thu 28/03/2024

Academy Awards

Oscars 2016: Between Chris Rock and a hard place

The causes kept coming – diversity, of course, but also climate change, sexual abuse, LGBT rights and more – at the 88th annual Academy Awards, which surely ranked as the most politically charged Oscars in years. And that’s not only because one of...

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We Made It: 'Carol' Costume Designer Sandy Powell

If there is a successor to the great Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, it is Sandy Powell, the British designer of six films directed by Martin Scorsese, three each by Todd Haynes and Neil Jordan, and others by the likes of Derek Jarman, Sally...

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Best (and Worst) of 2015: Film

The autumn cinema schedules of 2015 were assailed by the double whammy of Spectre and The Force Awakens– at times making it hard to find a screen showing anything else. Yet you’ll see that neither that latest instalment in the Bond...

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Oscars 2015: Birdman soars, Boyhood plummets

I hope someone by now has told Neil Patrick Harris how to pronounce David Oyelowo’s surname, but if anyone wants to see how not to host an Oscars, Harris’s stewardship of the 87th annual Academy Awards can provide that service in spades.Sure, there...

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Oscars 2014: All that glitters is not Gravity

If ever an Oscar ceremony pointed to the fundamentally schizoid nature these days of Hollywood’s defining love-in, the 86th annual Academy Awards was it. On the one hand, you had an out-gay host in Ellen DeGeneres taking selfies, ordering pizza, and...

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Oscars 2014: Best Picture / Foreign Language Film / Animated Film

Here's the astonishing thing about the 2014 Oscars: for the first time in memory, there are actually three or four nominees that - dare one say it? - actually merit consideration as the year's best. Is this because films are actually getting better...

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Oscars 2014: Best Screenplays/Supporting Actor/Actress

“Follow the instructions."David Lean’s suggestion to a costume designer shows the importance of the script – a film’s “recipe”. This is why the Oscar categories for Best Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay are so important: without great...

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Oscars 2014: Best Actor/Actress/Director

Is it just me or are the Oscars getting better? I don't necessarily mean the show itself, rather the films selected for nomination and the eventual winners. In recent years we've seen films as brilliant and diverse as The Artist, The Hurt Locker and...

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Oscars 2014: Leo, Sally and Jonah all in, Emma and Tom and French lesbians out

The 2014 Oscar nominations are out, and many of the expected awards-season favourites will be popping yet another champagne cork tonight (or, given that the nods take place at 5.30 am in Los Angeles, maybe over breakfast). But even as Cate Blanchett...

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Oscars 2013: Day-Lewis 3, Skyfall 1½, MacFarlane 0

Emmanuelle Riva travelled all the way to Los Angeles for that? I doubt I’m the only one whose heart went out to the radiant French actress, newly turned 86, as the 85th annual Academy Awards drew to a long and lumbering close well into its fourth...

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Oscars 2013: Best Actor/Actress/Director

Given the quantity of uncertain outcomes, this year's Academy Awards guarantee excitement, and there's nothing better than an Oscars ceremony filled with surprises. Furthermore, the selection of films nominated this year are of a rare vintage. Today...

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Oscars 2013: Best Picture/Foreign Language Film/Animated Film

Time is drawing nigh to mark those Oscar ballots, but what movie should one vote for as the year's best? While odds-makers have been busily touting one title over another, the less-vaunted fact about this year's shortlist is that relatively few...

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