Here’s what happened today in Oscar History.
Born
Died
Released
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This Day in Oscar History: September 25 (2022)
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Film Preview: Babylon (2022)
Page Revisions:
(September 18, 2022) Original
Release Date:
December 25, 2022
Synopsis:
From IMDb: “Set in Hollywood during the transition from silent films to talkies, focusing on a mixture of historical & fictional characters.”
Poster Rating: B (6)
SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: This series of character posters all have the same golden glow and party situation, but they all feel similar enough to lack distinction.
Trailer Rating: C+
SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: For your first trailer, this is a pretty expansive one, but it almost feels like they don’t anticipate building momentum to the film’s release and they are just throwing this out there. That’s a bit worrisome as the trailer does not heighten interest in the film very well. It doesn’t pull the viewer in with any measurable skill and ultimately feels cheap despite the expensive production values.
Oscar Prospects:
Damien Chazelle was a wunderkind director, but his second film, First Man, wasn’t well received by the Academy. This might be more in their wheelhouse as it’s about them, but it’s also a comedy about the underside of Hollywood. They might be willing to laugh at themselves, but I’m not sure they will. Lots of richly appointed sets, so it’s a contender below the line, but its absence from the festival circuit is also a bit worrisome.
Trailer #1
2022 Oscar Season Box Office Preview: October
Here we look at the upcoming month’s offerings.
October 7, 2022
Amsterdam
Premise: From IMDb: “Set in the ’30s, it follows three friends who witness a murder, become suspects themselves, and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history.”
Box Office Prospects: $50 M
Expectations: Uncertain. The prospects of a David O. Russell film at the box office seems in direct proportion to its Oscar buzz…Joy barely had any and it didn’t do well whereas his prior films did and did great. So, since this one seems to be on the low end of Oscar expectations, so go the box office predictions.
Oscar Prospects: Uncertain. It skipped the festival circuit, which isn’t a good sign and early reviews have been all over the place. I suspect that the film might end up skipped, though some craft category considerations might be possible.
Cinema Sight Preview: See my preview of this title here.
Resurfaced: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
In this series of articles, I’ll be posting reviews that have recently resurfaced. A number of the reviews I wrote in the past I thought had been lost to time, but after coming to a realization that they might still exist on the Wayback Machine, I was able to relocate many of them. I believe there are still some that are lost and they may be lost in perpetuity, but I will periodically search for that data or re-write those reviews that I have never found or which I never wrote to begin with.
For now, this series will be extensive with over 300 regular (400+ words), short (400- words), and quickie (1 to 2 paragraphs) reviews. I will attempt to combine them as best as I can. Reviews written in early 1998 or earlier, no date of creation exists. I will post the original writing date where known, otherwise the date will be listed as “unknown.” These reviews were written between the date of my site’s founding in 1996 through much of 2002. It was only after this period that I settled on the standard format and length of reviews as well as posting each one to its own individual page, which is why the old data was ultimately lost.
All but the review content has been replaced to match my current formatting guidelines, which are a bit more thorough than they might have been in those early days. Please note that I am attempting to retain as much of the original editing integrity as possible, so spelling and/or grammar errors may still be present. This may also mean that some factual data is not there as IMDb was not as ubiquitous as it is now. So, let’s get on to today’s review.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Rating
Director
Tobe Hooper
Screenplay
Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper
Length
1h 23m
Starring
Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen
MPAA Rating
This Day in Oscar History: September 24 (2022)
Here’s what happened today in Oscar History.
Born
Died
Released
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Trailer Watch: The School for Good & Evil (2022) Updated
New Trailer (#2)
The School for Good & Evil, updated
Preview Link: CLICK HERE for all of the new content as well as the original.
Oscar in Box Office History (Week 38, 2022)
Every week, we’ll take a look back in 5-year intervals at the box office past to explore how Oscar’s nominees were doing at the box office each weekend historically. The first section under each year is the positioning of all Oscar nominees during that weekend at the box office (as well as a section looking at the inflation-adjusted numbers). The third section is an alphabetical list of those films and the categories in which they were nominated. And to start each week off, we’ll be looking at the films releasing over the weekend that have the best chance of getting Oscar nominations and specifying the categories where we think they have the best shots at this stage of the game. If you have any suggestions for more data you’d like to see, please let us know.
This Year: Potential Oscar Nominees Releasing This Weekend
None
The Friday Face-Off, The Ultimate List – Week #16
The Ultimate List Face-Off event has now begun. We will be using Google Forms to process these polls due to their extensiveness and the ease of creating the polls. For more information on how the game works, click here.
Here are this week’s batch: GOOGLE POLL.
Resurfaced: The Day I Became a Woman (2001)
In this series of articles, I’ll be posting reviews that have recently resurfaced. A number of the reviews I wrote in the past I thought had been lost to time, but after coming to a realization that they might still exist on the Wayback Machine, I was able to relocate many of them. I believe there are still some that are lost and they may be lost in perpetuity, but I will periodically search for that data or re-write those reviews that I have never found or which I never wrote to begin with.
For now, this series will be extensive with over 300 regular (400+ words), short (400- words), and quickie (1 to 2 paragraphs) reviews. I will attempt to combine them as best as I can. Reviews written in early 1998 or earlier, no date of creation exists. I will post the original writing date where known, otherwise the date will be listed as “unknown.” These reviews were written between the date of my site’s founding in 1996 through much of 2002. It was only after this period that I settled on the standard format and length of reviews as well as posting each one to its own individual page, which is why the old data was ultimately lost.
All but the review content has been replaced to match my current formatting guidelines, which are a bit more thorough than they might have been in those early days. Please note that I am attempting to retain as much of the original editing integrity as possible, so spelling and/or grammar errors may still be present. This may also mean that some factual data is not there as IMDb was not as ubiquitous as it is now. So, let’s get on to today’s review.
The Day I Became a Woman
Rating
Director
Marzieh Makhmalbaf
Screenplay
Marzieh Makhmalbaf, Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Length
1h 18m
Starring
Fatemeh Cherag Akhar, Hassan Nebhan, Shahr Banou Sisizadeh, Ameneh Passand, Shabnam Tolouei, Sirous Kahvarinegad, Mahram Zeinal Zadeh, Norieh Mahigiran, Azizeh Sedighi, Badr Iravani
MPAA Rating
This Day in Oscar History: September 23 (2022)
Here’s what happened today in Oscar History.
Born
Died
Released
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Poll: Re-Awarding Best Actor, 2000
Return Links
Re-Awarding Best Actor, 2000
Now that we’ve finished rebuilding the nomination slate between 1997 and 2016 (we’ll do subsequent years after this series has completed), we will take those rebuilt slates and pick a new winner from among the nominees. In our first pass, we take a look at the new nominees for Best Actor and choose the new winner.
Loading ...Trailer Watch: Black Adam (2022) Updated
New Trailer (#4) — New Posters (#4-#9)
Black Adam, updated
Preview Link: CLICK HERE for all of the new content as well as the original.
5 Favorites #147: Layne, Pine, Pugh, Wilde, Wilde
Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
Olivia Wilde’s festival entry Don’t Worry, Darling didn’t do as well with critics as expected, but after Booksmart, I’m willing to give it a go. The film stars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, and Chris Pine in a 60s-set drama whose mystery isn’t exactly revealed in the trailer. Wilde also co-stars in the film, as does KiKi Layne. Since Harry Styles hasn’t done much at all yet, I’m going to do something unique with this go around. Olivia Wild gets the mention not once, but twice. I’m going to tackle Pugh, Pine, Layne, and Wilde as actors and then Wilde again as a director, which should already tell you one of the five titles on this week’s list.
Oscar Profile #617: Darryl Hickman
Born July 28, 1931 in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California, Darryl Hickman was the older son of Milton and Katherine Hickman. His father was an insurance salesman and mother a housewife. Hickman’s younger actor brother Dwayne was born in 1934. As of 1940 the family was living with their maternal grandfather, Louis Henry Ostertag, a US Navy seaman on Commodore Dewey’s flagship, the cruiser USS Olympia. He was awarded the Dewey Medal for his role in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
Hickman was discovered by a dance-school director where he later performed, leading to a contract with Paramount. His first role was as Ronald Colman’s son in 1937’s The Prisoner of Zenda. He next played a child in Colman’s 1938 film, If I Were King. His first outstanding role was as Winfield Joad, the youngest son in the impoverished family in 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath. Later that year he appeared in Shirley Temple’s last film at 20th Century-Fox, Young People.
Resurfaced: Sugar & Spice (2001)
In this series of articles, I’ll be posting reviews that have recently resurfaced. A number of the reviews I wrote in the past I thought had been lost to time, but after coming to a realization that they might still exist on the Wayback Machine, I was able to relocate many of them. I believe there are still some that are lost and they may be lost in perpetuity, but I will periodically search for that data or re-write those reviews that I have never found or which I never wrote to begin with.
For now, this series will be extensive with over 300 regular (400+ words), short (400- words), and quickie (1 to 2 paragraphs) reviews. I will attempt to combine them as best as I can. Reviews written in early 1998 or earlier, no date of creation exists. I will post the original writing date where known, otherwise the date will be listed as “unknown.” These reviews were written between the date of my site’s founding in 1996 through much of 2002. It was only after this period that I settled on the standard format and length of reviews as well as posting each one to its own individual page, which is why the old data was ultimately lost.
All but the review content has been replaced to match my current formatting guidelines, which are a bit more thorough than they might have been in those early days. Please note that I am attempting to retain as much of the original editing integrity as possible, so spelling and/or grammar errors may still be present. This may also mean that some factual data is not there as IMDb was not as ubiquitous as it is now. So, let’s get on to today’s review.
Sugar & Spice
Rating
Director
Francine McDougall
Screenplay
Mandy Nelson
Length
1h 21m
Starring
Marla Sokoloff, Marley Shelton, Melissa George, Mena Suvari, Rachel Blanchard, Alexandra Holden, Sara Marsh, James Marsden, Sean Young, W. Earl Brown, Adam Busch, Jake Hoffman, Nate Maher, David Belenky, Wiley Harker, Kurt Loder, Jerry Springer