The nominations for the 2020 Academy Awards came out last week and the usual uproar followed. For this edition of Movies on the Radio, we asked listeners, staff, and film experts Laura Boyes and Marsha Gordon which Oscar nods they agree or disagree with.
Remakes and revisions topped many of the categories, from “Little Women” to “Joker” and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” 2019 brought fresh eyes to familiar characters. Meanwhile “Dark Waters,” “Uncut Gems” and Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” portrayed class violence as alternately surreal, gory and inevitable. Host Frank Stasio, Gordon and Boyes discuss how cinema reflects on the fears and zeitgeist of 2019. Gordon is a film professor at North Carolina State University and a fellow at the National Humanities Center. Boyes is the film curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art and the curator of the Moviediva series at the Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham.
Gordon will host a screening of a curated collection entitled “Up Close and Personal: Challenging Prejudice in 1960’s Documentary” at the Varsity Theatre in Chapel Hill on Monday, Feb. 10 at 7 p.m. Boyes will host a screening of “Possessed” (1931) at the Carolina Theatre in Durham on Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. and “Keeper of the Flame” (1942) at the NCMA on Sunday, Feb. 9 at 2 p.m.