Why “Blackkklansman” and “The Favourite” Should Win the Screenplay Oscars
At the Writers Guild Awards this past weekend, the winners threw the Academy Awards race into even more of a tizzy. The WGA honored underdogs Eighth Grade by Bo Burnham as its pick for Best Original Screenplay, while Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty took the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay. Green Book and Blackkklansman were […]
The Dog Poop in “Roma,” Chief Brody’s Glasses, and Symbolism on Film
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Sigmund Freud said, yet often in the movies, a cigar means much, much more. It can symbolize power, stand in for the male phallus, or be representative of a lie, i.e. a smokescreen. Groucho Marx used his stogie to represent all three attributes in the characters he […]
The Academy Takes Two Steps Forward and One Step Back with the 2019 Oscar Nominations
Any batch of Oscar nominations can both delight and confound. Those this year were no exception. For every milestone like Black Panther that became the first superhero movie to receive a Best Picture nomination, there are the failures of the Academy to recognize smaller, indie fare like the heralded Eighth Grade, women directors, or actors […]
“Tell Stories That Matter And Make People Better.” Kevin Willmott On ‘BlacKkKlansman’
Known for films like The Only Good Indian, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, The Profit and the recent hit, BlacKkKlansman, Kevin Willmott is a writer of race-centric, political history. Within this dense atmosphere, the screenwriter is also focused on the realities of an internal identity of the average American. “What does it mean to […]
Spike Lee’s Brilliant “BlacKkKlansman” Indicts Our Nation’s Past and Present
All period pieces comment on the present. Spike Lee’s new film “BlacKkKlansman”, about a couple of undercover cops infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs in 1972, not only indicts bigotry in America 40 years ago, but the continued presence of white nationalism on our national stage. For good measure, Lee also tosses in some […]
