Tag Archives: Academy Award
Very Scary CARRIE
I’m still bingeing on horror films during this last week before Halloween: I had a recording session last night but before I ran to the studio I caught the second half of the original Child’s Play film and the opening of its sequel. The Chucky marathon was part of AMC’s Fearfest scary cinema programming, and [...]
Hattie’s Leap
On February 29, 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award…. Stay Awake! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.
Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Resolutions
Not only was Woody Guthrie the father of folk music, he also knew how to make a New Year’s resolution. The Brain Pickings site explains: As a lover and maker of lists, I often agree with Umberto Eco that “the list is the origin of culture.” But, more than that, it can also be a [...]
Monster Man: Rick Baker
While Rick Baker is probably best known for the staggering, Academy Award-winning transformation sequence he orchestrated for the classic An American Werewolf in London, he most recently had another howling success when he took home the Oscar for his make-up in the remake of The Wolfman. He’s won Hollywood’s highest award for Best Makeup [...]
Peter Watkins’ Unreal Realities
British filmmaker Peter Watkins is a docudrama pioneer who has combined documentary and dramatic cinematic techniques to deconstruct historic events and cultural trends. A pacifist and a radical, Watkins’ best work examines media in general and film in particular to ask questions about the relationships between media and audiences. A powerful and provocative filmmaker, Watkins’ [...]
Karen Black: Don’t Look Back
So odd to look at the Wiki entry about actress Karen Black and find it reading in the past tense. Although Black isn’t necessarily a household name today, among lovers of both high and low cinema, and bohemian types with a high pop culture IQ, Black was iconic. A native Chicagoan, Black was a bright [...]
Inconsistent Persistence
Kevin Schreck is a first-time director whose Persistence of Vision tells a tale of artistic obsession, tracing the career of master animator Richard Williams. Williams is best known for 1988′s Who Framed Roger Rabbit which seamlessly mixed live action and animation, putting the director on the map as one of the master storytellers in the [...]
War and Tulips
George Pal’s Tulips Shall Grow was released in 1942. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Cartoons this stop-action masterpiece is about the enduring love between a Dutch boy and girl who face the invasion of their idyllic homeland by The Screwballs: A race of mechanical men who threaten to destroy everything in [...]
