

Will win: Daniel Kaluuya

Might win: Paul Raci

Should win: Delroy Lindo for Da 5 Bloods

Best Supporting Actress - Yuh-Jung Youn. I feel good about this

Will win: Yuh-Jung Youn

Might win: Glenn Close, maybe?

Should win: I'm okay with Yuh-Jung Youn taking it.

Best Animated  - AKA, the award for "Most Pixar" movie, unless of course its 2001, in which you encounter the "Shrekkiest" movie exception. Still, Pixar almost never loses no matter how mediocre and underwhelming their film is.

Will win: Soul

Might win: Wolfwalkers

Should win: That scene in the Simpsons where Marge holds a potato and says "I just think they're neat"

Best Cinematography - L A N D S C A P E S

Will win: Nomadland

Might win: idk... Mank?

Should win: Yeah, Nomadland feels good

Best Costume Design - B L A C K B O T T O M (S?). It's a period piece.

Will win: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Might win: Mank

Should win: The Golden Globes, for disguising itself as a legitimate organization qualified to give awards

Best Directing - Yeah, I think it's going to Chloe Zhao. So glad she's working on a Marvel movie now. Now THAT is good use of talent.

Will win: Zhao for Nomadland

Might win: Uh... I dont know. Fincher?

Should win: I haven't seen a single 2020 movie I really want to go to bat for, so whatever

Documentary (Feature) - My Teacher's an Octopus! An Octopus Taught Me!? Meet this Octopus: Teachers Hate Him! Taught... by an Octopus!? My Teacher Octopus. Octopus, my teacher. Teach me, Octopus! Octoteach my puss.

Will win: Octoteachapus

Might win: who cares

Should win:  i can neither pronounce or spell "dacumintery"

Best Documentary Short - WOW lets throw a fuckin dart at the dartboard because Ive never known the winner of these and I NEVER WILL

Will win: A Love Song for Latasha

Might win: Colette

Should win: WHO KNOWS. NO ONE KNOWS

Best Editing - Ever since Bohemian Rhapsody won this oscar it broke my fucking brain so who knows anymore.

Will win: Trial of the Chicago 7: Revenge of the Sorkin

Might win: Bohemian Rhapsody, apparently

Should win: MY DUDES LETS JUST GIVE IT TO BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY AGAIN LETS MAKE HISTORY

Best Foreign Language Film - DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!

Will win: Another Round

Might win: Quo Vadis, Aida

Should win:  How should I know, I don't watch movies with subtitles

Best Make-up and Hairstyling - Is the award for most Make-Up? Because I think Viola Davis is carrying a legit 10-pounder around for Ma Rainey.

Will win: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Might win: The Milanese Swan

Should win: Me, for "making up" the movie The Milanese Swan. Hahaha get it

Best Music (Original Score) - Not only is Soul a movie, it's the name for a whole genre of music! You can't lose!

Will win: Soul

Might win: Funk

Should win:  Jazz

Best Music (Original Song) - I haven't heard any of these songs.

Will win: Speak Now

Might win: Husavik, apparently

Should win:  I can neither pronounce or spell the word "moozik"

Best Production Design - To quote myself: "9 times out of 10, the period piece wins." And to add on, the one about Hollywood does too.

Will win: Mank

Might win: Ma Rainey

Should win:  WHO CARES. THERES A PANDEMIC. sorry

Best Short Film (Animated) - how would i know, stop asking me! leave my family alone!!

Will win: If Anything Happens I Love You

Might win: In the end, we're all winners

Should win:  Sorry, I misread the copy. We're all wieners.

Best Short Film (Live Action) - lol

Will win: Two Distant Strangers

Might win: LITERALLY ANYTHING

Should win: well in my erudite opinion i bleh bleh bleh

Best Sound - Holy shit, they finally admitted they have no idea what the difference is between sound editing and mixing and just smushed them together. Nice.

Will win: Sound of Metal - It's got sound in the name!!

Might win: The Sound of Music

Should win: The Sound of Yo Mama. ayo gotem

Best Visual Effects - Did you know CGI stands for "Can't Get In?" It's named after what yo mama said when she tried to fit through the door to her house. lmao gotem

Will win: Tenet

Might win: i dont know

Should win: this is taking too long

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - OH GOD it's actually hard this year but I think it's going to be Nomadland just because it has the forward momentum for best picture (spoiler). Could be The Father. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't feel so good Mr. Stark

Will win: No, Mad Land!

Might win: ZEE FATHAIR

Should win: Look, I think I've only seen like... 20 movies from 2020, tops. I don't care. Honestly, I'm just happy I'm still alive at this point.

Best Writing (Original Screenplay) - You know, this is starting to feel like a lot of pressure. Like why would I ever be able to predict the Oscars? What do I know? I used to have at least seen the movies, so that gave me an edge. But this year I've barely seen any of these. I'm lost, adrift in a boundless sea. I think it'll be Promising Young Woman.

Will win: Promising Young Woman

Might win: Try Oh Love The Cigar Goes Heaven

Should win:  a movie

Best Picture - Weirdly probably the only category of the whole night I feel pretty good about. I've seen Minari, Mank, Nomadland, and Trial of the Chicago 7, which are all varying degrees of good except for Mank which is varying degrees of bad. And Trail of the Chicago 7 which is an hour of good and then a half hour of really bad. Anyways I don't have super strong feelings about any of these movies but Nomadland was good, I think it has the momentum, and despite minimal Oscar controversy I don't think the voters give a shit.

Will win: Nomadland

Might win. Honestly I live in fear Green Book is going to fucking win again somehow. Some fucked up Lala Land/Moonlight scenario where Viggo Mortenson roles up in some old beater and says "woke up dis moooohnin, got some gabbagool" and then walks away with another oscar with a fat cigar in his mouth.

Should win:  Green Book. It was very touching

this is the bad place

[dweemeister]

Best Animated Short Film Nominees for the 95th Academy Awards (2023, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages. Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards. The write-ups for the Documentary Short and Live Action Short nominees are complete. Films predominantly in a language other than English (or in two cases here, with dialogue) are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

So completes this year’s omnibus write-ups for the Oscar-nominated short films.

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It (2021)

In 1953, director Chuck Jones tortured Daffy Duck with the whims of an unseen animator (revealed to be Bugs Bunny) in Duck Amuck. Fast forward almost seventy years and a film of a similar concept comes in Lachlan Pendragon’s An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It. Pendragon, who directed, wrote, animated, and voiced the main character this film as an undergraduate student at the Griffith Film School in Brisbane (where he is now a PhD candidate), frames hapless toaster telemarketing salesman Neil as under fire from his boss (Michael Richard) due to a lack of sales. As the workday continues, he begins to notice peculiar aspects of his fellow coworkers and the office that make him question what is going on. Accidentally sleeping at work through the night, he encounters an ostrich (John Cavanagh) in the elevator who then claims the world Neil lives in is, “a lie”. What follows is a meta-breaking, existential short film deriving its comedy from the character’s realization of the stop-motion artifice of his life.

A winner of the Student Academy Award from last year and a nominee for Best Graduation Film at Annecy (the premier animation-only film festival), Ostrich uses what I am assuming is Pendragon’s hand in place of Bugs Bunny’s glove and paintbrush. Shot entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown at home in the living room, this is a one-man animation job. For most of its ten-minute runtime, the viewers see the film through an in-film camera monitor – allowing us into Pendragon’s workspace. Meanwhile, in the background that comprises the margins of the frame, we witness the rigging, wiring, and animation handiwork that is occurring at twenty-four frames per second.  The impressive character design and the clearly-delineated pop-off faces and jaws provide a remarkable assist to Ostrich’s comic timing and Neil’s acting (which Pendragon admits that Neil’s reactions take inspiration his own behavioral habits). The film’s metaphor is perhaps not as well developed, but one can make the argument that Ostrich is a blistering take on this stifling office environment and champions an exploration and investigation of all possibilities in one’s earthly life and in existence. One imagines we will see more from Pendragon, who is at the very beginning of his career and wishes to make a feature someday.

My rating: 8/10

The Flying Sailor (2022, Canada)

Making its debut last year at Annecy and from National Film Board of Canada (NFB; who, as a studio, are the second-most nominated ever in this category behind Walt Disney Animation), Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’ The Flying Sailor is an experimental take of the story of Charlie Mayers. On December 6, 1917, a French cargo ship and a Norwegian merchant vessel collided in a strait called the Narrows, just off Halifax, Nova Scotia. A fire began on the former ship, which carried with it high explosives. The resulting explosion was the most violent peacetime accidental explosion ever on Earth – killing more than 1,700 and wounding around 9,000 in the immediate area and from the shockwaves. Mayers was actually onboard the deck of one of the ships, but Tilby and Forbis move him to the docks, watching on as an inquisitive spectator instead. As in real life, the blast is enough to quickly tear off all his clothes, and he spirals skyward. It is here that Tilby and Forbis send Mayers flying in slow-motion, almost balletically spinning as the film delves into his unconsciousness.

His life flashing before his eyes, we see hazy glimpses of the sailor’s memories – his childhood self at play, his mother, the rough-and-tumble life of being a sailor. Along with My Year of Dicks, The Flying Sailor is one of the first films in this category to make use of mixed media since Mémorable (2019, France). It opens with juxtaposing our hand-drawn sailor with the ships – as if in the style of the opening of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – hurtling towards each other. But once the explosion occurs, the film, too, explodes with a clash of styles. Showcasing hand-drawn, computer-generated, and live action footage, Tilby and Forbis’ choices are reflective of the instant disorientation following the blast. The film’s penultimate moments are an orchestral cacophony from composer Luigi Allemano as the sailor returns to our earthly existence. This is perhaps the only film of these five that absolutely needed to be a short film. It presents its direction, completes its business, and concludes.

My rating: 8/10

Ice Merchants (2022, Portugal)

By earning Portugal its first-ever Academy Award nomination, João Gonzalez’s Ice Merchants – a production of the Cola Animation collective – already has a place in Oscars history. In his third film as a director following The Voyager (2017) and Nestor (2019), Gonzalez transports audiences to an impossible, dreamlike place and imbues his film with a metaphor of loss and how family routines can be an extension of grief. In a cliffside house suspended by hooks and ropes live a father and his son. Living thousands of feet above the town below, they jump off their porch daily, parachuting to safety in order to sell the ice. They return home after selling their wares and purchasing whatever they need in town by using a pulley system that probably takes ages to ascend and descend. In the rarified, chilly air, father and son go about their lives peacefully, continuing their lives amid the shadow of loss.

Garnering award wins at Cannes, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Annies, Ice Merchants is among the most-awarded short films ever prior to an Oscar nomination. According to Gonzalez, the idea of the cliffside house came as he was dreaming or was about to fall asleep – a development that has, thus far, fully informed the visual conceits of his entire filmography. Prior to starting the formal animation for Ice Merchants, Gonzalez himself modeled the entire house (including the swing, interiors, and pulley system) 3D and started composing the score (Gonzalez is a pianist, but required his friend, conductor/orchestrator Nuno Lobo, to transpose for various instruments). Unusual in that the film’s narrative and themes spring from the score rather than the other way around, Ice Merchants adopts an everyday melancholy reflected in its strikingly limited color palette. Those colors include shades of red, orange, a dark blue or green for backgrounds only, and two brief but noteworthy instances of yellow. All these decisions – visually, musically, narratively – combine in a breathtaking conclusion that unleashes a wave of emotions. That mastery of cinematic control leads me to write something longtime readers know I do not say lightly. Ice Merchants is the best nominee in this category since Bear Story (2014, Chile) and World of Tomorrow (2015) were nominated together seven years ago. By extension, it is one of the finest animated short films of the young century.

My rating: 9/10

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022)

Adapting Charlie Mackesy’s 2019 picture book of the same name, Peter Baynton and Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse made an enormous splash when it aired on BBC One on Christmas Eve as part of the BBC’s annual slate of Christmas specials. It qualified for an Academy Award nomination by virtue of a nominal one-week theatrical release in Los Angeles County on September 23, 2022. Here, the Boy (Jude Coward Nicoll) has lost his way in a wintry forest when he encounters Mole (Tom Hollander). Mole is a cheerful, friendly sort that enjoys a good cake. But the Boy believes himself to be lost, is searching for a home, and wishes to be a kind person. Along their travels they encounter starving Fox (Idris Elba) and the lonely Horse (Gabriel Byrne). For the duration of this movie, the Boy and his animal friends speak to each other in platitudes of positivity, reassurance, and perseverance for what is most likely chronic depression or seasonal affective disorder.

The Boy might just be the most beautifully drawn of this year’s nominees. Its painterly watercolor backgrounds seem as lifted from a picture book; the residual sketches on each of the characters are a beautiful expressionistic touch (I especially like the ends of the Boy’s hair and Fox’s tale, as well as the curvatures to denote Horse’s leg musculature). My sense of visual wonder lasted all but five or so minutes. Because once the Boy has a few conversations with Mole, the film’s thirty-seven minutes seem all the more interminable. The film’s dialogue – and my goodness, no one speaks like this in real life – is trite, straight from the crowd that might have a “live, laugh, love” embroidery unironically hanging on their wall. Each character appears as if they are trying to one-up the other in their AI-generated speech*, as if each Very Important Line of Dialogue is attempting to be the penultimate or final line in a children’s picture book. I understand how this might be impactful for those with major cases of depression and seasonal affective disorder, but the film’s messaging and horrific script is sheer overkill.

My rating: 6/10

My Year of Dicks (2022)

A winner at Annecy, Chicago International Film Festival, and SXSW, Sara Gunnarsdóttir’s My Year of Dicks adapts Pamela Ribon’s comedic memoir Notes to Boys: And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public (Ribon is the sole screenwriter on this film). This is not about people named Richard. It is 1991 in Houston. In the first of five chapters, we find Pam (Brie Tilton) – a fifteen-year-old who wants desperately to lose her virginity sometimes this year – narrating a diary entry/letter to her first boy, David (Sterling Temple Howard, “Skater Dude” from 2020’s Two Distant Strangers). David is a skater boy who has filed his nails into sharp points and his teeth in a similar way. As one can imagine, this romance does not work out and Pam cycles through the next four chapters awash in heterosexual hijinks (some readers will interpret the use of “heterosexual” here as a pejorative, but I say it as only an observation) with Wally (Mical Trejo), Robert (Sean Stack), best friend Sam (Jackson Kelly), and Joey (Chris Elsenbroek).

Alternatively hilarious and excruciating (see: the scene where Pam’s father gives her The Talk) to watch, one-half of the film’s genius lies in Ribon’s adapted screenplay of her memoir. Ribon (a co-screenwriter on 2016’s Moana and 2018’s Ralph Breaks the Internet), who saved all of the letters she wrote to all her crushes when she was a teenager, adapts that writing to form an honest, secondhand embarrassing story. The central ideas play like a grown-up Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold!, sans used gum bust of her beloved. My Year of Dicks’ resolution is genuine, as is a non-judgmental depiction of teenage female sexuality‡. In a roundabout way, it is a deconstruction of the idea that the only way for girls to achieve full womanhood is through sex and sexual appeal. And like The Flying Sailor, My Year of Dicks employs a litany of styles of mixed media that help it succeed. Though its rough rotoscoping (a time-tested technique in which animators trace over live-action footage) is the dominant style, there are some fascinating breaks here: most interestingly, a scene involving a metaphoric angel and devil over Pam’s shoulders and interludes of shôjo anime (which probably was not on the radar of Houston teenagers in 1991). A sidesplittingly funny film, My Year of Dicks nevertheless retains a sliver of nostalgic poignancy to keep it grounded.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), 91st (2019), 92nd (2020), 93rd (2021), and 94th (2022).

* This begs a question. Should programmers of AI chatbots receive credit for their work when, inevitably, we have a film written by one?

‡ This line of thinking was certainly more prominent in the 1980s-2000s than it has been over the last decade, as teenage sex in the U.S. is down considerably from those times (the reasons are many).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[tamboradventure]

How to Spend 48 Hours in Oslo

Updated: 8/10/20 | August 10th, 2020

Most budget travelers skip Norway because it’s an expensive country to visit. The capital, Oslo, is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world owing to its high taxes, strong currency, and high percentage of imported goods.

Understandably, traveling here on a budget here is tricky. Yet I still encourage you to visit, even though it’s not a budget-friendly destination. There are unique museums, beautiful parks, and stunning nature to be enjoyed. It’s small enough that a two-day or three-day visit is usually enough to get a feel for it.

To help you plan your trip and make the most of your time, here is my suggested 48-hour itinerary for Oslo.  

Day 1

Wander Vigeland Sculpture Park Start your day wondering this 80-acre park and see its 200 statues. Located in Frogner Park, it’s the world’s largest display of sculptures created by a single artist. Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) created the collection of bronze, iron, and granite statues that now stand in this open-air “gallery” (you’ve probably seen the famous ‘crying baby’ statue on social media).

In the summer, the park is where you’ll find locals enjoying the long days of sunshine. There are often events and concerts held here as well.

From here, head down to Bygdøy island, where you’ll find many of Oslo’s museums.

See the Viking Museum This museum is home to the best-preserved Viking ships in the world, some of which date back to the 9th century. It’s a sparse museum (the focus really is on the ships) but the burial ships (as well as the preserved tools and carts from the Middle Ages) are incredibly rare and worth seeing for yourself. The museum offers a short film and as well, though the free audio guide is the best way to make the most out of your visit.

Huk Aveny 35, +47 22 13 52 80, khm.uio.no/besok-oss/vikingskipshuset. Open daily from 9am–6pm in the summer and 10am–4pm in the winter. Admission is 120 NOK for adults and free for kids under 18.

Explore the Norwegian Folk Museum Not far from the Viking Museum is the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. It has a collection of over 150 buildings from various periods throughout Norwegian history. It’s an open-air museum, so you can explore both the interior and exterior of many of the buildings, some of which date back to the 12th century.

The most impressive of its exhibitions is Gol Stave Church, an intricately carved wooden church constructed in 1157. The museum also has a large photographic archive as well as tons of historic artifacts, documents, tools, and more.

Museumsveien 10, +47 22 12 37 00, norskfolkemuseum.no. Open daily from 11am–4pm. Admission is 160 NOK.

Visit the Fram Museum As a northern country used to frigid temperatures and harsh winters, polar exploration is a field intricately woven into Norwegian history. This museum highlights that history, focusing on Norway’s contributions to polar exploration. The centerpiece of the museum is the Fram, the world’s first ice-breaking ship. The ship was used between 1893 and 1912 and is actually made of wood. The Fram made trips to both North and South Poles and sailed farther north and south than any other wooden ship in history.

The museum is incredibly detailed; there’s a lot of photographs, artifacts, tools, and tons of information. It’s a unique look into Norwegian culture through the lens of exploration.

Bygdøynesveien 39, +47 23 28 29 50, frammuseum.no. Open daily 10am–6pm. Admission is 120 NOK.

Visit the Holocaust Center Established in 2001, this museum highlights the experiences of Norwegian Jews (as well as the persecution of other religious minorities). It’s located in the former residence of Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian fascist who headed the Norwegian government under Nazi occupation between 1942-1945. It’s a somber and sobering place to visit but incredibly insightful with various exhibitions, photos, films, artifacts, and interviews from World War II and the German occupation of Norway.

Huk Aveny 56, +47 23 10 62 00, hlsenteret.no. Open weekdays 9am–4pm. Admission is 70 NOK.

Learn About the Kon-Tiki Expedition In 1947, Norweigian historian and explorer Thor Heyerdahl used a traditional balsa raft to cross the Pacific Ocean from South America to Polynesia. This journey set out to prove that the Polynesian islands were populated from the Americas — not Asia, as had been previously thought.

He and his small crew spent 101 days at sea. They filmed much of the experience, winning an Academy Award in 1951 for Best Documentary (he also wrote a book about the trip)

To get a sense of what his journey was like, watch the 2012 historical drama Kon-Tiki (it’s a great travel movie).

Bygdøynesveien 36, +47 23 08 67 67, kon-tiki.no. Open daily from 9:30am–6pm (shorter hours in the autumn and winter). Admission is 120 NOK.

City Hall End your day at City Hall, which is open to the public and free to enter. While it might not sound like an interesting sight, tours of the hall are will give you lots of insight into the city and its history. Most noteworthy are the hall’s twenty murals and works of art. They depict everything from traditional Norwegian life to the Nazi occupation. Also highlighted here is the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s awarded here annually (the other Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden).

Rådhusplassen 1, +47 23 46 12 00, oslo.kommune.no/radhuset. Open Sunday-Thursday from 9am-4pm. Admission is free.  

Day 2

Wander Akershus Fortress Originally built in 1290, Akershus Fortress is a medieval fortress that evolved into a Renaissance palace under Danish King Christian IV. Currently, it’s used as an office for the prime minister. It was built for protection and the fortress has never successfully been besieged (though it did surrender to the Nazis during World War II).

Inside the fort is a military museum as well as a museum dedicated to the Norwegian resistance during World War II. In the summer you can take a guided tour and there are also often events here as well (mostly concerts). Check the website to see if anything is occurring during your visit.

+47 23 09 39 17, forsvarsbygg.no/no/festningene/finn-din-festning/akershus-festning. Open daily in the summers 10am–4pm (winter hours vary). Admission is free.

Take a Harbor Cruise The Oslo fjord is stunning. With its towering cliffs, calm waters, and rugged green shoreline, the Oslo fjord should not be missed. You can take a hop-on-and-off boat that shuttles people from the various attractions and museums or enjoy a proper two-hour cruise through the fjord. I recommend the two-hour cruise since it goes deeper into the harbor and you see a lot more. It’s a relaxing way to spend part of your day — especially if you’ve been on your feet all day.

Tickets for the two-hour cruise cost 339 NOK per person.

Explore the Royal Palace and Park The Royal Palace is the official residence of the monarch (Yup! Norway still has a king!). Completed in the 1840s, it’s surrounded by a huge park and locals can usually be seen enjoying the long summer days here. During the summer, parts of the palace are open to visitors and tours. Tours last one hour and you’ll be able to see some of the lavish and ornately preserved rooms and learn about the country’s monarchs and how they ruled Norway.

Slottsplassen 1, +47 22 04 87 00, kongehuset.no/seksjon.html. Summer hours vary. See the website for details. Admission is 140 NOK and includes a tour.

Visit the National Gallery While small, Oslo’s National Gallery has a wide range of artists on display. Here you’ll find Impressionists, Dutch artists, works by Picasso and El Greco, and the highlight of the gallery, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. Painted in 1893, The Scream has actually been stolen from the gallery twice over the years. Admittedly, the gallery doesn’t have the biggest collection I’ve seen but it’s nevertheless worth a visit. It’s a relaxing way to end your trip.

The National Gallery is temporarily closed and will reopen in 2021 but you can find some of its collection in the National Museum.  

Other Things to See & Do

If you have extra time in Oslo, here are a few other suggestions to help you make the most of your visit:

Explore Nordmarka – The Nordmarka Wilderness Area offers everything from biking to swimming to skiing. It spans over 430 acres and is home to huts that are available for overnight stays. You can reach the area in just 30 minutes by car or 1 hour by bus. Avoid going on Sunday, as that’s when all the locals go so it will be busier (unless you want to meet more locals!).

Go Tobogganing – If you visit during the winter, do the Korketrekkeren Toboggan Run. The track is over 2,000 meters long and sleds are available for rent (including helmets) for 150 NOK per day (so you can take as many rides as you like). It’s only available when there is snow so the schedule will vary, however, it’s incredibly fun and popular with the locals too!

Wander the Botanical Garden – Home to over 1,800 different plants, this botanical garden/arboretum has two greenhouses full of exotic plants and a “Scent Garden” designed specifically for the blind so they could have a sensory experience (it’s a really neat experience so don’t miss it). There are lots of benches so you can sit down with a book and relax, as well as works of art throughout the garden. Admission is free.

Go Swimming – Oslo is surrounded by water and has lots of places to swim. The water is clean and safe and locals can be found swimming all year round. Tjuvholmen City Beach, Sørenga Seawater Pool, and Huk are three spots worth checking out if you’re looking to take a dip when the weather is nice.

***

Since there are a lot of attractions involved, it’s best to get the Oslo Pass. Like everything in Norway, attractions are expensive. If you plan on visiting lots of museums (and using public transportation) the pass will save you a good chunk of money. The 24-hour pass is 445 NOK while a 48-hour pass is 655 NOK (they also have a 72-hour pass for 820 NOK).

While Oslo has a lot more sights and activities, two days here is manageable enough to get a feel for the city and learn its history without entirely breaking the bank (though you’ll come close!).

Book Your Trip to Oslo: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines, because they search websites and airlines around the globe, so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the most comprehensive inventory. If you want to stay somewhere else, use Booking.com, as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and hotels. My favorite places to stay in Oslo are:

Saga Poshtel Oslo Central

Oslo Youth Hostel

Club 27

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it, as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those 70 and up)

Medjet (for additional repatriation coverage)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all those I use to save money — and I think they will help you too!

Looking for more travel tips for Norway? Check out my in-depth Norway travel guide for more ways to save money, tips on what to see and do, suggested itineraries, informational reading, packing lists, and much, much more!

Photo credits: 3 – Tore Storm Halvorsen, 4 – Daderot, 5 – Claudine Lamothe

Note: Visit Oslo provided me with free accommodation and a tourist card to get into attractions for free while I was there. I paid for my own meals and flights to/from Norway.

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