I’m just now packing up my head stand and posing table to take home after the daguerreotype workshop last week. We had a great group here with people from all over as usual. Mike Robinson and I haven’t taught together for years, but it was like the old days back in the mid-1990s when Mike, France and I taught the first process workshops here at the museum with Roger Watson. The images made during last week’s workshop were extraordinary. Todd Gustavson showed the group gems of the technology collection including American and European daguerreotype equipment and Joe Struble laid out an exhibit of rare daguerreotypes I had chosen the week before. The whole experience was as magical as the process.

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 Picture
In 2010, frequently tasteless and irritating filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky and the Coen Brothers delivered fully-achieved entertainments with Black Swan and True Grit. Toy Story 3 was also unexpectedly, extravagantly moving for a ten-years-coming sequel to a mega-franchise. It’s the best of the nominees. Academy attention has been focused, though, on The Social Network and The King’s Speech. The latter teeters on the edge of being perceived as too small and too stagey (despite being an original screenplay!) to take home the ultimate honor–a problem most certainly not addling The Social Network. King’s chances hinge on whether its stirrings about democracy trumping class destiny sufficiently enlarge its canvas. Network is a fast-paced, suffocatingly relevant film primed to alienate older voters. Recent winners, though, have been edgier and hipper, so don’t be surprised by a narrow win for The Social Network. Snubbed: The Ghost Writer, the best film of the year, an angry, caustic cry of exile and political despair–and an absolutely masterful thriller.

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.

Originally posted on the Democrat & Chronicle Rochester Young Professionals blog page.

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

Originally posted on the Democrat & Chronicle Rochester Young Professionals blog page.

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.

For more than 28 years I have been educating the world about George Eastman and his contributions to the world of photography and film, as well as his philanthropic efforts. And while I am the curator of the Eastman Legacy Collection at George Eastman House, the one and only person I can turn to, to answer questions on Eastman that I cannot, is George Eastman historian and biographer Elizabeth “Betsy” Brayer.

Betsy Brayer

She is the one who elevated Eastman’s legacy in Rochester, decades after his death in 1932, by researching archives at Eastman Kodak Company to bring his story to life—first in newspaper stories and ultimately in a 637-page book George Eastman: A Biography. 

Betsy has also humanized Eastman, the father of popular photography and motion picture film and for decades the greatest benefactor of American education — beginning with dozens of local newspaper articles she wrote in 1979 and 1980 and ultimately the biography published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 1996 and reprinted in 2006 by the University of Rochester Press. Betsy’s research on Eastman began as a newspaper reporter writing about the architecture along Eastman Avenue. When she set out to write about historic Eastman House, she learned there was not a lot that was known. The more she learned about Eastman, she uncovered one fascinating story after another, and was encouraged to write his biography.

Betsy has told me she is pleased Eastman’s legacy has been fostered through her research and writing, noting there was a long period where Eastman was “sort of out of vogue, and the focus was on new photography and he was considered old hat.”

Betsy’s association with Eastman House began in 1980, when Museum representatives appointed her historical consultant to guide in the renovation of the house and gardens. And over three decades she has kept Eastman’s Legacy alive through her continued research, publications, and speaking engagements, and by serving on the Museum’s George Eastman Legacy and Landscape Committees.

To honor Betsy for her community contributions as an author and historian, George Eastman House will bestow the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar upon Brayer during a Dryden Theatre ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22. Past recipients of the prestigious George Eastman Honorary Scholar title include directors Ken Burns and John Frankenheimer; actors Dennis Hopper and Jeff Bridges; and writer Roger Ebert.

Although Betsy is formally being honored by Eastman House, representatives from other local organizations will be in attendance to recognize her writing career, as she has authored a book on each:—the Institute for Oral Health, University of Rochester, Friendly Home, Genesee Valley Club, The Chatterbox, and Brighton Historical Society. Her current project is a book about the Eastman Theatre, coming out in December.

The event honoring Betsy Brayer is open to the public. The award ceremony will be followed by a reception in the historic house. Samples of her publications will be on display. Betsy has requested that any donations in her honor be made to the George Eastman Legacy Acquisition Fund. Tickets for this special event are $25 ($20 for Eastman House members), with patron level tickets $50. You can purchase them by calling me at (585) 271-3361 ext. 242 or emailing me at kconnor@geh.org.