Those Oscar Missed: Best Picture

YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Best Picture has been a troubling category in the last few years.  I remember being pissed off when 2006’s Babel got nominated.  While it’s a good movie, it had no business being nominated over Pan’s Labyrinth and Children of Men.  After the controversy in 2008 when The Dark Knight DIDN’T get a Best Picture nod, the Academy expanded the field from five to ten nominees (besides The Dark Knight, the slot occupied by The Reader could’ve been occupied by Wall-E or The Wrestler).  Then last year, the Academy changed the rule from ten nominees to up-to-ten nominees (for instance, there could be six, seven, eight, or even nine Best Picture nominees).  I would also like to point out that, in a cruel twist of irony, The Dark Knight Rises was completely snubbed in all categories (including Best Picture) when the latest Oscar nominations…

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Top Twenty Football Films

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I have to admit that while I am a bit of a football fan, I am not a rabid football fan.  My becoming a football fan is an interesting evolution that occurred over the last 15 years; I went from … Continue reading →

DP/30: David France Returns To Sundance

David France, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary How To Survive A Plague, returned to the Sundance Film Festival this year, where his film had been nominated for a Grand Jury Prize last year.  His film documents the struggle of AIDS … Continue reading →

Those Oscar Missed: Best Director

YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

A director is vital to the making of a movie.  The director is responsible for getting the best possible performances from the actors.  The director is responsible for bringing his/her vision to life through his/her collaborations with the director of photography, writer(s), production designer, makeup designer, costume designer, and all of the other departments (unless he/she is simply a work-for-hire director brought in by the producers to just direct the actors, but even in that scenario a good director should still have some kind of vision for the film).  Every now and then, a director that turns in an extraordinary work gets snubbed by the Academy on the day the nominations are announced.  It didn’t take me very long to find five major snubs.

One major snub is Alfred Hitchcock for 1958’s Vertigo.  Hitchcock’s tale of tragic love and extreme obsession became one of the…

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DP/30: The Sound of ‘Django Unchained’ Part Two

Quentin Tarantino’s latest film Django Unchained is currently playing in theaters to critical and box office success, and recently won two Golden Globes (Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor) and received five Academy Award nominations (Best Sound Editing, Best Cinematography, … Continue reading →

SAG Foundation: Jessica Chastain On ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow follows up 2008’s The Hurt Locker with Zero Dark Thirty, which is currently playing in theaters to critical and box office success.  The film stars Jessica Chastain as Maya, a CIA operative who’s obsessed with hunting … Continue reading →

Trumbo (2007)

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The first time I encountered the name Dalton Trumbo was in the credits for a little 1960 Stanley Kubrick movie called Spartacus.  All I knew was that Trumbo had written an excellent script for that film, but I was not … Continue reading →

‘Finding Nemo’ & ‘Wall-E’

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Last year, director Andrew Stanton gave the world John Carter, the first of two big budget science fiction live action films featuring Taylor Kitsch (the other being Peter Berg’s Battleship).  In case you’ve been living under a rock for the … Continue reading →

Those Oscar Missed: Best Actor

YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Best Actor can be a controversial category at times.  Sometimes a supporting performance will be submitted as a lead performance by the distributor either to help boost box office revenue or to increase the actor’s chances in that category for another film (because they think the actor has a better shot with the other film).  But most of the times, lead performances are nominated, but not every nominee truly deserved the nod.  Best Actor has a history of numerous major snubs; consequently I feel that listing just five major snubs is doing a disservice to all of those who were snubbed.  Nevertheless, I will name five major snubs, and I will also name five honorable mentions (rather than the usual three).

One immediate major snub is Humphrey Bogart for 1950’s In A Lonely Place.  He portrays Dixon Steele, a famous Hollywood screenwriter who has quite…

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Those Oscar Missed: Best Actress

YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Best Actress, like, Best Actor, can be difficult to predict at times.  There’s also been some controversy regarding supporting performances being submitted for a lead performance award.  One example being Anne Baxter, who should’ve gotten a Supporting Actress nod but pushed for and got a Best Actress nod for 1950’s All About Eve.  Another example being Kate Winslet, who was submitted for Best Actress rather than Best Supporting Actress by the Weinsteins for 2008’s The Reader in order to boost box office numbers; what’s ironic is that Winslet would’ve won anyway for the film she should’ve been nominated for, 2008’s Revolutionary Road.  The Academy hasn’t always gotten the nominees right (they nominated Meryl Streep and Glenn Close last year; both appeared in terrible movies for which they were nominated)  Let’s take a look at some surprising major snubs.

One major snub is Rosalind Russell…

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