After spending a decade in the exploitation trenches with grindhouse compatriots Roger Corman and Monte Hellman, Nicholsonmade a sudden jump to stardom playing washed-up ACLU lawyer George Hanson in Easy Rider at the age of 32. The role set the pattern for the next glorious decade: with an Old Hollywood sense of star power and a scruffy, definitely R-rated attitude, Nicholson straddled generations.

Five Easy Pieces, 1970.

The hippies saw a genteel but like-minded rebel; their parents found a rough-edged, neurotic link to earlier Method luminaries like Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. Nicholson’s work with some of the foremost New Hollywood directors (Bob Rafelson, Roman Polanski, Hal Ashby) speaks for itself and stands capably for the strengths of the era. Nicholson and the films he made were ferociously adult — angry, righteous, ultimately mellowing out. Our sampling of Nicholson’s ’70s best— Five Easy Pieces, The Fortune, The King of Marvin Gardens, Chinatown, and  The Passenger— documents a radiant personality breaking and re-making the rules of acting.

The King of Marvin Gardens, 1972.

Chinatown, 1974.

]]> http://blog.eastmanhouse.org/2012/01/31/you-dont-know-jack-jack-nicholson-in-the-70s/feed/ 0 http://blog.eastmanhouse.org/2011/12/14/one-last-look-40s-to-60s-film-restoration/ http://blog.eastmanhouse.org/2011/12/14/one-last-look-40s-to-60s-film-restoration/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:58:14 +0000 jared case http://blog.eastmanhouse.org/?p=6046 In this last of the blogs focusing on the films that are being broadcast on Turner Classic Movies ‘Tribute to George Eastman House’ (all day today!), I’m highlighting the films made in the middle of the Twentieth Century. George Eastman House’s collections are packed with great silent films, and films from the early studio era, but the selection is broader than that. These last four films hint at the important work from the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s that still needs preservation.

THE MOON AND SIXPENCE (1942) is one of only six films directed by writer Albert Lewin. Loosely based on the life of Gaugin, it follows George Sanders as he deteriorates from family man to self-obsessed painter hiding out in the tropics. Our material is notable for its sepiatone footage, similar to the ‘Kansas’ scenes that bookend THE WIZARD OF OZ. This type of toning imitated the look of silent films and was used for hundreds of projects from the ‘30s to the ‘50s, but most of the surviving prints no longer have the tone, but are instead black-and-white reproductions. There is also a scene using Cinecolor, a short-lived two-color process. The restoration was done in 1993 with the assistance of Crystal Pictures, Inc.

PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951)

PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951) is another of the 6 films directed by Lewin, along with the well-known PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY (1945). One of our highest-profile restorations in recent years, this Technicolor marvel weaves together the legends of Pandora’s Box and The Flying Dutchman into a tragic 20^th-Century romance starring James Mason and Ava Gardner. Especially important to the film, and essential that we get right, is the blue of the sea, often reflected in Gardner’s wardrobe, beckoning the two lovers into each other’s arms. This restoration was completed in 2009 with the help of The Film Foundation.

FEAR AND DESIRE (1953)

FEAR AND DESIRE (1953) was Stanley Kubrick’s first feature film, after he had worked as a photographer for Look Magazine in New York City and directed two documentary shorts for RKO. A low-budget, independent production, he cast New York actors and took them to the California hillsides to create an allegorical war drama that starred, among others, Paul Mazursky, who went on to direct such films as BOB& CAROL & TED & ALICE (1969), HARRY AND TONTO (1974) and DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS (1986). Legend has it that Kubrick was embarrassed by the film and sought out copies of it to suppress the title and remove it from his legacy. George Eastman House received their print from the original American distribution company and preserved the film in 1989.

The last film being shown on TCM is also the latest film in the tribute. In 1964, Philip Kaufman, who went on to write three Indiana Jones movies and direct such films as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978), THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING (1988), RISING SUN (1993) and THE RIGHT STUFF (1983) – a personal favorite – started his career with the impressionistic feature GOLDSTEIN, which dreamily follows the separate adventures of a pregnant woman and an old man in Chicago. This avant-garde film was preserved from original material donated to George Eastman House by the director himself, one of several artists that entrust us with their life’s work. The preservation was finished just this year and has not been seen in theaters.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my impressions of the salute and for watching the films on TCM (All day today!). I have the honor of appearing with Robert Osborne, starting at 8pm tonight to discuss four of our featured films: FEAR AND DESIRE, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, and ROARING RAILS. I hope that everyone reading this enjoys the salute as much as we at George Eastman House have enjoyed bringing it to you.

Happy Holidays!

PAYMENT DEFERRED (1932)

PAYMENT DEFERRED (1932) is one of my personal favorites in the TCM lineup. I consider it a proto-noir, in that the protagonist (the fabulous Charles Laughton) experiences the same type of dilemma, decision and destruction that characters such as Walter Neff of DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) and Christopher Cross of SCARLET STREET (1945) endured in the golden age of noir. The plot follows Laughton, a bank clerk, as he struggles to keep his family financially afloat. He has news about an impending shift in the money markets but has no capital to take advantage of it. A long-lost nephew (an early appearance by Ray Milland) shows up on his doorstep but has no interest in Laughton’s proposal. Before Milland leaves, Laughton plans and executes a cold-blooded murder, stealing Milland’s money and burying him in the back yard. Laughton makes a killing on his investment, but is haunted by the body in the garden. It has little of the stylistic effects that are the hallmarks of the noir look, but the themes are the same and Laughton’s performance is grand. Like many of the MGM films we have here, the originals came to us early in our professional life. A nitrate picture negative and a nitrate track negative were received in 1967 and our print was taken directly from these in the 1970s, as was a new Fine Grain Master. Airs at 6:15 pm.

In 2007 Fox produced the mammoth and impressive “Ford at Fox” DVD Box Set, boasting 24 of the director’s films in one beautiful package. One of the films in the set, THE WORLD MOVES ON (1934), came directly from our material. We received a nitrate positive from Fox in 1972 and performed our own preservation in 1989, creating new pic and track negs and a new print. For the new preservation, Fox decided to use the old track neg, but went back to the nitrate to create a new pic neg and, with those elements, a new print. The story starts in 1825 New Orleans and follows the lives and loves of the Girard family over several generations, through the first World War and the stock market collapse to the present day. The cast is led by Madeleine Carroll, Franchot Tone and Reginald Denny. Airs at 2:45 am.

The shortest film featured is a 1937 documentary entitled THE SPANISH EARTH and directed by Joris Ivens, a well-known Dutch director that was deeply influenced by Russian greats Eisenstein and Pudovkin. The company that sponsored this film, Contemporary Historians, was formed by group of American writers and intellectuals, including Ernest Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker and Archibald MacLeish. The film follows loyalist forces and the land-working people of Spain as they struggle to survive the onslaught of Franco’s army, and as released was narrated by Ernest Hemingway. Our print was a pre-release positive that still retained the narration by a 21-year-old Orson Welles. We got our original material, a nitrate positive print, back in 1958, and performed a standard preservation, creating new pic and track negs and a new print in 1985. Airs at 9:00 am

We’ve covered nearly 20 years of film history, from an early feature released in 1918 to a documentary released solidly within the sound era. The last four films will take us all the way into the mid-‘60s, rounding out a fascinating slate of preserved wonders.

THE VALIANT (1929) was an Oscar-nominee for both its writing and the lead performance by Paul Muni. He would be nominated 5 more times, including I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932) and THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (1937), and won for THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR (1936), but is likely still best-known as the original SCARFACE (1931). In this film he is an accidental murderer who gives himself up to authorities but refuses to reveal his name to keep from shaming his family. Our preservation of this title comes from a nitrate positive that came into the collection in 1972. The preservation was done in 1983, when we produced new picture and soundtrack negatives and a new print. Airs at 7:30 am.

THE TRESPASSER (1929)

One of our favorite silent stars is Gloria Swanson, and we are proud to have the film of her first speaking role in THE TRESPASSER (1929). In it, Gloria plays a lawyer’s stenographer who gives birth to a son after a short, annulled elopement. Her employer helps her out, which causes a scandal, suggesting that she is a “kept woman.” Swanson would work only rarely in the next 20 years, leading up to her magnificent star turn in 1950’s SUNSET BOULEVARD. The film was produced by Joseph Kennedy, with whom Swanson was having an affair. Kennedy had a short run in Hollywood, producing 10 films from 1926 to 1930. We had several elements of THE TRESPASSER to work with, including some elements that came from Swanson herself in 1967. We took the best of these elements in 2002 and created new sound and picture negatives and new prints. Airs at 10:00 am.

The next two films are early examples of the musical on film. THE LOTTERY BRIDE (1930) features operetta star Jeanette MacDonald in a bizarre musical melodrama which sees her enter a Norwegian marathon dance contest, help an Italian aviator escape from jail, be jailed herself, become a lottery bride, bought by her sweetheart but given to his brother, and finally lead a rescue party to save her sweetheart from a dirigible crash in the Arctic Circle in glorious two-color Technicolor. Two under-rated comedic actors give healthy support in the form of the romantic couple Joe E Brown and ZaSu Pitts. The George Eastman House cut of the film is longer than the version currently out on DVD and features the Technicolor ending, which is missing on the DVD. This preservation was completed thirty years ago, beginning with a nitrate positive, which created new negatives and a new print. Airs at 1:30 pm.

DELICIOUS (1931) is the first film that George and Ira Gershwin wrote music for. And they wrote it for the beautiful Janet Gaynor and her frequent co-star Charles Farrell (7^th HEAVEN, SUNNYSIDE UP, LUCKY STAR and 8 other films). They star as immigrants coming to America on the same ship from Europe. They find love, but are from different classes, which keeps them apart, but in America anything is possible and after several misunderstandings and two botched deportations, they are married. DELICIOUS was a 1999 preservation project that started with a Fine Grain Master, which produced the new negatives and a new print. Airs at 4:30 pm.

Are you excited yet? I know I am. But I still have 7 more films to tell you about! Next, I’ll tackle the decade of the 1930s and leave the rest for last.

THE SILENTS

The first film playing in the salute to George Eastman House is the 1989 restoration of the 1918 version of THE BLUE BIRD. The film was based on the play L’Oiseau Bleu by Maurice Maeterlinck and produced by Famous Players-Lasky, which later became the modern Paramount Pictures. It was one of the American films of French director Maurice Tourneur, whose career shifted back to France at the end of the silent period. Tourneur is likely best known as the director of the Mary Pickford films POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL (1917) and PRIDE OF THE CLAN (1917), the first feature-length adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1920), as well as producing Jacques Tourneur, the director of OUT OF THE PAST (1947) and CAT PEOPLE (1942). The preservation began with a 35mm nitrate positive loaded with beautiful color tints that add to the fantastical feel of the film. We printed new negatives and made sure that the color remained in the new prints that were reconstructed from multiple sources. The results are gorgeous, and the score by Mont Alto Orchestra complements the images. This will be a TCM premiere, but if you like it, you can buy this version on DVD from Kino. Airs at 6:15 a.m.  

HUCKLEBERRY FINN (1920)

 William Desmond Taylor’s HUCKLEBERRY FINN (1920) was the first adaptation of Mark Twain’s seminal American classic, and the last in a loose trilogy of Twain films directed by Taylor. Taylor may be best-known now for his notorious murder and the careers it ruined, but he was quite a prolific director in his own right. Much was made of the 2009 premiere of this film at GEH, and it has shown in San Francisco, Chicago and Pittsburgh since then. Again, we worked from a tinted nitrate positive, but this print had Danish intertitles (the words on the screen in between the action), which made it difficult to understand. We asked one of our Selznick graduates, Ulrich Ruedel, to do a rough translation of the intertitles, then Anthony L’Abbate, our Preservation Officer, took these translations and adjusted the language to that of the Twenties, and used Twain’s original text for much of the dialogue. In order to re-construct the titles, Anthony used the 1920 version of DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE as a template for typeface, background and spacing. One of the best uses of tinting in the film is the scene in which Huck, attempting to steal some butter, hides it under his hat. Seated near a fireplace, Huck and the butter both heat up, the butter dripping through his hair and down his face. All of these shots of Huck are tinted red, visually supporting the heat and nerves that he is experiencing. A brand-new score by Mont Alto Orchestra was commissioned for this screening.  Airs at 9:15 p.m.

ROARING RAILS (1924) is another recent restoration similar to HUCKLEBERRY FINN. A tinted nitrate was the basis of the preservation, but it had Dutch subtitles. We asked another Selznick graduate, Elisa Mutsaers, to do a rough Dutch-to-English translation, and Anthony worked his magic again, utilizing resources from our Paper, Poster and Stills Collection to re-create the PDC (Producers Distributing Corporation) logo for the new intertitles. ROARING RAILS is what Variety would call a “meller,” industry for “melodrama.” In a very large nutshell, “Big Bill” Benson is a World War I veteran who adopts a French war orphan and struggles through poverty upon losing his job as a train engineer. Moving West, he finds another job, but his son is blinded in a sabotage attempt. Not having any money, he takes the blame for a murder he didn’t commit to save a rich man’s son who has promised to pay for the operation his son needs. “Big Bill” is played by Harry Carey, a veteran of over 200 films, many of them Westerns, 29 with John Ford. He is also the father of Harry Carey, Jr., himself a veteran of 150 films. World-renowned accompanist Dr. Philip Carli, a Rochester resident and frequent Dryden Theatre collaborator, recorded an all-new score for this film on the Moller organ at the Capitol Theatre in Rome, NY. Airs at 1:15 a.m. 

A PAGE OF MADNESS (1926)

A PAGE OF MADNESS (KURUTTA IPPEIJI, 1926) is the only foreign film in the tribute. The story of a man who takes a job at an insane asylum to be near his wife, who is a patient, and how their daughter’s engagement affects the family, is told with no dialogue, only images and a percussive score that drives the action as well as underlines the cacophony of confusion that threatens to tear the woman apart. The film’s director Teinosuke Kinugasa is not as well-known in this country as his contemporaries Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, but directed over 100 features in his native Japan, including JUJIRO (CROSSROADS, 1928), JOYU (THE ACTRESS, 1947) and JIGOKUMON (GATE OF HELL, 1954), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. This film was originally preserved in the 1970s from an acetate 35mm positive, and then revisited in 2001 with a re-recorded score.  Airs at 3 p.m.

These are just some of the films that will be broadcast during the tribute, and, hopefully, some you’ll be looking out for. I’ll tackle the changeover period between silent and sound films in my next piece. But as a special behind-the-scenes bonus, I’ll leave you with this: all the films mentioned in this article are held by George Eastman House!

Super Kodak Six-20: First automatic exposure control camera
 

Some were owned by well-known photographers:

 
Alfred Steiglitz’ Eastman View

Ansel Adams’ boyhood Brownie

Alvin Langdon Coburn’s Delta Reflex
 
 Then there’s important advances:

The original Leica: the first high-quality mass produced 35mm camera

The oldest known Kodak (No. 6)
 
For the cover image, we wanted a fairly rare camera people could relate to both from a collecting standpoint and just from its physical appearance. 

Cover Camera: Bell & Howell Foton 

The style of the book was designed to make the book look somewhat like a 1950s camera instruction manual- even the color choice.

Editor’s note: Todd will be talking about and signing his book here this Saturday, November 19 at 1:15pm. 

My wife hates it when I talk in terms of fractions, but it’s been more than one-quarter of my life spent here at Eastman House, and the thing that attracted me, inspired me and drives me to this day is the wonderful film preservation program that we all play a daily part in.

George Eastman House has collected close to 28,000 titles in the last 60 years, and has been preserving them on film for almost as long, keeping them in vaults that will make sure they are accessible to future generations for hundreds of years to come.

Robert Osborne with Eastman House's Jared Case on the TCM set, taping the Salute to George Eastman House, airing Dec. 14.

In my current role as Head of Collection Information and Access, I get to talk to people about these films, whether it’s for exhibition at our own Dryden Theatre, or researchers who come to Rochester to view films from the collection, or institutions around the world that borrow the prints and play them at their own venues. So, when I received the opportunity to talk about some of these films with a national audience, I jumped at the chance.

Turner Classic Movies chose George Eastman House to be the focus of a 24-hour salute, providing airtime for films that have been conserved, preserved, restored, and reconstructed by the Motion Picture Department. The highlight of this salute to George Eastman House will be the introductions provided by longtime TCM host Robert Osborne and, as a representative of the museum, myself. I visited the studio on Friday, Nov. 11, to tape the segments for broadcast.

The four movies highlighted with introductions are Stanley Kubrick’s Fear and Desire (1953), Technicolor gem Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), early action film Roaring Rails (1924), and the oldest-existing film version of Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn (1920).

I did a lot of research and preparation in advance of the trip. I made sure I knew about not only the films themselves, but also the preservations that George Eastman House provided for them – the history, the technical aspects, the materials used. I tried to anticipate any question about the films that might be asked, and even prepared short papers to structure the information in my mind.

"Huckleberry Finn" (1920)

But I needn’t have worried. Mr. Osborne and the entire crew at Turner Classic Movies are so kind, professional, and generous that they made the entire experience a joy. We sat down for an hour and a half and had casual (but informative!) conversations about the films, the George Eastman House, and preservation in general. The set looked gorgeous, staged for the holiday season, and I had a great time, from the first minute to the last.

As the tribute day approaches, I will blog again, in more detail about the salute, as to what will be on, and when to watch. But the date to remember is one month from today — Wednesday, December 14 — starting at 6:15 a.m. on Turner Classic Movies.

When Taylor passed away in March 2011, so passed one of the last bona fide queens of a bygone era. While her stunning looks and tabloid-ready personal life often eclipsed her talent in the public’s eye, her staggering career lasted nearly 70 years, encompassing triumphs on stage, screen, and television. Although Taylor had been acting for several years, her big break came at age 12 as plucky jockey Velvet Brown in National Velvet. Unlike other child stars of her day, her appeal came not from her girlishness, but from her preternatural assuredness and dark beauty, traits that helped her ease into adult roles after a string of mostly forgettable contract pictures.

Taylor with Mickey Rooney in NATIONAL VELVET (1945).

She came into her own as an adult star — at age 17 — with the first of three iconic collaborations with lifelong friend Montgomery Clift, A Place In The Sun. As the intoxicating socialite who tempts working-class Clift away from his pregnant girlfriend, Taylor earned widespread acclaim and cemented her reputation as a serious actress.

It wasn’t until 1956, however, that Taylor truly entered the Hollywood stratosphere, earning four Academy Award® nominations in a row for iconic performances in films like Raintree County, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and her first Oscar® triumph, Butterfield 8. Not classically trained, it was her charisma, her presence, and her tough charm that would come to define her acting style and persona. Taylor earned her well-earned second Academy Award® for Best Actress® for her role in the 1966 film Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

As ‘Maggie the Cat’ in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, (1958)

Taylor spent the second half of her career using her celebrity for humanitarian efforts. Before AIDS was widely acknowledged, she was at the forefront of HIV/AIDS activism, and eventually raised $270 million for the cause that she described as “her life.” Fittingly for a dual citizen of Britain and the United States, Elizabeth Taylor was royalty in all the right ways: charming, beautiful, generous, and talented.

Please join us at the Dryden Theatre as we pay homage to one of Hollywood’s finest stars. The series begins Thursday with National Velvet. The roster also features A Place in the Sun, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Raintree County, Giant, Little Women, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Thursday, Nov. 3, 8 p.m.
National Velvet
(Clarence Brown, US 1945, 125 min.)

Thursday, Nov. 17, 8 p.m.
A Place in the Sun
(George Stevens, US 1951, 122 min.)

Thursday, Dec. 1, 8 p.m.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(Richard Brooks, US 1958, 108 min., 16mm)

Thursday, Dec. 8, 7 p.m.
Raintree County
(Edward Dmytryk, US 1957, 187 min., w/ intermission)

Thursday, Dec. 15, 7 p.m.
Giant
(George Stevens, US 1956, 197 min.)

Thursday, Dec. 22, 8 p.m.
Little Women
(Mervyn LeRoy, US 1949, 121 min.)

Thursday, Dec. 29, 8 p.m.
Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
(Mike Nichols, US 1966, 131 min.)

My grandfather along with his father, like many other Rochesterian men, worked for the Eastman Kodak Company. Throughout my grandfather’s time working at Kodak and exploring his photographic hobby, he collected an array of classic cameras. Each room in his house has several cameras resting on dressers, antique china cabinets, wooden tripods, and any other flat surface providing a home for a piece of his vintage collection. Antiquated photographs as well as stereographs can be seen accompanying the cameras that took them.

While walking through George Eastman House’s new exhibition, Between the States: Photographs of the American Civil War, nostalgia overcame me. Hanging a right after entering the exhibit doors and coming around the first wall brings you “front and center” with two authentic cameras used to shoot American Civil War photography. Just as in my grandfather’s house, I was brought face to face with pieces of photographic history.

The 1864 stereo camera owned by the M.B. Brady Studio, now in the collections of George Eastman House and now on exhibit.

One of the cameras in the exhibit, along with another on loan to the Newseum in Washington, D.C., were used by the studio of Mathew Brady, the prolific Civil War photographer. They are the only two known Brady cameras in existence today. These, along with the Lewis wet-plate camera also on view in the Eastman House exhibition, are held exclusively in George Eastman House archives.

Brady’s stereo camera was acquired by George Eastman House from Graflex Inc. and was found in Auburn, N.Y., amidst a collection of Brady’s glass plates. This camera was used to produce a pair of 4½ x 4½-inch images. The images would be separated, cropped and mounted together side by side. Looking at the two images through a stereographic viewer would produce a seemingly three-dimensional image.

Grandpa also has a couple of stereographs lying around his house. I remember my amazement looking through a pair of stereograph glasses resembling 19th-century bifocals and viewing the two images combined to make one with depth and length. You can sense this awe two feet away from the two cameras as George Eastman House has provided a Brady stereotype and a beautiful viewer constructed by a student of the graduate program.

Also gracing the glass case in the Between the States exhibition is a Lewis wet-plate camera. The Polaroid Corporation gifted this aged artifact to Eastman House. The camera, manufactured by Henry James Lewis, was conventional of Civil War photographic equipment. It also produced two images, although these were 3¼ x 4½-inch. This wet-plate camera closely resembles the daguerreotype camera, which Lewis’s father and brother had previously produced. This camera provides a perfect representation of the size and style of camera that had to be lugged around on the bloody battlefields of the Civil War.

This exhibition is important to Rochester and the history of American photography. I was fortunate to have my grandfather introduce me to historic cameras at an early age. We, as citizens of Rochester, are innately enriched with photographic history. We hold here, in our own backyard, images of a war that has shaped our nation to this very day. This is evident in the accompanying exhibit Still Here: Contemporary Artists and the Civil War.

The opportunity to view the apparatus by which these images were captured is exclusive to Rochester and George Eastman House, where you can experience the amazement and power these cameras display.

Daguerreotype of me posing for Mike Robinson.

Workshop attendee David Vogt sitting for the camera.

 David’s Daguerreotype.

Joe Struble and attendee Paul d’Orleans amazed by the results.

Mike and I will cross alternative process paths again this summer in July. France and I will be teaching the Dawn of Photography workshop [photogenic drawings], followed by a workshop on the Wet & Dry Collodion processes at Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, England. The reunion will be complete because Roger Watson is now the curator of Fox Talbot Museum. As we’re packing up from the collodion workshop Mike will be prepping for a Daguerreotype workshop he’ll be teaching the next week.

As for me, it’s on to carbon printing next…!

Best Actor
Colin Firth’s stammering, staccato performance in The King’s Speech will easily best the deliberately inscrutable efforts of Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, not least because the British film is about the art of acting and floats the flattering idea that radio (and, by extension, all modern media) can humble kings. An unbeatable tangle of self-congratulation. It’s a shame that Jeff Bridges won last year, because his grizzly, unpretentious performance in True Grit is both better than it should be and better than his competition. Bardem should receive some sort of consolation prize for his Biutiful suffering, though. Snubbed: Stephen Dorff (Somewhere), Jim Carrey (I Love You Phillip Morris)

Best Actress
Once again, Julianne Moore is the most unappreciated actress in Hollywood. Despite her performance being altogether more complex, shaded, and demanding than Annette Benning’s, the less-than-better-half of The Kids Are All Right received Academy plaudits for a mediocre retread of her American Beauty harpy. By contrast, Natalie Portman totally inhabits her Black Swan character in every respect–resolve, vapidity, terror, technical perfection over reckless emotion. I mean the foregoing as a compliment. Plus, the Academy always prefers a pretty young body to a soulful performance. Snubbed: Moore, Elle Fanning (Somewhere)

Best Supporting Actor
Mark Ruffalo’s affable performance in The Kids Are All Right was a dead-on rendition of Southern California aimlessness. It should win, but Ruffalo’s recessive accuracy works against him here. Christian Bale’s embarrassing and hateful showboating in The Fighter is a more Academy-friendly performance but wide support for The King’s Speech will give the win to Geoffrey Rush for his altogether more effortless and enjoyable turn. Snubbed: Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), Justin Timberlake (The Social Network)

Best Supporting Actress
Melissa Leo seemed a sure thing before Hollywood declared her attempt at self promotion in the trades gauche and desperate. That, combined with vote-splitting with The Fighter’s altogether more talented Amy Adams and the fact that her performance is a horrific, one-note white trash caricature, militates against Leo’s chances. For once, the Academy will award the best performance, Hailee Steinfeld, whose turn is transparently central (despite being shunted to the Supporting category) to the power of the genuinely popular True Grit. Snubbed: Rosario Dawson (Unstoppable), Rooney Mara (The Social Network)

Best Foreign Language Film
As usual, only two entries have received theatrical distribution in the US as yet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that either Biutiful or Dogtooth (which had a one-night run at the Dryden last summer) is favored to win. Unlike all the other categories, voters in this contest must certify that they’ve seen all five nominees at special Academy screenings, which means the winner usually skews closer to the fuzzy taste of retirees than the the broader zeitgeist. Honoring the absurd and beguiling Dogtooth (replete with graphic incest scenes) would be the most radical act in the history of the Academy Awards. Better bet: the Canadian Incendies, which has the backing of juggernaut Sony Pictures Classics and heart-rending themes of transcontinental, panreligious understanding. Snubbed: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thailand)

Best Documentary
If Dogtooth is this year’s most heartening nomination, then the absence of the pro-privatization, anti-union Waiting for “Superman” from the Best Documentary Feature category is the year’s most unexpected and satisfying exclusion. Without “Superman” in the running, Charles Ferguson’s financial implosion éxposé Inside Job emerges as the heavy favorite. It’s timely and tackles a big subject–more than enough when there isn’t a Holocaust docu in competition. Snubbed: Last Train Home (Lixin Fan)

Best Costume Design
The omission of Black Swan in this category on a technicality has been one of the minor scandals of the season. Without the ballerinas in competition, this contest is something of a toss-up. I haven’t seen The Tempest and neither, I’d wager, have most of the Academy membership–a fact that in no way diminishes its chances. Voters tend toward the film that sounds like it has the most elaborate, exotic, and expensive costumes–and in that respect, the latest Taymor project must be a shoo-in.

The producers of this year’s Academy Awards® ceremony have come up with a brilliant strategy.  In addition to reaching out to a younger audience, Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer want to include moms more.   After all, who doesn’t think of moms in the midst of all that Oscar® cleavage and tomfoolery?  And it’s not just the cutesy mom-as-date role.  They are inviting mothers of nominees, who they call “mominees” (yes, “mominees;” it’s so bad I shuttered to repeat it), to participate in the 90 minute pre-show festivities. They’ll be asked to share stories about their sons and daughters.   And – here’s the kicker – they announced Monday during the Oscar® nominees’ luncheon that they are asking moms to tweet.  Helena Bonham Carter’s mom already volunteered: “Yes, of course I will do it if they tell me what a tweet is.”

Oh, lordy. Moms tweeting. I don’t know how savvy your mom’s social networking skills are, but if my and Bonham Carter’s moms are any indication, this will be a real treat.  (Notice I passed on the “real tweet” pun. I thought “mominees” was more than enough pun for one blog post.)  My mom, who recently joined Facebook, writes the longest comments ever. And she signs them. I’m surprised there aren’t stops in there like a telegram.  I love my mom, but there is no way I would give her unfettered access to tweet away about me now, let alone if I was famous and nominated for an Oscar®.

Join us February 27 to celebrate the 83rd Academy Awards® at the annual George Eastman House Academy Awards® Party and tweet yourself to a mother lode of entertainment.

• @portmanmom at #Oscars. Very fancy. Kidman looks way too skinny. She should have eaten something before the ceremony.
• @momtobonhamcarter Annette Benning is gay?
• @firthmum Loved my son’s performance. He must have been nervous because he stuttered a little.
• @Balemummy That hiker lad’s arm is back!

Editor’s Note: Read Renee’s other entries leading up to this year’s celebration:

Let Hathaway and Franco Entertain You at Eastman House

Celebrate an Awkberg Moment at the Eastman House Academy Awards® Party

In case you still haven’t heard, James Franco and Anne Hathaway will be hosting this year’s Academy Awards® ceremony.  Holy hotness, Batman. The Oscars® are known for some interesting host choices; some better than others.  Last year they seemed to step-up the host entertainment value by having Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin share the emcee responsibilities.  Safe, yet entertaining for the typical traditional ceremony viewer.  But never have they handed the host duties to such young Hollywood hot commodities.  Franco and Hathaway are two of the most sought-after A list celebrities.  The pair are among the young in-demand actors gracing the cover of Vanity Fair’s 2011 Hollywood issue.  I already blogged about films like “The Social Network” and accessible actors like Jesse Eisenberg (who is also on that Vanity Fair cover) bringing the Academy Awards® ceremony to an audience that typically has not tuned in. The choice of Hathaway and Franco was a brilliant one that will widen the appeal of the traditional awards show.  Some people may watch with the sound off hoping that Hathaway will do something nude, but they’ll be tuning in.

Hathaway isn’t an Oscar® ceremony newbie.  She did a kitschy song-and-dance bit with Hugh Jackman when he was the host in 2009.   It was well-received, which can be a hard thing to achieve at a ceremony.  Hathaway is pretty entertaining and self-deprecatingly funny when hosting Saturday Night Live.  She can be dorky.  She doesn’t seem to take herself too seriously and people like to see beautiful people who can be funny and dorky.   And female Oscar® hosts have been few and far between, so I’m happy to see another woman step up to the plate.

Franco is known for being incredibly smart, handsome and quirky all in the same breath.  His announcement that he will teach a course for editing students at Columbia College Hollywood based on his own career is proof enough. (Yes, I said “based on his own career.”)  I love Franco and think his unique weirdness will be a good counterbalance to all the hubbub surrounding Hathaway’s decision to participate in all the über nakedness of “Love and Other Drugs.”

Join us next Sunday February 27 to celebrate the 83rd Academy Awards® at the annual George Eastman House Academy Awards® Party.  The awards show will be broadcast (with the sound on) in the Dryden Theater.  It will be a little chilly to pay homage to Anne Hathaway by wearing only your birthday suit, so clothing is required.

Listen In to a podcast of his Dryden Theatre talk.

See highlights from his George Eastman Honorary Scholar award ceremony on our You Tube Channel.

Browse our Facebook Photo Album.

View ‘Graham Nash Becomes Eastman House Honorary Scholar’ video clip on Rochester YNN.

I saw parts of the Eastman House in different ways this past weekend, as photographer and musician Graham Nash shared with me what he was seeing throughout the mansion and museum, through his keen and creative photographer’s eye. He was intrigued by Eastman House, from the architecture to the collections, engaging with our conservators and archivists to learn more about daguerreotypes and photograph conservation.

Graham Nash with the framed art awarded to him upon receiving the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar, presented by Tony Bannon, the Ron and Donna Fielding Director of George Eastman House, and Lisa Brubaker, an officer of the Easmtan House Board of Trustees.

Graham joined us, accompanied by his son, Will, to receive the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar, for his contribution to photography as an artist and innovator.

He told the sold-out audience, “To be standing here today at George Eastman House is totally, totally amazing. This is an incredible honor. I’ve been a photographer longer than I’ve been a musician and my first passion is photography.”

Director Tony Bannon introduces Graham Nash before the press conference in the “Taking Aim” gallery.

If it were only through Graham’s music – his lyrics, his arrangements, his compositions –we might say and agree he has made an important part of the culture of our time. But let’s add to that an estimable career as a photographer, one who has imaged the music scene but also the totality of life around us.

While best known for his legendary music career with Crosby, Stills, and Nash as well as The Hollies, for which he has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Graham has been taking pictures for more than 50 years and collecting photographs since the 1970s. His visit to Eastman House was timed to coincide with the museum’s current display of the “Taking Aim” rock-photo exhibition he curated.

In the photography archives at Eastman House, Graham and Will experienced the earliest daguerreotype of Daguerre himself (1844) and a daguerreotype of an American cemetery in Shimoda, Japan, believed to be the earliest photographic image of Japan (1855). In the Kay R. Whitmore Conservation Lab, they witnessed a demonstration of a device that detects and maps an image formed on a daguerreotype 170 years ago, even though the original image has long since faded away.

Moved by these experiences, Nash was outspoken at both a press conference and the audience in encouraging support for Eastman House, calling the museum “a complete jewel that is preserving our collective physical and visual memory.”

Graham’s passion for fine-art photography led him to establish Nash Editions, a pioneering and celebrated printmaking studio that produces state-of-the art digital images for a long list of master photographers and artists. Eastman House created and debuted the world premiere of Nash Editions’ “Digital Frontiers” exhibition in 1998. Eastman House toured the exhibition, curated by Therese Mulligan, internationally for five years.

For this pioneering work in photography, The Smithsonian Institution cited Nash Editions for its role in the invention of digital fine-art printing upon acquiring the company’s original equipment and ephemera in 2005. And for services to music and charitable activities, the British-born superstar was named in 2010 an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen of England.