McGowan tweets that she ‘lost sight of the bigger picture’ after calling fellow actor a ‘fraud’
Rose McGowan has expressed regret for her attack on Natalie Portman over the latter’s Oscar dress “protest”, which took aim at the exclusion of women from the best director Academy Award nominations.
Related: Rose McGowan: Natalie Portman's Oscars dress protest 'deeply offensive'
Continue reading...McGowan posts Facebook attack on Portman, who wore a gown embroidered with names of female directors snubbed at awards
Activist and actor Rose McGowan has labelled Natalie Portman a “fraud” for wearing a dress to the Oscars embroidered with the names of female film-makers including Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang who were passed over for best director nominations.
In a post on Facebook, McGowan said Portman had made “the kind of protest that gets rave reviews from the mainstream media” but was “more like an actress acting the part of someone who cares. As so many of them do.”
Continue reading...South Korean film Parasite dominated the Academy Awards with its haul including best picture and director for Bong Joon-ho. The comedy-crime-drama also won the original screenplay and international feature film awards.
The moment Parasite was awarded best picture – a first for any non-English language film in the Oscars’ 92-year-history – prompted outpourings of joy in Bong’s native country. Many were glad the film propelled South Korea - and reflection on its gaping wealth gap - into the global spotlight
Continue reading...Bong Joon-ho’s South Korean satire wins top prize after taking best director, international film and original screenplay
After an awards season marked by its predictability, the Oscars delivered a spectacular final-reel twist on Sunday evening, naming capitalist satire Parasite best picture.
Bong Joon-ho’s comedy-drama about an impoverished family who infiltrate the household of a wealthier one is the first film not in the English language to take the top prize. It also took best director, best original screenplay and best international film.
Continue reading...Follow all the action from Hollywood as we find out who’s wearing what, who’s winning what and whose acceptance speech is dropping jaws
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Now for best animated feature. Beanie Feldstein just introduced Mindy Kaling. Is that how this is going to work without a host? A person announces a person who announces a winner? That seems like at least one step too many.
We already have a news story about Brad Pitt winning. Not that anyone was expecting it or anything.
Continue reading...Non-profit initiative Giver Her A Break creates online portal to replace commercials with showcase for female film-makers
The Oscars ceremony is no stranger to the act of protest, but this year will see arguably its most unique demonstration yet, because it won’t be taking place outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles but inside the telecast itself.
Non-profit initiative Give Her A Break has created an online portal that allows viewers to watch the awards as normal, but one with one key difference: every ad break will be replaced with a showcase for a female-directed film.
Continue reading...This year’s all-male nominations for best director are just the latest episode in a long history of women being under-represented at the Academy Awards. We look at the data
The 92nd Academy Awards take place this Sunday. But as a new decade begins, it appears little has improved in the fight for gender equality in Hollywood. Ungendered awards categories are once again dominated by men. Ahead of this year’s ceremony, we examine how the imbalance breaks down. Carry on scrolling to explore.
Continue reading...With her fourth nomination for an Oscar, Kathy Bates talks about overcoming brutal criticism about her looks, her pride at playing real women and why she loved working with Clint Eastwood
‘Oh, I’m a bumper!” says Kathy Bates as I reach out to shake her hand. A small fist comes towards me with a large, round, pink-rose ring on the middle finger. We bump and laugh and one of the truly unique American acting powerhouses of the past half-century beams back at me. She has a splendid smile, full of mischief and wisdom: a small and compact woman buoyed by that straight-up, unfeigned southern warmth that abides no matter where you encounter it. She fusses over me kindly, offering drinks – a world away from the nervous, shy, deeply rattled and easily hurt woman I have just watched in Clint Eastwood’s new movie, Richard Jewell.
Bates plays Bobi, the mother of the eponymous character, a security guard at the 1996 Olympics in Centennial Park, Atlanta, who discovered a backpack full of pipe-bombs, laid by white-supremacist terrorist Eric Rudolph, minutes before it exploded. Although one person died and 111 were injured, Jewell saved countless lives by clearing the area before the bombs exploded. But within days he found himself under a nationwide spotlight as the FBI focused on him as their chief suspect.
Continue reading...Less than a week since Bafta’s strikingly white and male awards shortlist met with widespread criticism – including from the organisation’s own chief executive – the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released a set of nominations whose small concessions to diversity seem striking by contrast.
Cynthia Erivo is nominated for best actress for her role in a biopic of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and Parasite – Bong Joon-ho’s acclaimed South Korean black comedy – is up for six awards, including best director and best picture.
Continue reading...From Little Women and Bombshell on one side and The Irishman and The Two Popes on the other, the Academy will have to tread a careful line picking this year’s nominations
British politicians are not the only people preparing for the campaign trail; Hollywood’s awards-season schmooze offensive has also begun. Gala ball dates are being added to diaries, academy voters are being targeted and a clutch of frontrunners is emerging. Trends – most of them worrying – are also appearing.
In summary, this year it is “boy films” v “girl films”. A gaping gender divide seems to have split the field. On the girls’ side, we have two well-received titles: Bombshell, dramatising the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News, and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women. Both are stories of female defiance at the male-dominated status quo, and are cast with an embarrassment of awards-bait: Little Women features Meryl Streep, Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Laura Dern; Bombshell has Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and Allison Janney.
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