Tag Archives: oscars

Why this year’s Best Picture award dooms the Oscars to irrelevance

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Katherine Wikoff

The last film that students watch in my film and media studies course is whatever has won the Best Picture Oscar that year. I was a little nervous to see what won this year because some of the nominees were … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Higher education, Media studies, Movies and film, News, Popular culture, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Fifty Years of the Corleone Family Onscreen

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Katherine Wikoff

Tonight is the Academy Awards broadcast. I saw somewhere that there’s going to be a reunion of The Godfather cast tonight, as this year is the 50th anniversary of that film’s release. Fifty years! What a masterpiece. And this movie … Continue reading →

Posted in Media studies, Movies and film, Popular culture | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Stream of YouTube Consciousness: Fred Astaire, Bob Hope, and Elmer Bernstein at the 1970 Oscars (plus Ellen DeGeneres’s selfie; Janis Joplin’s riveting Monterey Pop Festival performance; and the themes from “Ironside” and The Magnificent Seven)

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Katherine Wikoff

Long title, but bear with me 🙂  I came across this clip of Fred Astaire dancing at the 1970 Academy Awards ceremony the other day—and marveled that one could have watched the Oscars broadcast that year and witnessed such entertainment. (If you … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Movies and film, Music, Popular culture, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Lana Del Rey: Robbed of the Oscar, as her Maleficent follow-up confirms

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

I was astonished when Lana Del Rey’s haunting “Young and Beautiful” from The Great Gatsby wasn’t even nominated for Best Song. “Young and Beautiful” should have won!  Just one more reminder that awards are not the final arbiter of quality. … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies and film, Music, Popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The marketing campaign that helped The Return of the King sweep the Oscars

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Katherine Wikoff

Today’s Variety has an interesting article about how ten years ago The Return of the King was nominated for—and won—an astounding 11 Academy Awards.  Only two other films have won that many Oscars: Ben-Hur (1959) and Titanic (1997).  Even more significantly, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and reading, History, Movies and film, News, Popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pixar’s “The Blue Umbrella” is cinematic poetry. “Monsters University” is fun, too.

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Katherine Wikoff

This past weekend my younger daughter and I continued our longstanding tradition of catching Pixar’s new release on its opening weekend. Monsters University was a lot of fun.  Not completely on a par with the studio’s finest hits, but really nothing … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies and film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments