What Screenwriters Can Learn from the Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts
It’s a shame that the AMPAS has decided to give out the award for Best Live Action Short winner during a commercial break at the upcoming Academy Awards telecast on February 24, 2019. No artist who wins an Oscar should be denied his or her time in the sun. It’s especially egregious given that a […]
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 […]
An Interview With James Laxton, the Cinematographer of “If Beale Street Could Talk”
A host of difficulties befall a young black couple in love in the new movie adaptation of James Baldwin’s famous novel If Beale Street Could Talk. Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) must wrestle with an unexpected pregnancy, as well as family disapproval, housing discrimination, and even false imprisonment for a crime he did […]
Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” is a Gorgeous and Haunting Tale of the Working Class
The opening image in Roma is one that starts off as mysterious, then turns monotonous, and finally, becomes a haunting metaphor for the plight of the working class. The image is of the outdoor tiles of a driveway being washed as buckets of water cascade across them again and again. We hear scrubbing, but the […]
