Updated Preview: Companion (2025)
Looking at Film from Every Angle
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The DVD Report #114
It’s been well over a decade since director Henry Selick enthralled audiences with The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. He’s back stronger than ever with his most ambitious project to date: Coraline. Coraline is a 3-D stop-motion animated film about a young girl who crawls through a secret door in her…
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1957 at the Oscars
Big was still in in 1957, but a transposed TV drama a la Marty managed to sneak in amongst the five nominees for Best Picture. Joining The Bridge on the River Kwai; Witness for the Prosecution; Peyton Place and Sayonara in the Best Picture race was Sidney Lumet’s first feature film, Twelve Angry Men based…
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1956 at the Oscars
If 1955’s Oscar wins for Marty flew in the face of industry moguls, 1956 was right up their alley. All five Best Picture nominees were major productions: Around the World in 80 Days; Friendly Persuasion; Giant; The King and I and The Ten Commandments. The anticipated winner was, of course, Around the World in 80…
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The DVD Report #113
When motion picture exhibitors first started tracking the box office draw of movie stars in 1930, the first performer to be crowned No. 1 was not one of Hollywood’s powerful leading men or glamorous leading ladies, but a dowdy old lady with the face of a bulldog, an unlikely has-been with enormous talent and a…
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1955 at the Oscars
For several years Hollywood had been doing everything it could to entice customers away from their TV sets and into theatres. By 1955, films shot on location in widescreen processes and glorious Technicolor and films with mature themes that wouldn’t play on TV were commonplace. How ironic, then, that a little film shot in 35MM…
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1954 at the Oscars
The quality of film released in 1954 was extremely high. Even so, the Best Director and Picture Oscar and races seemed open and shut cases for Elia Kazan and On the Waterfront, and indeed the film became the first to sweep the National Board of Review, The New York Film Critics, the Golden Globes and…
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1953 at the Oscars
Generally regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, if not the single greatest film of all time, Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 masterpiece, Tokyo Story, about an elderly Japanese couple making an exhausting railroad journey to visit their faraway children for the last time, met the fate of all of Ozu’s other films in the…
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1952 at the Oscars
There are four films eligible for Best Picture consideration in 1952 that are still highly regarded today. Two of them, The Quiet Man and High Noon, were indeed nominated. The other two, Singin’ in the Rain and Rashomon were not. The Quiet Man was John Ford’s labor of love that he tried to make for…
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The DVD Report #112
It hardly seems like it’s been 35 years since Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno was released. The sparkling look of the film on Blu-ray makes it look like it finished filming yesterday. Only the aged visages of some of the actors in the accompanying documentaries draw attention to the passage of time, and all nine…
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1951 at the Oscars
The 1951 Oscar race was expected to be between two critically acclaimed dramatic films, Elia Kazan’s film of Tennessee Williams’ stage sensation, A Streetcar Named Desire with its twelve nominations and George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun, the second screen version of Theodore Dreiser’s acclaimed 1925 novel. Ultimately, however, Vincente Minnelli’s celebration of the…
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1950 at the Oscars
Two films about show business dominated the 1950 Oscars. Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ All About Eve, which was set in the theatre world, and Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, which was set in the film world, were both fascinating films that have endured through the years. Though both films are greatly identified with their female stars, Bette…
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1949 at the Oscars
Several themes dominant in the films of 1949 were recognized in year-end awards. War films, which were anathema after the war, re-emerged with a new maturity in Twelve O’Clock High; Battleground; Home of the Brave and Sands of Iwo Jima. Children in peril in The Boy With Green Hair, The Fallen Idol, The Bicycle Thief,…
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OT #1: Oscar Trivia, A Weekly Post
Have you always wondered how many Oscar winners had the first name James or thought to yourself you’d like to know what the first color film to win an Oscar was? Now’s your chance. While I may not have all the answers, I have many. And every week, in the Oscar Trivia posts, I will…
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The DVD Report #111
Director James Gray has only made four films thus far, but each one of them has been distinct and interesting. His first, 1994’s Little Odessa dealt with crime and punishment among Russian immigrants in Brooklyn and was beautifully acted by Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Maximilian Schell and Vanessa Redgrave. His next, 2000’s The Yards dealt…
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1948 at the Oscars
The British assault on the Oscars in the previous three years was nothing compared to what happened in 1948. Two British films, Hamlet and The Red Shoes were not only among the five nominees for Best Picture, but one of them, Hamlet, actually won, causing major consternation amongst the moguls. The others in the race…
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