News

Comb through the Oscar nominations this year and you’ll find that there records being broken left, right, and center while more records could be matched or broken at the ceremony this coming Sunday on March 10.

One of those such records concerns the Best Original Screenplay category, in which the nominees are “Anatomy of a Fall” (Justine Triet and Arthur Harari), “The Holdovers” (David Hemingson), “Maestro” (Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer), “May December” (Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik), and “Past Lives” (Celine Song).

It’s “Maestro” co-scribe Singer we’re looking at here for his work in penning the Netflix biopic. This is his second nomination. His first bid came in 2016, when he won this very category, Best Original Screenplay, alongside director Tom McCarthy for “Spotlight.” It’s interesting that Singer now has two nominations in the same category, both of which came for co-writing a script based on a...

This article marks Part 2 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories, including the following 11 films that scored a single prize among the top races.

More than eight decades prior to Bradley Cooper’s take on the timeless tale, the first “A Star Is Born” (1937), headlined by Fredric March and Janet Gaynor, became the third motion picture, following “Cimarron” (1931) and “It Happened One Night” (1934), to earn nominations in the Big Five Oscar categories.

At the 10th Academy Awards ceremony, however, neither March nor Gaynor emerged triumphant, losing in their...

'Sunset Blvd.': Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. The Charles Brackett Diaries: Gay Rumors quashed, troubled Billy Wilder partnership discussed in Q&A with Anthony Slide See previous post: “Charles Brackett Diaries: Politics and Gossip During the Studio Era.” First of all, how did you become involved in this Charles Brackett project? And what did your editorial job entail? I discovered the diaries about six years ago when I was asked by Brackett's grandson, Jim Moore, to place a financial value on them during the process of his donating them to the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It was clear to me that these diaries had not only considerable financial worth, but also, and perhaps more importantly, they were primary resources in the study of Hollywood history. Happily, Charles Brackett's family (who own the copyright) gave permission for me to edit the diaries,...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

The end of the road. The scripts that should be studied, dissected, and taught for their quality, their timeliness, and their impact on the film industry as a whole. Some were perfect for their time and place. Some were ahead of their time. Some defined their generation. And one still rules all, forty years after it was written.

courtesy of hollywood.com

10. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Written by David Newman, Robert Benton, and Robert Towne (uncredited)

You’re just like your brother. Ignorant, uneducated hillbilly, except the only special thing about you is your peculiar ideas about love-making, which is no love-making at all.

Nothing spices up a movie theater better than a little sex and violence; Arthur Penn’s 1967 film broke new ground on that front. Fictionalizing the partnership of famous gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the film starred Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as the title criminals, while...

Chicago – With her chin pointed high, eyes bulging, teeth gleaming and hands contorting as if performing a Transylvanian spell, screen actress Norma Desmond insists that she’s ready for her close-up. She descends her staircase and becomes fully engulfed in the gray haze of her delusions in one of the greatest and most unforgettable final scenes in cinema history.

This moment, like so many in Billy Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece, “Sunset Boulevard,” achieves a miraculous balancing act. It is darkly funny, deeply sad and richly unsettling. The same could be said of Gloria Swanson’s Oscar-nominated performance as Desmond, the aging icon of the silent era who dwells in a mansion fit for Miss Havisham and is doted upon by a solemn enabler named Max (Erich von Stroheim), who has dedicated his life to protecting his beloved diva from the world that has forgotten her. Not only did von Stroheim direct...