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      in Movies

      The Worst Oscar Snubs, According to Times Film Fans

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      We asked staffers in Culture and Books about the snubs from years past that still bother them, and they had some things to say.I have never forgiven the Oscars for picking “Birdman” over “Boyhood.” What can I say — “Boyhood” was moving and meaningful, while “Birdman” was pretentious and obtuse, and none of my cinéaste colleagues are going to persuade me otherwise. MICHAEL PAULSON, theater reporterI am still mad about the academy’s refusal to recognize, even just to nominate, Greta Gerwig for her creative work on one of the best movies of its decade. The film I’m of course referring to is “Frances Ha,” for which Gerwig was the lead actress and co-screenwriter (with Noah Baumbach, who directed) — a brilliant, joy-filled movie about art and youth that borrowed from mumblecore, Rohmer and Woody Allen while arguably surpassing them all, and which was nominated for a grand total of zero Oscars. MARC TRACY, reporterWhen I first started to comprehend what Oscars recognize and celebrate, I was a tween who’d recently been enraptured by the greatest onscreen performance I’d ever seen: Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle turned Catwoman in Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns,” in which she nails the attitude of a woman who’s been belittled and underestimated one too many times. When I expressed dismay that she’d been snubbed, I was met with condescension from adults who informed me, with a pat on the head, that superhero movies don’t get acting Oscars. Of course today, that couldn’t be more untrue, and every year, when l watch “Batman Returns” (it’s a Christmas movie, don’t forget), I grow more convinced that Pfeiffer’s unhinged yet unflappable performance delivers a rare frisson and deserved a nomination. When she purrs, “Life’s a bitch, now so am I,” I still gasp. MAYA SALAM, editor and reporterAva DuVernay should have been recognized for directing both 2014’s “Selma” and last year’s “Origin.” She is one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Her leading stars — David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. in “Selma,” and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Isabel Wilkerson in “Origin” — also deserved nominations for their staggering work in both films. BARBARA CHAI, deputy culture editor“Shakespeare in Love” beating “Saving Private Ryan” for best picture is the snub I can never let go of, partly because it just feels artistically wrong but mostly because it cost me a payday on my office Oscar pool that year. DAVID RENARD, senior editorEddie Murphy not winning for “Dreamgirls” in 2007. And I get him walking out, too. Why should he have to put on another performance for the academy that robbed him? (And then he pulled out of hosting the ceremony five years later … nothing against Billy Crystal, of course, but that was a massive disappointment.) ALEXANDRA JACOBS, book criticWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      25 Biggest Oscar Snubs of All Time

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      Every year since the Academy Awards were invented, somebody has been overlooked, ignored, passed over, disregarded or brushed off. You know what they say about beauty and beholders.But perceived Oscar omissions — snubs, as we have come to call them — have grown into a frenzied annual conversation, with people left off the nomination list, or nominated but denied a statuette, sometimes receiving as much attention, or more, as those who win.These are the 25 true snubs and unjust losses that Times film critics, columnists, writers and editors still can’t get over. Read more →‘Do the Right Thing’ for Best Picture (1990)Actual winner: “Driving Miss Daisy”Spike Lee and Danny Aiello in the Brooklyn-set drama.Universal PicturesSome people hated this movie. Others, more ominously, feared it, or claimed to. News articles and reviews imagined riots sprouting in its wake (they never came), seeing in the character of Mookie — who, in a fit of righteous fury, smashes a pizzeria window in the film’s famous climax — confirmation of Lee’s insidious intent. Did academy voters have similar misgivings? Lee, who was shut out of the directing category, did receive a nomination for his screenplay, suggesting at least one branch of the organization had his back. (Danny Aiello was also nominated for supporting actor.) But it’s hard to look at the eventual best picture winner, “Driving Miss Daisy” — a film in which Morgan Freeman plays Hoke Colburn, the patient chauffeur of a bigoted, elderly white woman — and not see a statement of preference. In 1990, it was the Hoke Colburns of the world, not the Mookies, who were welcome on the academy’s biggest stage. REGGIE UGWU, pop culture reporterWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      How to Watch the Oscars: Date, Time and Streaming

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      An earlier airtime and an unusual presenter approach are among the changes at this year’s ceremony.Watching the Oscars doesn’t usually require an instruction manual.But this year, to make sure you catch the goodness of Ryan Gosling performing “I’m Just Ken” — in what we can only hope will be a faux fur coat — there are two crucial steps you must take.One: Be in your preferred watching position — popcorn popped, possibly in a “Dune” bucket, Snuggie on — an hour earlier on Sunday. In a break from the traditional 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific start, this year’s ceremony is scheduled to kick off at 7 p.m., an effort by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to stick to prime-time hours.And two: When we say 7 p.m., we mean what-was-until-2-a.m.-on-Sunday 6 p.m., because — that’s right — daylight saving time is here once again. Don’t forget to set your clocks — if you still have clocks — forward an hour.You may have heard that “Oppenheimer,” with a pack-leading 13 nominations, is a lock to win best picture. This is accurate. But even if we’re certain how the night will end, the getting there is the fun part. Here’s everything you need to know.What time does the show start and where can I watch?In a perk for those who like going to bed early, this year’s show begins at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific, at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. Sunday is also the start of daylight saving time, so remember to set your clocks an hour forward before you go to bed on Saturday night.On TV, ABC is the official broadcaster. Online, you can watch the show live on the ABC app, which is free to download, or at abc.com, though you’ll need to sign in using the credentials from your cable provider. There are also a number of live TV streaming services that offer access to ABC, including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV, which all require subscriptions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Dominique Blanc, at 67, Is in Her Prime

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      In 2003, three decades into her career, Dominique Blanc experienced every actor’s worst nightmare: The phone stopped ringing.Approaching 50, she was one of France’s most celebrated performers, fresh off an acclaimed stage run in a classic tragedy, Jean Racine’s “Phèdre.” But the subsequent, yearslong lack of offers “deeply unsettled me,” Blanc said in a recent interview. “I found myself in extreme solitude. I really believed I would never be able to set foot on a stage again.”“La Douleur,” a searing, award-winning one-woman show that will have its American premiere at the FIAF Florence Gould Hall in New York on March 13, became a way to process the hurt and take charge. Blanc’s character, lifted from a book by the French author Marguerite Duras, awaits her husband’s return from a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, uncertain whether he is even alive.The show grew out of a series of readings she did from the book with the director Patrice Chéreau, a longtime collaborator. In 2008, Blanc pitched him a light stage version, requiring only a table, chairs and old costumes from Blanc’s closet. While Duras’s book was translated into English as “The War: A Memoir,” its original title simply means “Pain,” and in her show, Blanc starkly recreates women’s anguish as their partners return from untold horrors.“It was the first time I was completely alone onstage, with this extraordinary yet difficult text. I had so much fear,” Blanc said. “But it saved me.”For several years, Blanc reclaimed her artistic agency by performing “La Douleur” in theaters, school gymnasiums and prisons, both in France and abroad. In 2022, as the theater world prepared to mark the 10th anniversary of Chéreau’s death, the production was revived.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Buddy Duress, Who Came Off the Streets to Find Stardom, Dies at 38

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      He was a homeless heroin dealer when the Safdie brothers put him in their movies, and the critics raved. But the recklessness that gave his acting authenticity thwarted his career.Buddy Duress, a small-time heroin dealer living on the streets of the Upper West Side who became a sensation in the New York film scene as an actor and muse for the movies “Heaven Knows What” and “Good Time,” which launched the careers of the filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie, died in November at his home in Astoria, Queens. He was 38.The death, which was disclosed only in late February, was from cardiac arrest caused by a “drug cocktail” including heroin, his brother, Christopher Stathis, said.Mr. Stathis said their mother, Jo-Anne Stathis, was seriously ill in November, so he withheld news of the death, hoping to inform her himself at an appropriate time. By early December, he said, he had told her and several other people, but nobody in Mr. Duress’s circle made an announcement. Mr. Duress had been out of the public eye and in jail frequently in recent years.At the height of his career, in the mid-2010s, directors made trips to Rikers Island to visit and audition Mr. Duress. He acted alongside Michael Cera and Robert Pattinson, and critics said he stole scenes. At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, he strolled down the red carpet of the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the main theater, to a standing ovation, then shoved his face in front of a French TV camera shouting, “What’s up, Queens?”He was ungovernable and thrill-seeking, traits that, on the set, gave his performances authenticity but that also led him to squander opportunities. Each time, though, he said he would finally change: He was ready to dedicate himself to acting.Mr. Duress around the time of the filming of “Heaven Knows What.” The movie, portraying life on the streets of New York, sparked his friendship with the filmmaker Josh Safdie.Eléonore HendricksWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Playing a British Rogue, With Added Firepower

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      Daniel Ings has built a career playing charming, posh men. His latest role is a chaotic aristocrat in Guy Ritchie’s series “The Gentlemen.”In the first episode of Guy Ritchie’s new Netflix series “The Gentlemen,” a British aristocrat is forced to dress up in a chicken suit and dance on camera at the pleasure of a gangster to whom he owes money. He flaps his arms wildly, thrusts his head forward and crows at the top of his voice, as tears stream down his face.The man in the costume is Daniel Ings, an actor whose face people might recognize more than his name. He is best known for playing Luke, a lovable womanizer on the sitcom “Lovesick,” but he has also appeared in many other television roles that fit a certain archetype: the charming, posh British man, who is a bit of a cad.In “The Crown,” he played a roguish friend of Prince Philip; he was the unreliable father of Dr. Jean Milburn’s baby on “Sex Education” and the resentful husband on Lucy Prebble’s “I Hate Suzie.”“I probably should show some range at some point,” Ings, 38, joked in a recent interview at a London hotel. But he enjoyed playing “the cheeky chappy,” he said, as well as the challenge of transforming characters who, on paper, seem quite unlikable into endearing onscreen presences. When Ings reads a script that frames his prospective role as a villain, he said, he thinks, “I bet I can find something childlike, something fun in there.”To play Freddy in “The Gentlemen,” Ings brought this approach to what might be his most reprehensible character yet. The arrogant, drug-addled eldest son of a duke, Freddy is passed over in his father’s will in favor of his younger brother, Eddie (Theo James), who discovers organized criminals running an enormous weed farm underneath the family estate.Ings as Freddy Horniman, wearing a chicken suit, in “The Gentlemen.”Christopher Rafael/NetflixFreddy is passed over in his father’s will in favor of his younger brother, who discovers that organized criminals are running an enormous weed farm under the family’s estate.NetflixWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Drake Bell Will Detail Abuse He Suffered as a Child Star

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      The former Nickelodeon actor is set to describe sexual abuse he experienced at the hands of a former dialogue coach, according to a new docuseries. Court documents detail the back story.Jared Drake Bell, a former star of the hit Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh,” will speak publicly about abuse he suffered at the hands of a 41-year-old dialogue coach when he was 15, according to the network airing a new docuseries about the grimmer aspects of children’s television.Mr. Bell, now 37, will describe his relationship with the dialogue coach, Brian Peck, who pleaded no contest in 2004 to two felonies: oral copulation with a minor, and lewd and lascivious acts with a child, according to public records.Mr. Peck was sentenced to 16 months in prison and registered as a sex offender in California, according to state records. Before entering his pleas, he worked in children’s television for years, including on hit Nickelodeon shows like “All That.”Mr. Bell could not be reached for comment and a trailer released by Investigation Discovery, which produced the docuseries, coming out March 17, “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” did not contain any details of his account. But a transcript of Mr. Peck’s sentencing hearing in 2004 quotes the victim, who is not identified, as saying, “I have to live with this for the rest of my life. And let me tell you, it’s horrific.”Attempts to reach Mr. Peck were also not successful. In the transcript, Mr. Peck said he felt “deep and profound remorse” for his actions and took responsibility for them. He said he found the victim to be an “extremely talented” working professional who he considered “equal to me and my friends.”In court records reviewed by The New York Times, prosecutors said Mr. Peck sexually abused the teenager over a period of four months in 2001 and 2002. Mr. Peck was 41 and the victim was identified as being 15 years old.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mark Dodson, Voice of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Gremlins’ Characters, Dies at 64

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      He voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt in “Return of the Jedi,” as well as Mogwai in both “Gremlins” films.Mark Dodson, who voiced strange puppet creatures in “Star Wars,” including Salacious B. Crumb, the cackling monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt, and “Gremlins” films, died on Saturday. He was 64.His death was confirmed in statements on social media by his agent, Peter DeLorme, and the Evansville Horror Con, the Indiana fan convention where he had been scheduled to appear over the weekend. No cause of death was given.Mr. Dodson’s voice acting career began in 1983 on “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” when he voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the court jester of Jabba the Hutt that was known for its maniacal laugh, as well as some of the furry forest creatures known as Ewoks.In a 2020 interview with “Screaming Soup!,” Mr. Dodson explained how he had gotten the Crumb role by accident.He was auditioning for Adm. Ackbar, a leader during the Clone Wars, but was so nervous that he asked for a break to compose himself, he said. He was then overheard using a deranged voice that the casting director thought was perfect for Crumb.That led Mr. Dodson to voice several of the Mogwai in “Gremlins,” the 1984 comedy-horror film about a young man who accidentally unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town on Christmas Eve.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More