This coming Sunday, movie lovers will be watching the Academy Awards telecast and betting on which films and creative artists will take home the celebrated prize. Oddly, the history of the Oscars is heavy with classic works that failed to snag a single nomination – and the reasons for the omissions are among the great mysteries of movie history.
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In this “Online Movie Show” episode, we offers an Oscars trivia program with some of the most difficult questions we could gather. Serious movie lovers will enjoy this one!
It’s that time of year again, where Hollywood either guides us in to celebrating actual works of cinematic art, or will likely arouse the ire of cineastes for years to come by playing it safe with the obvious crowd pleasers once again. In either case, “Oscar” night 2017 promises to be an interesting and controversial one. With the political landscape, racial landscape, and current crop of movies nominated at this years’ ceremony, a lot of us are hoping the Academy celebrates films that hold a miror to society rather than simply celebrate the safe, and light hearted fare that pass itself at “escapism.” That said, while we are a bit of cynics, we have a good time every year with the pageantry, the fun, and celebration of film.
To remind you of who is nominated this year, we covered a lot of Oscar nominees. If you want to a refresher course of what we thought of a lot of the films up for an award this year, we’ve compiled a list of movies reviewed by the Cinema Crazed contributors. Feel free to voice your own opinions on these films and many others in the comments!
Writer and director Minkyu Lee presents a hypothetical and bittersweet animated short about the first dog ever created. Somewhere along the line after the creation of man and woman, God figured he’d create a dog. The dog however had to find its purpose in nature, and “Adam and Dog” garners an interesting story about man and dog eventually became best friends in nature. Upon the creation of man, the dog found his way around the startling and often frightening landscapes of the world, and Lee presents us with vast and fantastic terrain in which the dog travails.
Basically, “The Longest Daycare” is a much more advanced and intricate sequel to Maggie Simpson’s adventures in daycare that pays homage to Looney Tunes while also giving the character Maggie some depth. We only saw a portion of it in the episode “A Streetcar Named Marge,” where Maggie united her fellow babies to reclaim her pacifier in the spirit of “The Great Escape.”
The crown jewel of the Film Craft Series is of course the volume entitled “Directing.” While every aspect of filmmaking takes work, time, and dedication, directing is essentially the most difficult aspect of making a film. Whenever a movie fails or succeeds the filmmaker is blamed. And whenever an acclaimed actor decides they want to direct it not only becomes a big deal, but it makes it impossible for other directors to step up and achieve acclaim. Which is not to say actors can’t direct, as the book “Film Craft” interviews many noted and incredible directors, all of whom have their own experiences in the field.
As with the previous books in the series, “Directing” is about the hard work and utter pressure it takes to be a director. Lensing a project and achieving some sense of success or artistic satisfaction is tough, and often times it requires massive sacrifice and stress for an artist to express themselves on film. Author Mike Goodridge is able to garner some truly excellent insight in to the directorial process from some very big name auteur. Engrossing and detailed, “Directing” lends readers an intelligent exploration in to movie making that all movie buffs will relish and aspiring filmmakers will treasure.
There’s just so much mystery behind Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” that you have to ponder on the mystery behind “Room 237.” The Rodney Ascher directed documentary is a film that explores the dimensions of “The Shining” but also garners its own curiosities in the mean time. I mean there’s no denying that “The Shining” was never meant to be anything more than a puzzle from Stanley Kubrick, but what is the puzzle? Did Kubrick really pay so much attention to the film to include a yet to be deciphered message within the film cells? Or is it just a pastiche of random imagery left for the laymen to tinker with for decades to come? Did Kubrick find cinematic immortality by simply giving his audience a movie to think about that ultimately just meant nothing? You have to wonder, why would Kubrick be so meticulous about scenery, props, and symbolism, but forget to hide the shadow of his chopper during the opening scenes of the film?
Turner Classic Movies, the best cinema based channel on US cable television, has so far remained one of the go to channels for rare and wonderful classic films that cineastes can explore, and while they have yet to really sully their reputation in exchange for original programming, they are being wise to include original shows that explore film in the spirit of the channel. Celebrating his newest live action film “Flight,” director Rober Zemeckis and frequent collaborator cinematographer Don Burgess sit down to discuss their filmmaking careers and the techniques used through some of their films that they found most notable and entertaining. The discussion never quite touches on Zemeckis’ motion capture animated films, and there isn’t so much explanation as to why he chose motion capture as a medium upon which to tell stories.