Oscar and Memory Lane

Now that Alfonso Cuaron has won the Oscar ™ for directing GRAVITY, I hope people will take a look at his previous work, including CHILDREN OF MEN. It’s an exquisite film, but one that has gotten a little lost in the shuffle, rarely mentioned alongside HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN and Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. I’m not sure why that is. It’s a provocative, suspenseful, and, besides, a wonderfully entertaining film about what happens to the world when people lose the ability to reproduce.

I had the pleasure of talking to him for CHILDREN, and you can hear my interview here.

Lupita Nyong’o won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar ™ for her very first feature film. When I met her last year, what impressed me most was they way she wore her sense of self-assurance with such ease. And then there was that vibrant mind. 12 YEARS A SLAVE is a film that wrings tears as it proves that the human spirit can be bent, but not broken. When we spoke, it was of necessity a serious conversation, but when she described the way New Orleans, where the film played to the descendants of many of the people depicted in the film, there were both tears and smiles. She, like the film itself, damns the worst that is in us, but also celebrates what is best. With all the fine films nominated this year, for me that’s why this is the one that took home the statuette.

You can listen to our conversation here.

And finally, what could compare to talking with Merry Clayton and Tata Vega from this year’s Oscar(tm)-winner for Best Documentary, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM? A roller coaster ride with a raging gospel beat comes close. Merry, a diva of divas, dominated the conversation, but when Tata spoke, it was with a spirituality that transcended religion as she recounted the lessons she learned from her brief time in the spotlight, and why politics and faulty business models did in her solo career. The ladies were kind enough to allow the film’s director, Morgan Neville, to get in a few words at the end, and as he did, you could see that having spend time documenting these ladies hasn’t left him any less star-struck.

You can listen in here.