There's one thing you can say about every single Academy Award nominee: whether they're good films or bad films, beloved or obscure, they are officially in the history books. Future movie lovers will read about them and, often, watch them out of either passionate interest or mild curiosity, decades later.
And that's a very good thing because a lot of the films that are nominated for the Oscars fall into obscurity pretty quickly. We may remember most of the Best Picture winners, for example, but what about the other films in contention? "Casablanca" won Best Picture at the 16th Academy Awards and it's a film most people can quote directly, even if they've never watched it before. But there's a good chance that many of its fellow nominees that same year — films like "The Human Comedy," "The More the Merrier," and "Watch On the Rhine" — aren't nearly as well known today.
And that's a very good thing because a lot of the films that are nominated for the Oscars fall into obscurity pretty quickly. We may remember most of the Best Picture winners, for example, but what about the other films in contention? "Casablanca" won Best Picture at the 16th Academy Awards and it's a film most people can quote directly, even if they've never watched it before. But there's a good chance that many of its fellow nominees that same year — films like "The Human Comedy," "The More the Merrier," and "Watch On the Rhine" — aren't nearly as well known today.
- 2/9/2023
- by William Bibbiani
- Slash Film
Recently, short Best Actor-nominated performances have been scarce at the Oscars. The average screen time of the past decade’s nominees is over 80 minutes, and only a handful of them have not reached one hour. Still, performances that fall under 60 minutes make up nearly one third of the category’s nominees, with plenty boasting much less time. Here is a look at the 10 shortest of all (and here are the 10 shortest winners):
10. Humphrey Bogart (“The Caine Mutiny”)
28 minutes, 22 seconds (22.79% of the film)
Bogart’s third and final Best Actor nomination came in 1955 for his portrayal of tyrannical Naval commander Philip Queeg. Though he is absent from the first quarter of the film and appears on screen for less than 30 minutes, he was classified as a lead. In the decades since, several actors have also been placed in the lead category for relatively short villainous roles, including Michael Douglas (“Wall Street...
10. Humphrey Bogart (“The Caine Mutiny”)
28 minutes, 22 seconds (22.79% of the film)
Bogart’s third and final Best Actor nomination came in 1955 for his portrayal of tyrannical Naval commander Philip Queeg. Though he is absent from the first quarter of the film and appears on screen for less than 30 minutes, he was classified as a lead. In the decades since, several actors have also been placed in the lead category for relatively short villainous roles, including Michael Douglas (“Wall Street...
- 1/28/2021
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
After two straight years of all-white acting nominees in 2015 and 2016, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences responded to the #OscarsSoWhite issue by inviting a far more diverse and younger field of talent both behind and in front of the camera to join. And though there are miles to go until there is true diversity, the academy’s nominees and winners are beginning to reflect our culture.
Last year, “Moonlight” became the first Best Picture winner with an all-black cast. Its director Barry Jenkins shared the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar with Tarell Alvin McCraney, while Mahershala Ali won Best Supporting Actor. Viola Davis also took home Best Supporting Actress for “Fences.”
This year’s black nominees include Jordan Peele, a triple nominee for producing, directing and writing Best Picture contender “Get Out,” which also scored a Best Actor nomination for Daniel Kaluuya. Two-time winner Denzel Washington is nominated for “Roman J.
Last year, “Moonlight” became the first Best Picture winner with an all-black cast. Its director Barry Jenkins shared the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar with Tarell Alvin McCraney, while Mahershala Ali won Best Supporting Actor. Viola Davis also took home Best Supporting Actress for “Fences.”
This year’s black nominees include Jordan Peele, a triple nominee for producing, directing and writing Best Picture contender “Get Out,” which also scored a Best Actor nomination for Daniel Kaluuya. Two-time winner Denzel Washington is nominated for “Roman J.
- 2/7/2018
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
As previously noted March 25th and today, March 29th, are the most common days on which to hold Oscar ceremonies. Both dates have seen five Oscar nights in the Academy's 89 year history. But those Oscar anniversaries aren't the only thing worth celebrating today.
On this day in showbiz history...
Colonel James Stewart in 1945
1889 Oscar winner Warner Baxter (In Old Arizona, 42nd Street) born in Columbus Ohio
1919 Oscar winner Eileen Heckart (Butterflies are Free, The Bad Seed) Also born in Columbus Ohio. C'mon Columbus! You go with your Oscar winners.
1945 Jimmy Stewart becomes a colonel in the Us Air Force during World War II... ...
On this day in showbiz history...
Colonel James Stewart in 1945
1889 Oscar winner Warner Baxter (In Old Arizona, 42nd Street) born in Columbus Ohio
1919 Oscar winner Eileen Heckart (Butterflies are Free, The Bad Seed) Also born in Columbus Ohio. C'mon Columbus! You go with your Oscar winners.
1945 Jimmy Stewart becomes a colonel in the Us Air Force during World War II... ...
- 3/29/2017
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Kitty Gordon: Actress in silent movies and on the musical comedy stage. Rediscovering a long-forgotten silent film star: Kitty Gordon It seems almost unthinkable that there are still silent stars who have not been resurrected, their lives and films subject to detailed, if not always reliable, examination. Yet I am reminded by Michael Levenston, a Canadian who has compiled what is best described as a “scrapbook” of her life and career, that there is one such individual – and not just a “name” in silent films, but also from 1901 onwards famed as a singer/actress in musical comedy and on the vaudeville stage in both her native England and the United States. And she is Kitty Gordon (1878-1974). 'The Enchantress' and her $50,000 backside Kitty Gordon was a talented lady, so much so that Victor Herbert wrote the 1911 operetta The Enchantress for her; one who also had a “gimmick,” in that...
- 12/12/2015
- by Anthony Slide
- Alt Film Guide
Los Angeles, Calif. (October 2, 2015) – In 1915 William Fox founded Fox Film Corporation and forever changed the course of cinema. Over the next century the studio would develop some of the most innovative and ground-breaking advancements in the history of cinema; the introduction of Movietone, the implementation of color in partnership with Eastman Kodak, the development of the wide format in 70mm and many more. Now in honor of the 100th anniversary of the studio, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will celebrate by releasing some of their most iconic films that represent a decade of innovation.
Starting today, five classic films from the studio will be made available digitally for the first time ever – Sunrise (1927), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Man Hunt (1941), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Throughout the rest of the year a total of 100 digital releases will follow from Fox’s extensive catalog, including 10 films...
Starting today, five classic films from the studio will be made available digitally for the first time ever – Sunrise (1927), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Man Hunt (1941), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Throughout the rest of the year a total of 100 digital releases will follow from Fox’s extensive catalog, including 10 films...
- 10/3/2015
- by ComicMix Staff
- Comicmix.com
Screwball comedy movies, rare screenings of epic box office disaster: Library of Congress’ Packard Theater in April 2014 (photo: Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in ‘The Awful Truth’) In April 2014, the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theater in Culpeper, Virginia, will celebrate Hollywood screwball comedy movies, from the Marx Brothers’ antics to Peter Bogdanovich’s early ’70s homage What’s Up, Doc?, a box office blockbuster starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. Additionally, the Packard Theater will present a couple of rarities, including an epoch-making box office disaster that led to the demise of a major studio. Among Packard’s April 2014 screwball comedies are the following: Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup (Saturday, April 5) — actually more zany, wacky, and totally insane than merely "screwball" — in which Groucho Marx stars as the recently (un)elected dictator of Freedonia, abetted by siblings Harpo Marx and Chico Marx, in addition to Groucho’s perennial foil,...
- 3/27/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Charlton Heston: Moses has his ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Charlton Heston is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star on Monday, August 5, 2013. TCM will be presenting one Heston movie premiere: Guy Green’s Hawaiian-set family drama Diamond Head (1963), in which Heston plays a pineapple grower, U.S. Senate candidate, and total control freak at odds with his strong-willed younger sister, the lovely Yvette Mimieux. Also in the Diamond Head cast: France Nuyen, Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner George Chakiris (West Side Story), The Time Tunnel‘s James Darren, and veteran Aline MacMahon (Gold Diggers of 1933, Five Star Final) in one of her last movie roles. And last but not least, silent film star Billie Dove reportedly has a bit role in the film. (Photo: Charlton Heston ca. 1955.) (Charlton Heston movies: TCM schedule.) Now, with the exception of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, in which Charlton Heston...
- 8/5/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Leonardo DiCaprio The Great Gatsby movie box office: DiCaprio’s second biggest opening ever — but trailing Titanic in ticket sales The Great Gatsby movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel earned $50.08m at the North American box office this past weekend, including $3.25 million from late Thursday night showings, according to weekend box-office actuals found at Box Office Mojo. Despite mostly poor reviews — The Great Gatsby has a 32% approval rating and 5.6/10 average among Rotten Tomatoes‘ top critics — the Baz Luhrmann-directed take on the love story between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan’s Daisy Buchanan far surpassed the expectations of both distributor Warner Bros. and box-office pundits. In fact, The Great Gatsby trailed only Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man 3, which collected $72.52 million at the domestic box office this past weekend. (Photo: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby.) Partly thanks to 3D surcharges and a strong female contingent of ticket-buyers,...
- 5/14/2013
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
The 84th Annual Academy Awards (or, as we country folks call it, The Oscars) will air this Sunday evening live from Los Angeles. 84th Annual. Do you know what that means? That adds up to 84 years of mostly attractive, wealthy people getting handed awards. And one thing even a blind person with an unusually high sex drive would admit: This year’s Best Actor nominees are some of the sexiest yet. Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Hot French Dude, Gary Oldman, Hot Mexican Dude. If I were a professional writer on the internet and this was 2008, one might even call them the “nom-nom-nominees.” It’s safe to say that Sunday’s Best Actor winner will also simultaneously be hot as sh*t. But this isn’t the very first time in history that a handsome man has taken home the big prize. After hours scouring through the Best Actor winners over the past 80ish years,...
- 2/23/2012
- by Michelle Collins
- BestWeekEver
Montgomery Clift could have become a much bigger star had he turned down fewer roles in major classics (Sunset Blvd., reportedly Shane, East of Eden) and accepted fewer roles in major duds (The Big Lift, Lonelyhearts, The Defector). Clift has been a relatively frequent presence on Turner Classic Movies, but those unfamiliar with his work will be able to check him out — and compare him to fellow "'50s rebels" Marlon Brando and James Dean — on Saturday, August 20, as TCM will be presenting 11 Montgomery Clift movies as part of its "Summer Under the Stars" series. The one TCM premiere is the spy thriller The Defector (1966), which also happens to be Clift's last movie. [Montgomery Clift Movie Schedule.] My favorite Montgomery Clift performance is his quietly ambitious George Eastman in George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951). Though Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire (also 1951) is much better remembered today,...
- 8/20/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In Old Arizona Review: Part I To play the Cisco Kid, a role fit to order for the dashing and lighthearted Mexican heartthrob Ramon Novarro (then at MGM), Fox† replaced actor-director Raoul Walsh, who was seriously injured in a road accident during a location-scouting trip, with second-rank leading man Warner Baxter [photo, with Dorothy Burgess]. (Walsh, who lost an eye as a result of the accident, can be seen as the Kid in some of the long shots. Irving Cummings, the future director of several Technicolor 20th Century Fox musicals, replaced him behind the camera.) But no matter how much brown makeup was plastered on his face, Baxter remains ridiculously miscast. His Cisco Kid is a tired-looking anti-hero — O. Henry's Kid was twenty-five but looked twenty; Baxter was thirty-nine but looked forty-five — whose Mexican accent is of the "Jew are beeyouteefullll" variety. Additionally, since his character says he's Portuguese, Baxter's [...]...
- 1/31/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In Old Arizona (1928) Direction: Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings Screenplay: Tom Barry; from O. Henry's (aka William Sidney Porter) 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way" Cast: Edmund Lowe, Warner Baxter, Dorothy Burgess Oscar Movies, Pre-Code Movies Warner Baxter, In Old Arizona Tired In The Saddle What makes Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh's In Old Arizona (barely) watchable decades after its highly successful initial release is its sheer bizarreness. Technically, the picture, billed as the first outdoor talkie, is of interest solely as a museum piece. Despite the use of the American Southwest's wide-open spaces as background, In Old Arizona is really not that different from other statically framed, slow-moving, and poorly acted films of the period. From a thematic standpoint, however, this racy Western is a must-see because of its in-your-face pre-Production Code sensibility, which allows murder to go unpunished and offers dialogue containing numerous risqué double entendres. The plot itself,...
- 1/31/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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