In his discerning review for Defector, England argues that One Battle After Another lacks the heart and soul required of texts seemingly devoted to political revolt, a spectacle synonymous with many left-leaning signposts that rely on performances of politics, rather than action. His piece received substantial attention, most disputing England’s argument, but it was not the discourse that spurred my conversation with England. At the tail end of his review, England surprisingly mentions Iowa City…
The Oscars
Posted inCentral Iowa, Central Iowa Food & Drink, Food & Drink
The Banshees of Ingersoll: Des Moines beer picks for St. Paddy’s Day
Been banished by your best mate and drinking buddy? Worried you’ll spend St. Patrick’s Day with none but yer sister and miniature donkey? Avoid a mental breakdown (and/or an Oscar nomination) and grab a pint at your neighborhood brewery, where you’ll find Iowa twists on Irish beer styles. From crisp reds to stormy stouts, these […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Samuel D. Hunter, UI grad and playwright behind ‘The Whale,’ talks friendship with Brendan Fraser, writing ‘autofiction’ and falling in love in Iowa
Before The Whale became an Oscar-nominated film, playwright Samuel D. Hunter briefly believed the play had reached its pinnacle. “Having the show at one of my favorite theaters, Playwrights Horizons, here in the city, a 125-seat theater, was the top of the mountain,” Hunter, a 2007 graduate of the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop, told […]
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The Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts challenge viewers to face the many forms of grief
Perhaps more than any of the other 23 categories, the Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts come with the promise of fresh, risk-taking perspectives. The medium of animation is truly limitless, and for being so constrained within the mainstream, there is something liberating to view the artistic shorts explore, push and reinvent themselves for the betterment of their own narratives.
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Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts call us to tap into our ability to care
The Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts program as a whole, though the most uneven of the three Shorts categories, is a winner. A meditation on danger, safety and choices, it presents itself to the viewer only occasionally with judgement. The strongest argument for the short film format is right here in front of us within this programming.
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Oscar Documentary Shorts urge audiences to embrace hope
This year’s slate for Best Documentary Shorts provides insight into the world’s desperate need for justice and the hope it drags behind it. Is that too bleak? Too cynical? Would you prefer hope to be leading rather than limp and full of grass stains? So do the five films nominated this year. They urge us to embrace hope of any kind, even if it’s reactionary.
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RaMell Ross and Bing Liu, two guests of FilmScene’s Vino Vérité series, will compete for an Oscar Sunday
Most of the 2019 Oscar-nominated films have screened at FilmScene in the past year, including four of the five nominees for Best Documentary Feature. The filmmakers behind two of these acclaimed and ambitious docs joined FilmScene audiences months before the Academy Awards lauded their achievements. Bing Liu, director of Minding the Gap, and RaMell Ross, […]
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Death, rescue, racism and menstrual pads: A rundown of the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts
Plenty of politics play into the Oscar nomination process (often leading to some dubious selections in the Best Picture, Director and acting categories), but there’s one aspect of the Academy Awards circus that consistently feels pure and even altruistic: the spotlighting of short films. FilmScene is screening the Oscar-nominated short films in the animation, live […]
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An overly in-depth and totally not bitter alternative Best Picture list
After dozens of forays to FilmScene and local multiplexes in 2018, crunching countless popcorn kernels in anticipation of celebrating the best of the best come February 2019, it was both anticlimactic and disappointing to see a line-up of Best Picture nominees that included the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody, Vice, Green Book and Black Panther.
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‘Wildlife’ transcends Oscar trappings with slow-burn drama and Carey Mulligan
Wildfires rage in the hills surrounding a small Montana town in the 1960s. A father, humiliated by his boss while working at a golf course, joins a group of firefighters battling the blaze for weeks on end at $1 an hour. His wife resents her husband’s pride and temporary desertion of his family, and becomes […]
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Oscar-nominated short films bring a highly recommended unique experience to FilmScene through Feb. 23
Oscar Shorts FilmScene — through Thursday, Feb. 23 Blue Carpet Bash FilmScene — Sunday, Feb. 26 at 6:30 p.m. For decades, now, the office Oscar pool has been won or lost by whomever can score an uneducated guess in the three Short Film categories: Animated, Live-Action and Documentary. But this year’s fifteen nominees are not […]
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Oscars Round Up: ‘Fury Road’ has an inventiveness rarely seen in action films
For the final installment of our Oscars Round Up series, Pat Brown gives his take on a film with a staggering 10 Oscar nominations. Second only to ‘The Revenant,’ ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ has gotten the nod in categories from Best Picture and Best Director (George Miller) to Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Design. […]
