AMPAS

The Academy Celebrates the Career of Ann Roth

A couple of weeks ago I spent the weekend at the Hamptons International Film Festival.  I was able to catch up on a bunch of films and attend some really cool events including a tribute to the costume designer Ann Roth by the Academy.  It's not often that below the line talent gets a c...

Limelight, James Bond, And More

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has offered L.A. movie lovers an abundance of riches over the past few weeks, with more events than I was able to attend—or write about, until now. Celebrating Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight on its 60th anniversary with his leading lady, Clair...

‘Wings’ Takes Flight—On DVD

While it’s fitting that Paramount Pictures should unveil its masterful restoration of Wings on the studio’s 100th birthday, it’s a shame we had to wait this long. It is, in fact, the last Academy Award-winning Best Picture to be released on DVD and Blu-ray—an unintended irony...

Hollywood Home Movies: The Final Frontier

Film archivists and documentary filmmakers have come to value home movies as a valuable document of 20th century American life. But when those 8mm or 16mm films were taken by (and of) famous figures in Hollywood history it piques the curiosity of movie nuts like me. At last year’s TCM Classic ...

Uncovering An Early Hitchcock

Academy's Artwork Archive Goes Online

When I started doing research about film history, I counted myself lucky to live just outside Manhattan so I could visit the incomparable Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the Lincoln Center branch of the New York Public Library. I practically lived there when I was a teenager. On my first visit t...

A Gold Mine For Film Research

Like anyone who’s spent much of his life in libraries and archives, hearing a young person claim that you can find “everything you need” to do research online is upsetting, to put it mildly. One can easily find simple information, and misinformation, but if you’ve devoted hours and days digging through vintage film publications or studio production files you know that acres of primary research materials don’t exist on the Internet. Even if you’re lucky enough to have access to great collections like the ones held by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library in B...

Oscar, Take A Bow

Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.