“The Game of Thrones” Look If stoically braving the elements for months on end qualified someone for an acting award, then half the state of Minnesota — at least in a typical winter — should be up for an Oscar. 🙂 But, assuming that such suffering only counts when it’s in the service of...Read More
“EGOT”** Minus the “G” “In “Trumbo,” an ill-conceived take on one of the most famous targets of the Hollywood blacklist, the writer Dalton Trumbo clenches a cigarette holder that juts in the air like a sword . . . Part biopic, part historical gloss, “Trumbo” tells a great-man story with a patchwork of fact and...Read More
Best Line: “Would it Help?” Can you win an Oscar for a role with perhaps 30 lines of dialogue? (most memorable — and thrice repeated: “would it help?”). If so, Mark Rylance is a lock for his stunning portrayal of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg’s superb “Bridge of Spies” (at least for me,...Read More
Behind the Scenes at the Oscars “There are about 1,100 actors in the Academy, by far its largest branch. Naturally, they don’t all have the same opinion. Some responded more to “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Dallas Buyers Club” or “Nebraska,” all best picture nominees as well. Marking those or the other contenders ” “Her,”...Read More
Inspiring a Sense of “Wonder” — But the Wrong Kind It’s never a good sign if — instead of being engrossed in the movie you’re watching — you’re daydreaming about other things. Or, in my case watching “Hugo,” Martin Scorsese’s beautiful but slow-moving homage to French filmmaker George Melies, wondering whether that was Borat (comedian Sacha Baron Cohen)...Read More
