Be Kind Rewind

In this video I talk about Harvey Weinstein's legacy at the Oscars and use Shakespeare in Love/Gwyneth Paltrow's wins as a case study for his strategy. I also talk about why he sucks.

In 2002 Halle Berry became the first and so far only woman of color to win the Best Actress Oscar. This video examines why it took so long and the legacy of Halle’s win as it relates to actresses today.

Olivia Colman won the Best Actress Oscar for The Favourite! People (including myself) thought this was an upset, so I thought I'd put in my two cents on the matter. Here's a little bit of a less formal take on how I think all this happened.

There are more places to watch movies than ever! In this video, I outline how we got to this point, from Supreme Court decisions, to the rise of television, streaming services, and beyond!

Meryl Streep is frequently called the greatest actress of her generation. She's a box office queen with more Oscar nominations than any other actor. What is it about her that is so great and how did she do it?

They both started on the stage. Both dated Howard Hughes. Both became famous at RKO. Both starred in movies that take place in Philadelphia. Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn often met the same milestones, despite taking wildly different paths. In this video, I mirror their journeys to show how they shared a determination that made them legendary.

When reviewing The Blind Side for the Telegraph, Sukhdev Sandu wrote “Just because the story is true doesn’t make it real.” Director John Lee Hancock chose to frame the film about a black teen who became a football star around his white benefactors, and in doing so may have actually contributed to Sandra Bullock’s Oscar win in 2010 for Best Actress. In this video, I show you how.

80 years ago, Gone With The Wind took America by storm...with Vivien Leigh leading the charge. Her performance is considered one of the greatest in film history, but so much had to happen for her to get that role. In this video, I talk about the notoriously extensive process of casting Scarlett O'Hara and why Vivien Leigh's Oscar was so well deserved.

In 1986, Geraldine Page won an Oscar after having lost 7 times. Meanwhile Whoopi Goldberg had a breakout role in the Color Purple. In this video I talk about what happened.

In 2003, 3 of the 5 Best Actress nominees all made films with Miramax. All three had different experiences. In this video I talk about Nicole Kidman's journey to Virginia Woolf in The Hours, how Harvey Weinstein affected the race, and what we can learn from this year today.

Part review, part history, part script doctor, fully me stanning.

Sissy Spacek won an Oscar for playing Loretta Lynn in a biopic - a genre that is growing in popularity. In this video I break down the history of the genre and how it can affect an actor's career.

Anna Magnani broke Hollywood’s traditional notion of stardom by devoting herself to authenticity. In 1956, she became the first Italian actress to win the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in The Rose Tattoo. In this video I discuss why!

In this video, I take a look at the American major motion picture adaptations of Little Women to understand how they have changed over time (this is me acknowledging that I'm not *actually* comparing every version of Little Women). How does a 150 year old text remain relevant? And how have different filmmakers found new ways to tell this story?