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- Oscars 2016: How Academy Voters Are Being Dragged Into the 21st Century
- Natalie Cole, Grammy-Winning Singer, Dead at 65
- 11 Underrated TV Actors Who Deserve All the Praise
| Oscars 2016: How Academy Voters Are Being Dragged Into the 21st Century Posted:  The Academy's voters are often derided as being old and out of touch. But they're being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.Whether they want to or not, awards voters are being forced to contend with new technology, not just in the film's themselves, but even in their own judgment and voting processes. But they're also finding that the new ways are not all they're cracked up to be, especially in a year full of cinematic throwbacks. On Wednesday, December 30, the Academy opened its private website to its members for online voting. It had mailed out paper ballots days earlier, but the organization would really like to modernize the process and get its members to vote over the Internet. "Encourage your colleagues to join you by voting online. Paper ballot delivery is not reliable -- every year, many paper ballots are left uncounted," Academy CEO Dawn Hudson wrote in a recent e-mail to voters. Given how wide-open many of the category races are this year, and how few votes it takes to actually earn a nomination (as few as 315 of the 6,261 members need to cite a movie as a favorite for it to secure a Best Picture slot), every vote really does matter. And because of the rush-rush awards calendar, Oscar voters have only 10 days to fill out those ballots, which are due back by January 8. So voters who don't want to risk having their paper ballots arrive late in the mail really do have to go online.  But not everything about the migration of the awards season to the Internet is running smoothly. Over at the Screen Actors Guild, the private website the voters use to stream some of the nominated films crashed last weekend for two crucial days as the SAG Awards voters were trying to pick winners. Among the film's affected were such little-seen titles as "Beasts of No Nation," "The Big Short," "The Revenant," and "99 Homes," as well as modest box office hits "Bridge of Spies," "Black Mass," and "Spotlight,"It's long been a common practice for campaigning studios to send DVD screeners to voters, but the makers of "Black Mass," "Revenant," "99 Homes," and "Bridge of Spies" weren't planning to do so because they were relying on the streaming site. To the extent that the SAGs have an influence on the Oscars -- there's some voter overlap between the two groups, and the late-January SAG Awards ceremony is held while Academy members are voting for winners among the nominees -- the streaming blackout could affect the chances of both front-runners (Best Actor favorite Leonardo DiCaprio for "Revenant," Best Supporting Actor leader Mark Rylance for "Bridge of Spies") and those who could really use the attention (Supporting Actor long-shot Michael Shannon in "99 Homes," Best Actor candidate Johnny Depp in "Black Mass," and the entire casts of "Beasts," "Spotlight," and "Short").  The paradox in this drive to make awards screenings and voting digital is that many of this year's most noteworthy films are self-conscious throwbacks to earlier movies, earlier eras, and earlier technologies. The "Star Wars" prequels may have ushered in the era of digital shooting and projection, but J.J. Abrams made a point of shooting Best Picture candidate "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" on old-school celluloid film, in part to give the movie the same feel as the original trilogy from nearly 40 years ago. Quentin Tarantino has been talking non-stop for a year about how important it was for him to shoot "The Hateful Eight" on celluloid, too, and made a point of screening the movie last week in old-school 70MM at 100 retrofitted theaters around the country. Another old-fashioned western, "The Revenant," made a point of shooting with only natural light. "Mad Max: Fury Road" isn't just the revival of a 30-years-dormant franchise; it's also shot using low-tech special effects, without CGI."Brooklyn" is an old-fashioned romantic drama that obeys narrative conventions at least as old as its 1950s setting. Similarly, 1950s-set "Carol" is shot in a way that recalls Douglas Sirk's Technicolor romantic dramas of that era. "Bridge of Spies," a Cold War spy thriller set in 1960, wears its old-fashioned-ness on its sleeve. Journalism procedural "Spotlight" echoes a 1976 Best Picture nominee about investigative reporters who uncover a vast, real-life scandal, "All the President's Men." And "Creed" depends on nostalgia for 1976's Best Picture winner, "Rocky." The most forward-looking movie in the awards race, "The Martian," could be seen as a film about a hero who actually uses science and technology to solve his problems and stay alive. Its director, 78-year-old Ridley Scott, has heartily embraced new technology and choose to shoot the film with state-of-the-art 3D cameras. Then again, he's been making movies about stranded astronauts since "Alien" 36 years ago. And he's never won an Oscar, not even for Best Picture winner "Gladiator" 15 years ago, so many of his peers may consider a win for him for "The Martian" as a redressing of past wrongs. No matter how much the Academy wants to look toward the future, it'll be forced to reckon with the past as well. %Slideshow-267635% This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Natalie Cole, Grammy-Winning Singer, Dead at 65 Posted:  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Natalie Cole, the Grammy-winning daughter of Nat "King" Cole who carried on her late father's musical legacy and, through technology, shared a duet with him on "Unforgettable," has died. She was 65.Natalie died Thursday evening at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles due to compilations from ongoing health issues, her family said in a statement. "Natalie fought a fierce, courageous battle, dying how she lived ... with dignity, strength and honor. Our beloved Mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain UNFORGETTABLE in our hearts forever," read the statement from her son Robert Yancy and sisters Timolin and Casey Cole. Cole had battled drug problems and hepatitis that forced her to undergo a kidney transplant in May 2009. Cole's older sister, Carol "Cookie" Cole, died the day she received the transplant. Their brother, Nat Kelly Cole, died in 1995. Natalie Cole was inspired by her dad at an early age and auditioned to sing with him when she was just 11 years old. She was 15 when he died of lung cancer, in 1965. She began as an R&B singer but later gravitated toward the smooth pop and jazz standards that her father loved. Cole's greatest success came with her 1991 album, "Unforgettable ... With Love," which paid tribute to her father with reworked versions of some of his best-known songs, including "That Sunday That Summer," ''Too Young" and "Mona Lisa." Her voice was spliced with her dad's in the title cut, offering a delicate duet a quarter-century after his death. The album sold some 14 million copies and won six Grammys, including album of the year as well record and song of the year for the title track duet. While making the album, Cole told The Associated Press in 1991, she had to "throw out every R&B lick that I had ever learned and every pop trick I had ever learned. With him, the music was in the background and the voice was in the front." "I didn't shed really any real tears until the album was over," Cole said. "Then I cried a whole lot. When we started the project it was a way of reconnecting with my dad. Then when we did the last song, I had to say goodbye again." She was also nominated for an Emmy award in 1992 for a televised performance of her father's songs. "That was really my thank you," she told People magazine in 2006. "I owed that to him." Another father-daughter duet, "When I Fall in Love," won a 1996 Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals, and a follow-up album, "Still Unforgettable," won for best traditional pop vocal album of 2008. Cole made her recording debut in 1975 with "Inseparable." The music industry welcomed her with two Grammy awards — one for best new artist and one for best female R&B vocal performance for her buoyant hit "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)." She also worked as an actress, with appearances on TV's "Touched by an Angel" and "Grey's Anatomy." But she was happiest touring and performing live. "I still love recording and still love the stage," she said on her website in 2008, "but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band." Cole was born in 1950 to Nat "King" Cole and his wife, Maria Ellington Cole, a onetime vocalist with Duke Ellington who was no relation to the great bandleader. Her father was already a recording star, and he rose to greater heights in the 1950s and early '60s. He toured worldwide, and in 1956 he became the first black entertainer to host a national TV variety show, though poor ratings and lack of sponsors killed it off the following year. He also appeared in a few movies and spoke out in favor of civil rights. Natalie Cole grew up in Los Angeles' posh Hancock Park neighborhood, where her parents had settled in 1948 despite animosity from some white residents about having the black singer as a neighbor. When told by residents didn't want "undesirable people" in the area, the singer said, "Neither do I, and if I see (any), I'll be the first to complain." The family eventually included five children. Natalie Cole started singing seriously in college, performing in small clubs. But in her 2000 autobiography, "Angel on My Shoulder," Cole discussed how she had battled heroin, crack cocaine and alcohol addiction for many years. She spent six months in rehab in 1983. When she announced in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, a liver disease spread through contact with infected blood, she blamed her past intravenous drug use. She criticized the Recording Academy for giving five Grammys to drug user Amy Winehouse in 2008. "I'm an ex-drug addict and I don't take that kind of stuff lightly," Cole explained at the 2009 Grammy Awards. Hepatitis C "stayed in my body for 25 years and it could still happen to this young woman or other addicts who are fooling around with drugs, especially needles." Cole received chemotherapy to treat the hepatitis and "within four months, I had kidney failure," she told CNN's Larry King in 2009. She needed dialysis three times a week until she received a donor kidney on May 18, 2009. The organ procurement agency One Legacy facilitated the donation from a family that had requested that their donor's organ go to Cole if it was a match. Cole toured through much of her illness, often receiving dialysis at hospitals around the globe. "I think that I am a walking testimony to you can have scars," she told People magazine. "You can go through turbulent times and still have victory in your life." %Slideshow-316902% This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 11 Underrated TV Actors Who Deserve All the Praise Posted: %Slideshow-349122% With so much television, it's no surprise that some awesome performances get lost in the shuffle. Even if those performances are OMG-worthy enough to make us cry until we laugh... or laugh until we cry. These are the 11 most underrated television performances that deserve some praise.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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