Throwing back to the week of February 18, 1984, we find Culture Club atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Karma Chameleon.’
At #2, and on its way to a five-week stint at #1, was Van Halen’s ‘Jump.’ This was the rock band’s only #1 single, and the only top ten single of the David Lee Roth era. The Sammy Hagar incarnation would reach the top five twice over the next several years.
Throwing back to the week of February 16, 1974, we find Barbra Streisand atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘The Way We Were,’ the theme song from her movie of the same name.
In addition to topping the charts for three non-consecutive weeks that year, ‘The Way We Were’ took home an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and the Grammy for Song of the Year. Streisand was also nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Actress, the last time the Best Song winner was performed by a nominated actress until Lady Gaga repeated the feat with 2018’s A Star is Born.
Concluding my rundown of personal 2023 Oscar nominations, today I’ll look at the Best Director category.
Great movie direction is even harder to assess than great movie acting. How do you weigh the wide range of skill sets needed to successfully helm a movie, whether it’s working with the actors, deciding where to put the camera and when to move it, or setting the overall tone of the piece?
Continuing my rundown of personal 2023 Oscar nominations, today I’ll look at the Best Actress category.
This year’s Oscar race is shaping up to be an exciting showdown between three very different but equally strong performances. All three made it into my lineup as well.
My honorable mentions include Julia Louis Dreyfus’s meaty turn in Nicole Holofcener’s You Hurt My Feelings and Natalie Portman’s mesmerizing performance in Todd Haynes’ May/December. I also have to mention the duo of Ayo Edibri and Rachel Sennot in Emma Seligman’s hilarious Bottoms.
Continuing my rundown of personal 2023 Oscar nominations, today I’ll look at the Best Actor category.
I found this group had less depth than most of the others, so I have only two honorable mentions to call out. One is Michael Fassbender, who brought an icy cool — but also a dash of parody — to the titular role in David Fincher’s The Killer. The other is Jason Schwartzman, who had an excellent year overall and did some of his best work yet in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.
Meet Me In Montauk 