Academy Award

CHICAGO – My portrait of Liza Minnelli is one of my favorites not just for what appears in frame, but equally for the story of what happened after the shutter was clicked. This was back in 1992, when my focus was on Rock and Roll photojournalism, and I had been granted access to Liza through Tower Records in Chicago. She was promoting her “Live From Radio City Music Hall” release.

CHICAGO – The great advantage of film festivals this year, if we’re to see a silver lining, is that most of the offerings are available to a wider audience via online virtual screenings. The 37th Chicago International Children’s Film Festival will be virtual/online and available to children of all ages from November 13th-22nd, 2020.

CHICAGO – In a sense of deja vu from the recent Golden Globe Awards, the nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards has been named on January 13th, 2020. This breaks a precedent of the last ten years, with the Oscar ceremony moved up to February 9th from it’s usual position in late February to early March.

CHICAGO – One of the more pleasant surprises of the 2018 film year was the rise of the connectively expressive film “Roma,” written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Not only is it nominated for Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director at the 91st Academy Awards, but the two lead actresses – Yalitza Aparicio and Maria de Tavira – are nominated for Best Actress and Supporting Actress. Jon Lennon Espino, contributor at HollywoodChicago.com, interviewed both actresses last October at the 54th Chicago International Film Festival.

CHICAGO – All through the 2019 Oscar Week, HollywoodChicago.com will rerun significant articles from 2018 that feature the nominees associated with Sunday’s Academy Award ceremony. Today is a Podtalk with director Bing Liu, who was the filmmaker behind a Best Documentary Feature nominee, “Minding the Gap.” The film seems to be a nostalgic profile of Liu’s youth in Rockford, Illinois, as he goes back to his hometown to explore the skateboarding culture that kept him balanced while growing up in a difficult home environment. What he found out about himself was an organic reveal in the film, both shocking and cathartic.

CHICAGO – Chicago’s Kartemquin Films continues their winning streak, as director Bing Liu’s “Minding the Gap” scores an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. The 91st Academy Awards will take place on February 24th, 2019.

CHICAGO – Writer Neil Simon was an American treasure, and created humor that anchored his often neurotic characters into our consciousness. From his early days in 1950s TV (“Your Show of Shows”) to winning a 1990s Pulitzer Prize for “Lost in Yonkers,” he refined and produced “the laugh.” Simon died on August 26th, 2018, at age 91, in New York City.

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Actor Tom Lenk on the Red Carpet at ‘a Night with the Oscar.’

CHICAGO – It was super finery and ultimate glam at the Park West in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood on Academy Awards night, March 4th, 2018, where “a Night with Oscar” took place. The event, which was a benefit for Center on Halsted and presented by Comcast/NBCUniversal, combined food, drink, Red Carpet and Oscar viewing revelry with information about the support that Center on Halsted provides for the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago. The event was co-hosted by variety of local notables, including Lee Ann Trotter, who covers entertainment for the local NBC5 news.

CHICAGO – Glamour, glitz, fun and the Academy Awards will be an event at the Park West in Chicago, as Comcast/NBCUniversal Presents “a Night with Oscar” on Sunday, March 4th, 2018, a benefit for Center on Halsted. The Academy Awards Viewing Party will feature a Live Red Carpet Arrival with Special Guests, Silent Auction/Raffle, Best Dressed Competition, and a full Open Bar/Buffet. For more information and link to tickets, click here.

CHICAGO – One of the surprise hits of 2017 was a film based on a true life courtship incident, that the now husband and wife – Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon – fashioned into a comedy. “The Big Sick” is nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and the duo behind it talked to HollywoodChicago.com last summer.