Campus Use King Lear (DVD 7102) White Right (DVD 16148) Henry V (DVD 16170) Teacher of the year (DVD 16177) Hale County This Morning, This Evening (DVD 16178) Home Use Theeb (DVD 16172) Frontline. Weinstein. (DVD 16173) BlacKkKlansman (DVD 16175) I am Chris Farley (DVD 16176) Swing by Media Services and check them out!
Campus Use
Home Use
Swing by Media Services and check them out!
84 AU community members entered our Oscar Ballot contest. Our winner got 16 correct, while one ballot only got 4 correct. There were some good surprises during the ceremony Sunday night (like Olivia Colman winning her well-deserved best actress statuette), and some not so-great surprises (Green Book winning Best Picture? Really?), overall our entrants were … Continue reading “AU’s Oscar Ballot – How Did We Do?”
84 AU community members entered our Oscar Ballot contest. Our winner got 16 correct, while one ballot only got 4 correct. There were some good surprises during the ceremony Sunday night (like Olivia Colman winning her well-deserved best actress statuette), and some not so-great surprises (Green Book winning Best Picture? Really?), overall our entrants were pretty accurate in predicting the outcomes of each category. Here’s a look at AU’s picks to win (the nominees with the majority of your votes), and how we did in each category.
Best Picture
AU Pick: Roma
The Academy Pick: Green Book
I’m with Spike Lee on this one— I was not expecting Green Book to walk away with this award. In fact, only 6 of our 82 ballots picked Green Book. Roma was far and away the favorite, with 39 votes, followed by Black Panther with 14.
Actor in a Leading Role
AU Pick: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Academy’s Pick: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Actress in a Leading Role
AU Pick: Glenn Close, The Wife
Academy Pick: Olivia Colman, The Favourite
I’ve never been happier to be wrong in my life. All the buzz was around Glenn Close, and I picked her for my ballot, but I really, really wanted Olivia Colman to win. Her performance as Queen Anne in The Favourite blew me away. Overall, Colman only received 15 votes (tied with Yalitza Aparicio) to Glenn Close’s 31. Lady Gaga was the second overall pick with 26.
Actor in a Supporting Role
AU Pick: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Academy Pick: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
No surprises here, as Ali received more than double the number of votes than our second-place pick Adam Driver.
Actress in a Supporting Role
AU Pick: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Academy Pick: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Again, no surprises, as Regina King was a force to be reckoned with in Beale Street. Her dress was also probably my favorite of the night.
Animated Feature Film
AU Pick: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Academy Pick: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
This should have been nominated for Best Picture, just saying. 67 of you chose Spider-Man, a whopping 77 % of our total voters.
Cinematography
AU Pick: Roma
Academy Pick: Roma
Costume Design
AU Pick: Ruth Carter, Black Panther
Academy Pick: Ruth Carter, Black Panther
See my blog post from a few weeks ago. A very, very well-deserved win for Ruth Carter.
Directing
AU Pick: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Academy Pick: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
I picked Spike Lee (the second overall pick at AU), but the majority of you got it right. 44 votes for Cuaron, and 28 votes for Lee.
Documentary (Feature)
AU Pick: RBG
Academy Pick: Free Solo
Of all the ones the AU voices got wrong, this was the most off. 49 of you voted for RBG, and Free Solo, the actual winner, only got 16 of your votes, just edging out Minding the Gap in third with 14.
Documentary (Short Subject)
AU Pick: Black Sheep
Academy Pick: Period. End of Sentence.
This race was actually very close.
Film Editing
AU Pick: Bohemian Rhapsody
Academy Pick: Bohemian Rhapsody
Foreign Language Film
AU Pick: Roma
Academy Pick: Roma
Makeup and Hairstyling
AU Pick: Mary, Queen of Scots
Academy Pick: Vice
AU was more wowed by the ornate (though historically inaccurate) hairdos on display in Mary, Queen of Scots than Christian Bale’s transformation into Dick Cheney.
Music (Original Score)
AU Pick: Ludwig Goransson, Black Panther
Academy Pick: Ludwig Goransson, Black Panther
Music (Original Song)
AU Pick: Lady Gaga, Shallow (A Star is Born)
Academy Pick: Lady Gaga, Shallow (A Star is Born)
Lady Gaga blew away her nearest competition (Kendrick Lamar’s All the Stars) 68-14.
Production Design
AU Pick: Black Panther
Academy Pick: Black Panther
Hannah Beachler is the first African-American to win this award. She essentially built Wakanda from the ground up.
Animated Short Film
AU Pick: Bao
Academy Pick: Bao
Live Action Short Film
AU Pick: Mother
Academy Pick: Skin
Skin was AU’s third pick overall, behind Mother and Marguerite.
Sound Editing
AU Pick: Bohemian Rhapsody
Academy Pick: Bohemian Rhapsody
Sound Mixing
AU Pick: Bohemian Rhapsody
Academy Pick: Bohemian Rhapsody
Visual Effects
AU Pick: Avengers: Infinity War
Academy Pick: First Man
First Man was AU’s second overall choice with 16 votes. Avengers garnered 44.
Adapted Screenplay
AU Pick: BlacKkKlansman
Academy Pick: BlacKkKlansman
If Spike Lee jumping into Samuel L. Jackson’s arms doesn’t bring you joy, I don’t know what will.
Original Screenplay
AU Pick: Roma
Academy Pick: Green Book
Roma just narrowly edged out Green Book with AU voters 27-25.
So, how did we do?
Overall, AU voters selected 16/24 of the winners. Given some of the night’s surprises, I’d say that’s a pretty good record.
Goooood morning! If you’re a fan of any of Anthony Bourdain’s shows, then you’re going to love this week’s random movie. DVD 10765, The Raw and the Cooked: A Culinary Journey Through Taiwan. Here’s our summary: Taiwan is known around the world as having one of the most diverse cuisines in Asia, and food is … Continue reading “Random Movie Monday — The Raw and the Cooked: A Culinary Journey Through Taiwan”
Goooood morning! If you’re a fan of any of Anthony Bourdain’s shows, then you’re going to love this week’s random movie. DVD 10765, The Raw and the Cooked: A Culinary Journey Through Taiwan. Here’s our summary:
Taiwan is known around the world as having one of the most diverse cuisines in Asia, and food is the foremost passion of its 23 million inhabitants. Viewers are treated to a sumptuous exploration of the island’s rich culinary traditions, and their relationship to Taiwan’s unique mix of cultures.
Taiwan is definitely on my list of places to travel, not least because of all the food options. Just watching this trailer is making my mouth water.
1989 was a bit of a surreal year – the Berlin Wall came down, the Tiananmen Square protests gripped the world…. And a hostless Academy Awards ceremony become infamous in the annals of Hollywood history. Just like this year, the producers of the 1989 Oscars ceremony failed to find a host for the event. This … Continue reading “Preoccupied With 1989”
1989 was a bit of a surreal year – the Berlin Wall came down, the Tiananmen Square protests gripped the world…. And a hostless Academy Awards ceremony become infamous in the annals of Hollywood history.
Just like this year, the producers of the 1989 Oscars ceremony failed to find a host for the event. This time around, the award’s producers are cutting, cutting, cutting. There won’t be any performances of the Best Original Song nominees, three categories are being relegated to commercial breaks… and the ceremony is still supposed to last over three hours. Presumably cutting the host means cutting the opening monologue, and the inane stunts in the middle of the ceremony, right? Surely that leaves time for the actual awards and the songs?
Perhaps the producers are trying to avoid a repeat of the 1989 ceremony, which was… a disaster. A total, unmitigated, humiliating disaster that I can’t believe didn’t end Rob Lowe’s career. The ceremony began with an opening number sung by Lowe and a campy, Disney-esque Snow White (Disney later sued for copyright infringement). This opening number… it’s something. Lowe and the pale princess dance and scamper about with people dressed as tables and stars. Snow White sounds more like Lina Lamont than an angelic princesses. It’s campy, but not glorious or self-aware campy. It’s just cringey. I made it to 1:19 before I had to stop the video:
It lasts eleven and a half minutes. You think it’s going to get better when Snow White leaves the stage and is replaced by couples dancing the samba, but then Merv Griffin appears, and he starts singing “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.” Then the women with huge coconut cocktails on their heads appear. And they start dancing. And there’s a sparkly cowboy? Who just seems to be chilling on the stage? The whole thing is briefly redeemed by Cyd Charisse, but then Snow White is back? And Rob Lowe is her blind date? And they sing? And the tables dance?
I fast forwarded from there and briefly resumed watching when there was suddenly a kick line.
Really, it’s not good.
There’s a second musical number later in the show. Don’t subject yourself to that.
By the end of the broadcast, the show’s producer, Allan Carr, would never work in Hollywood again—even if he did draw a record number of viewers.
So, what went wrong? Hollywood, and most of the viewing public, agreed that the ceremony was over the top and embarrassing. Seventeen former Oscar winners, including Julie Andrews and Gregory Peck, signed a letter condemning the ceremony as “an embarrassment to the Academy and the motion picture industry.” The denizens of a hugely popular industry gathered to celebrate another year or artistry and skill, and Allan Carr and his musical review made a mockery of everything Hollywood wanted to take pride in.
Today, the Academy is facing similar problems as it did in the lead up to the 1989 ceremony. Viewership is flagging, and valid criticisms of the Academy (such as #OscarsSoWhite), highlight that Hollywood is disconnected from the people who watch its movies. It will be interesting to see how the ceremony attempts to woo that audience back, and if they’ll repeat the same mistakes as 1989.
Part of working at a university library is accumulating and highlighting diverse creators in our collections. For Black History Month, I didn’t just want to just slap a list of Black Films up on our blog and call it a day. Instead, this will be the first of two posts featuring contemporary Black Directors, and … Continue reading “Black History Month: Contemporary Black Directors Part 1”
Part of working at a university library is accumulating and highlighting diverse creators in our collections. For Black History Month, I didn’t just want to just slap a list of Black Films up on our blog and call it a day. Instead, this will be the first of two posts featuring contemporary Black Directors, and highlighting their films in our collection.
Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay is quickly becoming on of the most talked-about directors in Hollywood, and she isn’t shying away from the platform she’s built for herself. After directing the critically lauded Selma, DuVernay went on to direct the Netflix documentary 13th, which, while we don’t own it, is definitely worth a watch. With her 2018 film A Wrinkle in Time, she also became the first black woman to direct a film with a blockbuster budget.
Most of the DuVernay films we have in our collection are her indie earlier works like I Will Follow and Middle of Nowhere, which are intimate portraits of black women. Likewise, Queen Sugar, though a tv series, follows two black sisters and their brother after they inherit their family’s sugarcane farm. The series, produced by Oprah, was also the first television series to hire women directors for every single episode.
Ava DuVernay films in our collection:
Spike Lee
Spike Lee may be the most prolific director on this list. He’s directed twenty-six feature films since 1983, plus eight short films, twelve documentaries, seven tv shows, nineteen music videos, and three plays, not to mention acting in several of his own movies. Though he’s known as a provocateur in Hollywood, his films chronicle the lives of black Americans, and force movie audiences to confront uncomfortable truths they’d happily avoid.
After winning the Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Lee’s most recent film BlacKkKlansman, is currently nominated for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score. Lee is nominated in the Best Director category, and Adam Driver for Best Supporting Actor. We’ve ordered a copy for Media Services, but it’s stuck in processing limbo. Hopefully we’ll get it in soon.
A (Selected) List of Spike Lee’s films in our collection:
Amma Asante
Amma Asante is a British-Ghanaian director most famous for her film Belle, a sumptuous period drama that chronicles the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle. Dido was the illegitimate daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman, and Sir John Lindsay, a British Naval Officer. While Dido was born a slave, her father eventually took her back to England, where he entrusted her to his uncle, the Earl of Mansfield and Lord Chief Justice. Belle follows Dido while she navigates racist English society, her own family’s assumptions, and the burgeoning abolitionist movement.
Although Asante has only directed four films, she’s definitely a director to watch. In addition to Belle, she directed A United Kingdom, which starred David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, and Where Hands Touch, which starred Amandla Stenberg.
Amma Asante films in our collection:
Ryan Coogler
Ryan Coogler burst onto the scene with his first feature film Fruitvale Station at the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Fruitvale Station, tells the story of Oscar Grant’s last 24 hours, and stars Michael B. Jordan. Oscar Grant was murdered by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officers at the Fruitvale BART station in 2009, and his death sparked protests in the Bay Area and beyond. Coogler tackled this tough subject for his debut film, which won awards everywhere from Sundance to Cannes.
Coogler followed up Fruitvale Station with Creed, a Rocky spin-off that he co-wrote as well as directed, and which starred Michael B. Jordan. This film drew audiences and pleased critics, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when Marvel offered him Black Panther. Again, Coogler co-wrote the script… and got Michael B. Jordan to star as Eric Kilmonger, the rival for the Wakandan throne. Despite its February release date, Black Panther is the highest grossing film directed by an African-American, and the fifth largest opening weekend box office take of all time. It’s also just a straight up spectacular film, and if you haven’t seen it, you need to correct that immediately. We have THREE copies here at Media Services, so you don’t have any excuse. I’ll even give you the call number: DVD 16090. All you have to do is walk up to the desk and ask for it.
Ryan Coogler films in our collection:
Today’s random movie is DVD 1794, The Pianist. It’s a fitting random movie for this week leading up to the Academy Awards, since this heartbreaking and at times gut-wrenching film was nominated for six awards, and won three, including Best Actor (Adrien Brody). Brody is still the youngest man in history to win the Best … Continue reading “Random Movie Monday — The Pianist”
Today’s random movie is DVD 1794, The Pianist. It’s a fitting random movie for this week leading up to the Academy Awards, since this heartbreaking and at times gut-wrenching film was nominated for six awards, and won three, including Best Actor (Adrien Brody). Brody is still the youngest man in history to win the Best Actor statuette. Here’s our summary of the movie:
Based on the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, who was a brilliant pianist. He watched as his family was shipped off to Nazi labor camps. He managed to escape and lived for years in the
ruins of Warsaw, hiding from the Nazis.
This movie is, of course, supposed to make the viewer think about the Holocaust, but not in a black-and-white, good versus evil sense. Instead, the film’s director, Roman Polanski, highlights the shades of grey and the frailty and strength of human nature in the worst of situations.
While this film is definitely a one of the best of the 21st century, I always feel a little guilty about watching it. It’s personally hard for me to wrestle with how powerful this film is, and how good it is, with the character of its director, Roman Polanski. He has been a fugitive from justice since 1977, when he plead guilty to sexual assault of a minor, and has faced multiple allegations of sexual assault since then. How can you separate the art from the artist?
Last week, we lost an icon of 20th century cinema. The actor Albert Finney, who personified the “angry young man” of British cinema of the 1950s, died on February 7th at the age of 82. Finney was born to a lower-middle class family in Salford, England, just outside of Manchester, in 1936. After attending the … Continue reading “A Tribute to Albert Finney”
Last week, we lost an icon of 20th century cinema. The actor Albert Finney, who personified the “angry young man” of British cinema of the 1950s, died on February 7th at the age of 82.
Finney was born to a lower-middle class family in Salford, England, just outside of Manchester, in 1936. After attending the Royal Academy of Drama (RADA), Finney had a name for himself as a stage actor before taking film roles. His first film, The Entertainer, was one of the first “kitchen-sink dramas”: films that explored the lives of working class Britons with unrelenting realism, and tried to force British society at large to deal with social problems in the wake of WWII. Since Finney came from a lower-middle/working class family from Northern England, he was an ideal fit for many of the “angry young man” roles that dominated these films. In addition to The Entertainer, he also starred in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
Despite his affinity of these working class roles, Finney managed to avoid being typecast. In 1963, just three years after the release of his first two kitchen sink films, Finney earned his first Oscar nomination for his titular role in Tom Jones, a film based on the raunchy 18th century novel. However, he famously scorned the Oscars and other awards, and he never attended the ceremony, despite being nominated a total of five times.
Finney worked consistently between 1956 and 2002, appearing in plays such as The Cherry Orchard, movies like Erin Brockovich and Big Fish,a tv show like the Winston Churchill drama The Gathering Storm. and After fighting cancer in the mid 2000s, he returned to theaters with small roles in the Jason Bourne trilogy, as well as the James Bond film Skyfall.
We’ll miss Albert Finney’s arresting presence in new films, but the nice thing about DVDs is that you can go back and watch actors like Finney forever. Here are Finney’s films in our collection:
Our random movie comes on a Tuesday this week, since your beloved admin was out with a migraine yesterday. This week’s random movie is DVD 13046– Border Radio. Here’s our summary: A low-key, semi-improvised postpunk diary, Border Radio features rocker Chris D. of the Flesh Eaters as a singer/songwriter who has stolen loot from a … Continue reading “Random Movie Tuesday”
Our random movie comes on a Tuesday this week, since your beloved admin was out with a migraine yesterday. This week’s random movie is DVD 13046– Border Radio. Here’s our summary:
A low-key, semi-improvised postpunk diary, Border Radio features rocker Chris D. of the Flesh Eaters as a singer/songwriter who has stolen loot from a club and gone missing, leaving his wife to track him down with the help of his friends.
This movie captures the essence of the DIY branch of postpunk pretty well, plus it has an amazing soundtrack. Make sure to check it out!
We’ve got some new titles for our collection! Campus Use: Bethel (DVD 16166) Lake of Betrayal (DVD 16168) Young Lakota (DVD 16169) Home Use: Three Identical Strangers (DVD 16161) Blindspotting (DVD 16162) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (DVD 16163) King Lear (DVD 16164) RoboCop (DVD 16165) Despicable Me (DVD 4875*) Almost Famous (DVD 377) … Continue reading “New Acquisitions”
We’ve got some new titles for our collection!
Campus Use:
Home Use:
Let’s take a hot minute to talk about the most important category at the Academy Awards—Best Costume Design. Historical costume dramas a la Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, or The Duchess (basically any Keira Knightley movie) typically dominate this category, and that’s probably one of the reasons why it’s the award I most look forward … Continue reading “Best Costume Design – Black Panther”
Let’s take a hot minute to talk about the most important category at the Academy Awards—Best Costume Design. Historical costume dramas a la Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, or The Duchess (basically any Keira Knightley movie) typically dominate this category, and that’s probably one of the reasons why it’s the award I most look forward to each year. I could rhapsodize for days about how subtle differences in fabric, colors, and cuts reflect Jane Eyre’s emotional growth and confidence in Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre. On the other hand, I walked out of The Crimes of Grindelwald annoyed by the fact that all the characters were dressed in styles from 1939, not 1925.
Despite the category’s history, I don’t think any of the period dramas will take home the award this year. Instead, I think that Ruth Carter will emerge victorious because of her incredible Afro-Futurist costumes for Black Panther. Black Panther struck that sweet spot between statement and detail, and I think the Academy will reward Carter for that. The costumes also went a long way towards building the world of Wakanda. Along with director Ryan Coogler and production designer Hannah Beachler, Ruth Carter built a nation with its own history, materials, and traditions. Though she drew heavily from traditional dress across the African continent, she laced it with modern details—like a 3D printed headdress for Angela Basset’s Queen Ramonda, or recycled mesh for Letitia Wright’s Shuri—that reflected Wakanda’s technological advancement and resistance to colonization. Carter had a story behind every costume, and you can tell that she sat down and asked herself how the clothes characters wear reflect their personalities, positions, and choices. As I watched this incredible film, I imagined the characters dressing themselves, rather than a costumer dressing mannequins.
Ruth Carter and Black Panther definitely deserve to win, but if this film had come out six years ago, I doubt it would have won. For one thing, the Academy’s obvious bias towards costume dramas with overwhelmingly white casts would be hard to overcome. Black Panther is up against the structured, dramatic early 1700s gowns of The Favourite, the Depression era-chic of Mary Poppins Returns, the old American West of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and the faux-Renaissance costuming of Mary Queen of Scots. Still, in the past five years, the Academy has shown signs of a shift. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them won the category in 2016, and it blended fantastical wizard wear with 20s fashion (don’t get me started on how much the Academy loves 20s costumes); and in 2015 the winner was Mad Max: Fury Road. To say that nothing quite like Mad Max had ever won Best Costuming would be an understatement, and it signals to me that the Academy is learning to look beyond hoop skirts and pretty white flappers.
Beyond these two recent winners, there are two other fantasy/sci fi films that won the category, and each of them were paradigm shifting. The first is the first Star Wars movie, which I don’t need to tell you was groundbreaking. Almost all of its looks continue to be iconic. The second is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which not only won Best Costume Design, but Best Picture, and made a clean sweep of all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated.
Black Panther is paradigm-shifting in its own right, so I think it definitely has a chance to win not only best costume design, but best picture. If it does win for costuming, it will not only overcome the Academy’s love affair with period costume dramas, but its bias against films featuring non-Western costumes. Memoirs of a Geisha is the only recent winner that featured mostly non-Western costumes, and even then most of the men wear Western-style suits throughout the movie. Black Panther definitely takes some cues from Western couture, but its main influences, not to mention its materials, are overwhelmingly African.
Black Panther has a lot of hurdles to overcome if it wants to win this category (and I didn’t even get in to how it’s a superhero film), but it’s the clear winner. Let’s just hope the Academy figures that out.
