Arts Friday | Netflix Takes Over the Oscars in 2021

October 16, 2020A & E, Arts Friday, Cinema, Media, Netflix, Television, Video & DVD, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

In 2019, Netflix landed its first Oscar nomination for Best Picture with the release of Alfonso Cuarón’s critically acclaimed Roma. A year later, the streaming service was leading the field with 24 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture nods for both The Irishman and Marriage Story.
As Netflix’s impact on the world of cinema became increasingly undeniable, the younger and more diverse film academy was no longer prepared to shun the streaming service as the old Hollywood guard tried to do. Earlier this year, on April 28th, responding to the changes that COVID-19 had wrought, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences removed the stipulation that a movie must be shown in a theatre before it could become eligible for the coveted Best Picture Oscar nomination.
And thus the stage was set for an Oscar ceremony in 2021 the likes of which no one will have ever seen before, with at least seven Netflix releases eligible for a Best Picture nomination, with each of those films set for Oscar nominations, ranging from Best Actor and Actress, Supporting Actress and Actor, to Best Director, Music, Sound and technical awards.
Today on VanRamblings, the Netflix features set to dominate Oscars 2021.

For the upcoming Academy Awards — delayed due to the pandemic until Sunday, April 25th — Netflix has pulled out all the stops. Already streaming, there’s Spike Lee’s Best Picture contender Da 5 Bloods, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s well-mounted action thriller The Old Guard, and Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay contender, I’m Thinking of Ending Things.
And, available today on Netflix, there’s writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 which is, as Variety lead critic Owen Gleiberman writes, “a knockout, and the rare drama about the 1960s that’s powerful, authentic and moving enough to feel as if it were taking place today, a briskly paced and immersive film bristling with Sorkin’s distinctive verbal fusillades, a cinematic powder keg of film with a serious message that seamlessly blends a conventional yet compelling courtroom procedural with protest reenactments and documentary footage, the film offering an absorbing primer of a ruefully meaningful period in American history.”

Due to arrive on Netflix on Tuesday, November 24th — on the eve of American Thanksgiving — director Ron Howard’s big budget film adaptation of J.D. Vance’s autobiographical best-seller, Hillbilly Elegy offers a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town, that also provides broader, probing insight into the struggles of America’s white working class.
A passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis, Glenn Close and Amy Adams are at the centre of Howard’s film, and solid prospects for Best Actress and Best Supporting Oscar nods. Howard will be in the mix, as well.

Netflix will release David Fincher’s Mank in select theatres in November before the black-and-white film begins streaming on December 4th.
The Hollywood-centric period piece follows alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (certain Best Actor nominee Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay for Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane. That classic picture was fraught with behind the scenes drama, as Mankiewicz and Welles argued over credit and who wrote what, which became even more important once the film won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
The original script for Mank was written by Fincher’s father, Jack Fincher, so this project certainly means a lot to the filmmaker. Mank boasts a running time of 2 hours and 11 minutes, so it won’t be quite as long as Zodiac or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, not that Fincher ever wastes a single frame. The film is expected to be a major awards contender for Netflix.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. George C. Wolfe directs, Denzel Washington produces, and Oscar-winner Viola Davis (Fences) stars as Ma Rainey in Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s adaptation of the hit August Wilson Broadway play. The late Chadwick Boseman and If Beale Street Could Talk star Colman Domingo play members of Rainey’s ’20s jazz band.
Awards prospects: Ambitious trumpeter Levee was 43-year-old Boseman’s final role before succumbing to his private battle with colon cancer in August; he looks rail thin in film stills. Posthumous Oscars went to Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) and Peter Finch (Network) among others. In this case, with the beloved Black Panther star also in the running for his supporting role as a U.S. Army soldier in Vietnam in the Spike Lee joint, Da 5 Bloods, many believe that it’s likely Boseman will wind up in the Best Actor category for Ma Rainey, with Davis as Best Actress. Like Mank, the elaborate period setting should be attractive to Academy craft branches.
Release date: In theatres early December, streams on Netflix December 18.

Oscar-winner and Hollywood icon George Clooney directs The Midnight Sky, a sci-fi thriller with a script by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) based on the Lily Brooks-Dalton novel about an Arctic scientist (Clooney) attempting to warn a NASA spaceship astronaut (Felicity Jones) not to return to doomed planet Earth. Awards prospects: Netflix took advantage of the London Film Festival this month (October 2 – 18) with a tribute to Clooney, complete with clips. Critical reaction will determine whether The Midnight Sky will figure in the Oscar sweepstakes, but Clooney (Syriana) has delivered in the past, as has Oscar-nominated Jones (Theory of Everything).
Release date: In theatres early December, Netflix début to be announced.

#BC Poli | 9 Days to Go, Will It Be a Tiny Majority or an NDP Rout?

October 15, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Although post-debate polls are not in as of this writing, John Horgan’s New Democratic Party still seems destined to form a majority government once the last vote is counted following the closure of the polls at 8pm Saturday, October 24th. The question is: how big a majority government will it be?
Coming out of the 2017 provincial election, the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. New Democrats were virtually tied in the popular vote, and exactly tied in the number of seats: 41. There was then, and there remains today, 87 seats in the British Columbia legislature. In order to form government, a party needs 44 seats. Should the New Democrats hold on to their current seats, and gain just three more seats, John Horgan will return as B.C.’s 36th Premier, with a minimum of 44 seats. Chances are he’ll get a lot more.
Polling for the New Democratic Party is strongest on Vancouver Island and across the Lower Mainland. Vancouver-False Creek candidate Brenda Bailey is expected to find herself in the win column once all the votes are counted. When the B.C. legislature was dissolved back in September, the New Democrats held 16 of 20 seats across the Metro Vancouver region.

Rumour has it, too, that environmentalist NDP candidate in Vancouver-Langara, Tesicca Truong, could very well take incumbent BC Liberal Mike Lee’s seat away from him, with Mr. Lee already preparing for a bid to run as Mayor in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election, or so VanRamblings was told earlier in the week by a highly-placed B.C. Liberal apparatchik.
As Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith wrote last evening, “There’s a reasonable chance that after the October 24 election, the NDP will hold 18 of the 20 seats in the Burrard Peninsula.” The other seat the BC NDP are almost assured of winning: ex-federal MP Fin Donnelly, running in the provincial riding of Coquitlam-Burke Mountain, a seat won by B.C. Liberal MLA Joan Isaacs in a squeaker, with a bare margin of only 87 votes.

Polling is so strong for John Horgan and the New Democratic Party across the Metro Vancouver region that the NDP is expected to take away three more seats from the BC Liberals, once all the votes have been counted. In 2017, BC Liberal Jas Johal barely won the Richmond-Queensborough riding, taking only 116 more votes than his NDP opponent. One can see why both Mr. Horgan and BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson are spending an inordinate amount of time in Richmond this election cycle — with Mr. Horgan recently announcing “a far larger, far grander, far more ambitious” Richmond Hospital expansion than had been announced in 2018.

Over on Vancouver Island, long time Oak Bay resident and former Victoria MP, Murray Rankin, is the sure-to-win Oak Bay-Gordon Head NDP candidate in the current provincial election, given that former BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver — who held the seat from 2013 through the dropping of the writ in September — is on the campaign trail for the affable and accomplished Mr. Rankin, making his win a New Democratic Party gimme.
Given her debate performance on Tuesday evening, VanRamblings is giving newly-elected BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau even odds of retaining her Cowichan Valley riding — although the BC NDP have poured massive resources into the traditionally strong NDP riding these past three years, the least of which includes the construction of a new Cowichan District Hospital, announced on July 6th, 2018. Not to mention which, popular two-term North Cowichan municipal Councillor, Rob Douglas, has proven to be a much more formidable challenger than was Ms. Furstenau’s NDP opponent in 2017, Lori Lynn Iannidinardo, in what turned out to be a neck-and-neck race, where Ms. Furstenau just eked out a win. Note should be made, too, that much of Ms. Furstenau’s vote came from disaffected BC Liberals — a prospect unlikely to be the case in the 2020 provincial election.
VanRamblings is being kind to Andrew Wilkinson’s BC Liberals, by predicting that Michelle Stilwell will hold onto her Parksville-Qualicum seat, although that’s far from a certainty. Otherwise, Vancouver Island will be awash in a sea of orange save, perhaps, Ms. Furstenau in the Cowichan Valley, and Adam Olsen, Green Party incumbent in Saanich North and the Islands.

Nicole Halbauer, British Columbia New Democratic Party 2020 candidate, Skeena riding

According to insider major political party polling, in the North, recent Chair of the Board of Directors at Coast Mountain College, Nicole Halbauer, a longtime, passionate advocate for increased health services in the North, is expected to put the Skeena riding into the win column for the BC NDP, by handily defeating one term B.C. Liberal, Ellis Ross, once all the votes are counted, taking back a seat for the NDP, a traditional stronghold riding for the New Democratic Party, dating back to the early nineteen seventies.

First Nations lawyer Aaron Sumexheltza, the BC NDP candidate in Fraser-Nicola.

In the riding of Fraser-Nicola, the BC NDP’s Aaron Sumexheltza is not only expected to win his south central Okanagan seat — a take away from BC Liberal incumbent Jackie Tegart — but be appointed to a Horgan Cabinet.

Meanwhile, in Columbia River-Revelstoke, BC NDP candidate Nicole Cherlet, a popular, activist Revelstoke City Councillor since 2018, who has also served as the president of the Revelstoke Chamber of Commerce, is widely expected to regain the traditional NDP seat from BC Liberal incumbent Doug Clovechok, first elected in 2017, who took the Columbia-Shuswap seat by the slimmest of margins.
In Boundary-Similkameen, Roly Russell, Regional District of Kootenay-Boundary director for rural Grand Forks is widely expected to reclaim the southeast BC riding for the NDP, from BC Liberal newcomer Petra Veintimilla, on leave as an Oliver councillor, following the retirement of BC Liberal incumbent (who could read the writing on the wall), Linda Larson.

The foofaraw directly above aside, John Horgan’s BC New Democratic Party are all but assured a win once all the mail-in ballots are counted somewhere around November 10th.
For Andrew Wilkinson’s BC Liberals, it’s been one bozo eruption after another, from North Vancouver-Seymour’s Jane Thornthwaite’s sexist rant about North Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP incumbent Bowinn Ma, to Abbotsford candidate Bruce Banman when Mayor ordering chicken manure to be thrown onto a homeless encampment, to Langley East candidate and Langley Township Councillor Margaret Kunst voting against the painting of a rainbow crosswalk, to Chilliwack-Kent incumbent candidate Laurie Throness’ “perceived homophobic and transphobic views” (Update: as of 2pm this afternoon, BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson accepted the resignation of controversial Chilliwack-Kent candidate Laurie Throness). The list goes on and on for poor Mr. Wilkinson, whose once thriving B.C. Liberal party could very well find their seat count in the British Columbia Legislature reduced to as few as 17 seats. No, these are not happy times for the BC Liberals.

VanRamblings is back on Monday with a report on why the 2020 British Columbia provincial election is so much different than the 2013 B.C. election, when Christy Clark scored a come from behind victory on May 9th. Ain’t gonna happen in 2020 lemme tell ya. Read why on Monday.

#BC Poli | 10 Days to Go, NDP Remain Set to Form Government

October 14, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Following last night’s British Columbia Leaders’ Debate — where little of consequence occurred — John Horgan and the B.C. New Democratic Party remain on track to form our province’s next, majority government.

On points I'll give it to @SoniaFurstenau . On the big picture, @jjhorgan wins because Andrew Wilkinson couldn't really land a punch. He had to make up enormous ground, and I doubt the needle moved much, if at all. @SoniaFurstenau just may have saved her seat tonight.

— Keith Baldrey (@keithbaldrey) October 14, 2020

B.C. Liberal and B.C. NDP internal polls show B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau and her colleague, Adam Olsen, running a distant third in their respective Vancouver Island ridings. Perhaps Global BC legislative reporter Keith Baldrey is right when he states that, arising from her heartfelt performance in the debate, Ms. Furstenau “just may have saved her seat”.
We won’t likely know whether Ms. Furstenau will be returned to the Legislature until the last mail-in ballot is counted, most probably on Tuesday, November 10th. Certainly, Ms. Furstenau did no damage to the Green cause in British Columbia, reason enough for Green celebration.

As for B.C. Liberal Party leader, Andrew Wilkinson, his calm and not-at-all hesitant presentation did him no harm, but as Mr. Baldrey points out, he “couldn’t really land a punch”, so for Mr. Wilkinson, the debate result was at best a draw, neither good nor bad, but adequate for the task at hand.
Unfortunate for Andrew Wilkinson, though, throughout the first three weeks of the campaign, the B.C. NDP have successfully been able to define the B.C. Liberal Party leader as “working for his (rich) friends”, more prone to cutting taxes for the yacht class than implementing any government policy designed to serve the interests of working people across our province.

Tonight wasn't bad for Andrew Wilkinson.

But it wasn't great either, and in an election where the NDP are up big in the polls with 11 days to go, that's not enough. https://t.co/w3sw5HGD7u

— Justin McElroy (@j_mcelroy) October 14, 2020

And no matter how many times the B.C. Liberal leader “mentioned” that he was a doctor, at no point was Mr. Wilkinson able to assuage voter concerns that he was anything other than a compliant tool for the billionaire class.

So, where does that leave us 10 days out from election day, October 24th? Answer: with the very real prospect of a majority B.C. NDP government.
Although the polls may tighten a bit before election day, overall one has to believe that the people of B.C. are, overall, satisfied with the performance of the John Horgan-led B.C. New Democratic Party government, since they formed power in July 2017, and aren’t about to change horses in mid-stream. Health care and the COVID-19 pandemic remain the top-of-mind concerns for most British Columbians — on that front, Adrian Dix and Dr. Bonnie Henry have performed superbly, with the support of an ebullient Premier John Horgan throughout, as his government sought to steadily increase funding for health care, build Urgent Care Centres across the province, implement policies that would pay long term and assisted living care workers more, when combined with Mr. Horgan’s promise to not only build a new full-service hospital in Cloverdale, but fund the creation a second Lower Mainland medical school at the Simon Fraser University campus in Surrey, only serves to reassure British Columbians right across our province that a John Horgan-led B.C. NDP government has their best interests at heart. And that, folks, is what — mid-pandemic — leads a John Horgan-led British Columbia New Democratic Party to form a comfortable, activist, working class, 2nd term majority government post November 10th.
More tomorrow on VanRamblings, when we’ll publish our very conservative election outcome seat count. We’ll see you then.

#BC Poli | With Only 11 Days to Go, Do the NDP Have It in The Bag?

October 13, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

The tenor of the 2020 British Columbia election campaign changed on Saturday afternoon when This is VANCOLOUR podcast host Mo Amir published / leaked a damning video in which B.C. Liberal party “leader” Andrew Wilkinson sat mute during a Zoom “roast” of outgoing B.C. Liberal MLA Ralph Sultan that inappropriately and egregiously sought to overtly sexualize a collegial relationship of respect regarding incumbent North Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP candidate Bowinn Ma, and octogenarian Sultan.

I’m not going to editorialize this.

Rather, I’d like to hear from women on how they feel about this clip.

I’m sharing because a woman reached out to me and asked me to do so (her email in below tweet).#bcpoli pic.twitter.com/AiDwFmBT7F

— Mo Amir ? This is VANCOLOUR (@vancolour) October 11, 2020

Prior to the release of the offensive video, Wilkinson’s woebegone B.C. Liberal campaign — with the party a steady 18 points behind in the polls to John Horgan’s New Democratic Party — the right-of-centre British Columbia provincial political party was already in dire trouble, particularly with women and persons of colour, and with a series of ill-conceived “election promises” — ranging from the poor reception to the party’s PST elimination / reduction proposal, that former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell’s long-serving chief of staff Martyn Brown wrote would bankrupt the province, to Mr. Wilkinson’s ill-conceived plan to private ICBC, a notion that Vancouver Point-Grey MLA David Eby — the minister in charge of ICBC — called “ludicrous”, which Mr. Eby said would eliminate the 20% premium insurance discount for drivers due to come into effect in 2021 with a re-elected New Democratic Party government — the B.C. Liberal party was already fighting an uphill battle to gain any degree of credibility with the electorate in 2021.

Chances are that the tale of the British Columbia 2020 provincial election campaign will be told tonight, beginning at 6:30pm, and televised for 90 minutes across the province on Global BC and CBC TV, and broadcast on CBC radio and CKNW-affiliated radio stations across British Columbia.
No doubt, incumbent North Vancouver-Seymour B.C. Liberal candidate Jane Thornthwaite’s “gaffe”, relating to the unfortunate remarks she made in the video above, will become a defining feature of tonight’s BC election debate.

Leger Poll, Oct. 9, 2020 | “BC NDP maintain a commanding lead” | Vancouver Sun

For many, this evening’s B.C. 2020 Election Debate will be the first time voters in our province will become acquainted with both Andrew Wilkinson, and new, and recently-elected B.C. Green Party leader, Sonia Furstenau. As Premier of the province for the past 39 months, John Horgan is already a known quantity. The outcome of the current election hangs in the balance.
Here’s an abridged version of what Vancouver Sun legislative reporter Rob Shaw wrote in a piece published yesterday …

Sonia Furstenau | B.C. Greens

Furstenau enters as the leader with nothing to lose. The Greens are facing the very real prospect of being wiped off the electoral map.

Furstenau is likely to portray the Liberals and NDP as tired old unimaginative parties unwilling to envision a bold, clean, Green economy. As such, she’ll strike out at both leaders on the issues of climate, environmental protection, child care and the Site C dam.

The only risk to her performance is if the NDP and Liberal leaders become so preoccupied with attacking each other, they squeeze her out of the spotlight. Furstenau’s public profile outside of Vancouver Island and Metro Vancouver remains very low.

John Horgan | B.C. NDP

Horgan has, by far, the most to lose in Tuesday’s debate.

The NDP debate strategy is mainly about protecting the Horgan brand developed over 3.5 years in office: The jovial, calm, pragmatic leader, who drops dad jokes and Star Trek references. He’s the most popular Premier in Canada, and the NDP has built its entire re-election campaign around him, personally.

Helping Horgan’s cause is the fact that NDP is the only party to release a full platform before Tuesday. He has ample material from which to make his case to voters, including his platform’s marquee promise of up to $1,000 tax-free cash for families to help with COVID-19 recovery.

Andrew Wilkinson | B.C. Liberals

The leader with the most to gain in the debate is Wilkinson. Theoretically, at least. First, he’ll have to field questions over how he has handled several controversies — including a leaked video that shows a candidate making sexist remarks about NDP MLA Bowinn Ma, and at least two candidates in the Fraser Valley who don’t appear to fully support LGBTQ+ rights.

Wilkinson hasn’t been able to build a public profile, (partly) because COVID-19 restrictions ban the type of mass gatherings and large crowds he’d normally be able to use in an election campaign to meet voters.

Like many opposition leaders before him, Wilkinson faces a difficult line to walk in the debate. He has to appear tough in questioning Horgan, but not arrogant. He has to appear to challenge Horgan on his record, but not bully him. And he has to be critical of the NDP’s accomplishments, while simultaneously offering his own hopeful vision for the province’s future.

If Wilkinson spends too much time on criticism, he’ll look like a miserable grump that nobody wants to have a beer with, let alone vote for. Tuesday’s debate is a huge opportunity to highlight his new ideas to the largest audience he will have in the entire election campaign — many of whom already have their mail-in ballots at home and could be marking their preferences right after the debate ends.

Wilkinson knows he only has one shot at running in an election as party leader. Much of his future comes down to his performance in this debate.

VanRamblings will have more to write on Decision 2020 tomorrow and Thursday, and Monday through Thursday of next week.