It’s that time of the year again when the Oscar nominations are announced in oh so serious, dulcet tones by Tom Sherak, president of AMPAS and some lovely Oscar-nominated (or winning) lass of seasons past. This morning it was Jennifer Lawrence, last year’s pre-eminent gleaming blonde ingenue. Because of the theme of this blog, I’m [...]
She’s been dead for nearly 50 years but that hasn’t stopped the cottage industry profiting from her memory one iota: Books, movies, documentaries, heck even conspiracy theories (related mostly to her death) still proliferate like so much revenue-generating fungus around her iconographic appeal. Who am I talking about? Marilyn Monroe nee Norma Jean Baker, daughter [...]
Yeah! The Oscar nominations have just been announced and Michelle Williams got the fifth Best Actress slot! (Okay, most likely, she’s NOT going to win–it’ll probably be Natalie Portman). But I’m so pleased the Oscar gods listened to me. Maybe my dad sweet-talked them? Anyway, there were some surprising nominations: Javier Bardem (Biutiful) was nominated [...]
Tomorrow the Oscar nominations will be announced and I only have one wish: Please, god of movies, make Michelle Williams the fifth Best Actress slot! So far, four actresses–Annette Bening, Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicole Kidman are virtual locks for four slots. This leaves one slot open. The SAG Best Actress fifth slot is [...]
At the beginning of his immortal novel, “Anna Karenina,” a story about a respectable upper-middle class Russian matron in the Tsarist era who destroys her life by having an illicit affair with the dashing Count Vronsky (who later tires of her), the great Leo Tolstoy wrote: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is [...]
The marriage drama, Blue Valentine, starring two of the finest actors of the younger generation, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, was screened today at the Cannes Film Festival (it premiered earlier this year at Sundance) and according to that very astute film critic Dave Karger of EW, the film is a devastating, probing and uncomfortable [...]