Two of my favourite movies from last year are now being released in the US, and shortly in South Africa too. They happen to be somewhat linked by their titles, which follow on quite perfectly from each other if you’re a fan of wordplay, and you could say they both deal with identity and growing up, and so their subject matter is similar too. The style of each film is very different though, but they both use music, in fact at one point it becomes a focal moment of the film, to convey their own coming-of-age stories. I watched both Girlhood and Mommy at the Toronto Film Festival last year. Both…
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SAG Awards – Of Eddie and Julianne and Uzo and Kevin
By the actors, for the actors. I do so enjoy watching the Screen Actors Guild Awards because the appreciation the actors show for the love they’ve received from their peers is just priceless. There are almost always tears. And they’re not just from the actors themselves. It was hard not to be moved by Uzo Aduba’s emotional acceptance speech, where she reminded us she had planned to quit acting after her OITNB audition, or recall how good Mark Ruffalo was in The Normal Heart, even if he wasn’t there to accept his award in person. As a big Orange is the New Black fan, I was thrilled to see the show score two wins,…
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What The Academy Did Next
After Thursday morning’s announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees, there has been a lot of backlash, more so than usual. There’s no pleasing everyone, so it goes, but this year it feels the backlash is rightly so. It seems that it’s a case of one step forward, two steps backwards – all the solid steps taken last year to recognize and nominate a diverse range of actors and characters feels as if it’s been undone this year. It’s more than a disappointment that David Oyelowo is not among the Best Actor nominees. He gave a performance he was destined to play. Both he and director Ava DuVernay worked on the…
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TIFF 2014 Kickoff: From Girlhood to Mommy
The excitement of opening day was tempered by the news of Joan Rivers’ death. I, like many festival-goers, emerged from the a darkened cinema to discover that the 81-year old comedian and actress had died. The news came a week after she suffered cardiac arrest and had been in a serious condition in hospital in New York. As word spread through the festival, so too were memories shared of her acerbic wit and sharp tongue. May her feisty soul rest in peace. I consider Day 1 to be a success, as I managed to make it to all four of the films I had planned to see, as well as fit…
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On Why You Should Watch Boyhood Twice
There have been some really beautiful reviews of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood published – many of them marvelling at the cinematic feat the director known for the Before series has achieved by filming his actors for little bursts of time over 12 years. I was most drawn to Drew McVeeny’s very personal review at HitFix, in which he describes the impact the film had on him as a father of two boys, going through a divorce. Reading about his fears and sadness and concern and dread for what this experience will mean for his children, I felt myself tear up at his honesty. I can see why the film touched such…
