ANORA (Sean Baker) As we soak up the hype around this year's crop of Oscar nominees this weekend, one question hangs in the air. Could a $6 million comedy drama about a lap dancer facing the wrath of Russian oligarchs really be the slight favourite for Best Picture? Apparently so - although no-one can state with any conviction that 'Anora' or any of its big rivals will emerge triumphant at Sunday night's Academy Awards. On paper, Sean Baker's movie is an unlikely contender for Hollywood's most coveted prize, given that it's a low budget, indie comedy drama with a relatively unknown cast about a sex worker. 'Anora,' though, won this year's Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards as well as last year's Palme d'Or at Cannes and in a tight Oscar race, that has been enough to catapult it into the front rank of contenders alongside ' Conclave ' and 'The Brutalist'. In recent years, Academy voters have shown a willingness to...
There's a story that during the making of 'The Royal Tennenbaums', Gene Hackman exploded with the quirky Texan director Wes Anderson, telling him "to pull up his pants and act like a man". Fellow cast members afterwards described Hackman as a "hardass" during the making of the film. But it was also clear they were in awe of him. While Bill Murray was the only cast member on the set not to defer to him, there was a feeling among many of his co-stars that Hackman had earned the right to be a hardass after his stellar career. Born and raised in San Bernardino, California but raised mostly in Danville, Illinois, the former Marine was very good at playing the hardass on and offscreen. According to a plaque in San Bernardino’s municipal park, Hackman was a dog catcher for the local animal shelter. @ Orion Pictures The family, however, moved around the US finally settling in his maternal grandmother’s home in Danville in Illinois. As a teenager, he knew Dic...