 With Seth MacFarlane recently awarded the prestigious gig of hosting the Oscars in February 2013, he becomes one of, if not, the first person to host the Oscars that got his start primarily in voice-over work. MacFarlane voices Brian, Stewie, Quagmire, and Peter Griffin on FOX’s hit-show “Family Guy,” where he’s won an Emmy Award in the show’s near thirteen year run.
The Oscars, unbeknownst to many, have a strict rule about nominating voice-work in films. Today’s question asks which voice-over performance by an actor or actress would you reward with either an Academy Award Nomination or Win?
Read more on Oscar Question of the Day – Can you reward the voice?…
Categories: Question of the Day Tags: Andy Serkis, Brian Griffin, Cinema of the United States, Disney's Aladdin, Ellen DeGeneres, Entertainment, Entertainment/Culture, family guy, Film, Films, Finding Nemo, gene hackman, Glengarry Glen Ross, Glenn Quagmire, Human Interest, Peter Griffin, Robin Williams, Seth MacFarlane, Stewie Griffin, television, The Lord of the Rings, the Oscars, The Two Towers, unforgiven, Voice work
 Katherine Hepburn has the distinct honor of being awarded four Oscars in her lifetime, all for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Hepburn won for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967), The Lion in the Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1982).
You mission, if you choose to accept it, is to award one actor/actress or director with four Oscars for their frame of work thus far. Read more on Oscar Question of the Day – Four-Time Oscar Winner…
Categories: Question of the Day Tags: American film directors, Cinema of the United States, Coach, Director, Entertainment/Culture, Film, Forrest Gump, gene hackman, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Human Interest, Jimmy Dugan, Katharine Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Movie Release, On Golden Pond, Oscar, Oscars, Penny Marshall, Philadelphia, Private, Robert Zemeckis, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Space advocacy, Steven Spielberg, Supporting Actor, The Color Purple, tom hanks
 There was a time when a film directed by William Friedkin was met with excitement, but that was a very long time ago. It was for The French Connection (1971) that Friedkin won the Academy Award for Best Director, a brilliant and tough crime thriller based on a true story about a couple of New York narcotics officers trying to bust a massive French drug operation. Friedkin took to the streets with his cameras and gave the film a documentary-like feel, gritty and real the streets so close to us we could almost smell them, the characters like those one saw every day walking the streets of New York. The main character was Popeye Doyle, portrayed superbly by Gene Hackman in a performance that won him an Oscar as Best Actor, a cop unafraid to bend and break the rules if it means nailing the top men with the drugs. Fearless, even reckless, Doyle is single mindedly devoted to busting this ring in thousands of pieces. The film was met with rave reviews, strong box office and five Academy Awards, a Best Picture award among them. Read more on Killer Joe (**½)…
 With the talk all Batman these days, with good reason, I thought I would take a look back at the attempted re-boot of the Superman franchise with Bryan Singer’s under appreciated Superman Returns (2006). Singer made it clear from the beginning his deep love of the Superman (1978) movie of the late seventies, directed by Richard Donner, and wanted very much to capture that sense of awe and majesty in dealing with Superman on film. I remember New Year’s Eve, 1978, at the theater about to see Superman (1978). All year we had heard and seen the ads, screaming the words, “you’ll believe a man can fly.” OK, now was the time.
Show me. Read more on Historical Circuit: Superman Returns…
 When the Los Angeles Film Critics Association gathered in December to announce their annual awards, it began an extraordinary movement that would see the film they honored go all the way to the Oscars. Their film of choice was Clint Eastwood’s powerful western Unforgiven (1992), a summer release, which took awards for Best Film, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actor (Eastwood), Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), and Best Screenplay. Though the film had been highly praised by critics upon release, there was genuine surprise when the picture grabbed top honors from the LA scribes. Their choice would begin a movement that would sweep the film into the Oscar circle, earning awards for Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. In many ways critics played a huge part in allowing audiences to discover the film, and with these early season awards played a huge part in the Academy Awards campaign, something Eastwood mentioned in his Oscar acceptance speech. The wins from the LA critics would cause Warner Brothers to throw all their support behind Unforgiven (1992) seemingly forgetting they also had Spike Lee’s superb Malcolm X (1992) in the race, something that did not please the film’s director and producers (rightly so). Read more on Unforgiven — 20 Years Later…
 Admittedly Kris Tapley over at Hit Fix beat me to this, though I have been tooling around on it for a week or so.
Actors revere Eastwood. They admire the fact he does not get in their way when they are working, creating a character for him in his film. They are hired to serve his film, and they know this. Going in there is an understanding that they will show up and have the role create and be ready to work. Maybe they know he often shoots and prints rehearsals, maybe they will learn that as Meryl Streep did while shooting The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Eastwood creates a hushed set for his actors, so they have a quiet area in which to create. There is no yelling, no temper fits, no cussing someone because you can, just a well oiled machine that the actors are expect to become a part of very quickly. There is a discipline and professionalism that is simply implied and if the actor struggles with that, Eastwood deals with it. Kevin Costner found out the hard way. An Oscar winning directing himself, he pitched a fit over something silly, and stormed off to his trailer. On the spot Eastwood decided to shoot the scenes he needed with Costner’s double, over his shoulder. They had the scenes done by the time Costner returned from his tantrum at which point he very sheepishly apologized and never again let Eastwood down. As Eastwood stated to him, “I am here to shoot film, not fuck around.” And shoot film he did that day. Rarely does he do more than three takes, believing the actors do their best in the early ones, and for those actors who do not do their best in three…catch up and do it. He does deal with egos on his set, and as Sean Penn aptly said, “he is the least disappointing icon in America.”
Read more on Best Performances in Eastwood’s Films…
Categories: Article Tags: armie hammer, Article, best lists, bird, Clint Eastwood, forest whitaker, gene hackman, gran torino, Hilary Swank, J. Edgar, ken watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio, letters from iwo jima, marcia gay harden, Meryl Streep, Million Dollar Baby, mystic river, Sean Penn, the bridges of madison county, unforgiven
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